Just Gravity is pianist Haeun Joo‘s debut for New York’s 577 Records. She released her first, 2021’s We Will Find on Next Level in 2021. Joo’s playing style connects many poles of jazz thought. It revealed her deep love of lyricism and her influences — Bill Evans, Fred Hersch, and Keith Jarrett — with a quartet.
Here, the composer and improviser shines through, bringing her love of blues and stride piano, melodic improvisation, and a canny rhythmic sensibility. Joo plays solo on most of the labum, but on four tunes she is accompanied by bassist Chris Tordini and drummer Steven Crammer.
Opener “Salt and Silence” offers a modal cadence in the piano’s middle and higher registers. She literally creates melody as she switches…
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Working with his co-producer-and-arranger Gilad Ronen and four vision-sharing instrumentalists, acoustic bass guitarist 
Renowned drummer Antonio Sanchez again finds himself in an unconventional trio after convening last year’s BEATrio with Bela Fleck and Edmar Casteneda. This time, Sanchez collaborates with conquero/vocalist Pedrito Martinez and the multi-instrumentalist leader of Snarky Puppy, Michael League, in a rare configuration that features two percussionists and League’s array of instruments. Their mission is to unite cultures and musical genres, not unlike Sanchez’s previous project. Here, however, at play are African ethnic groups that speak Bantu languages, the Calabar culture of Nigeria, and the Yoruban chants of Cuba, transformed into contemporary dance music and today’s jazz. As you may know, Sanchez hails from Mexico City, Martinez from Havana, Cuba…
…The remixed and remastered expanded edition of ‘Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong’ includes ten previously unreleased bonus tracks presented as a ‘mini’ album.
Pianist and composer Craig Taborn, known for his shockingly powerful technique and his ability to traverse post-modern jazz, contemporary classical music, and indie electronics, moves fluidly between structure and freedom. The six tracks on Dream Archives — four originals and two covers — are smartly conceived, finding fresh sonic angles and probing inventive approaches to rhythm. Working in a trio format with cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer/vibraphonist Ches Smith, the colorfully chameleonic Taborn adds another compelling chapter to his already rich catalogue.
Peter Evans, a tremendously inventive trumpeter and post-modern composer, reunites his Being & Becoming group — formed in 2017 — for its third album, Ars Ludicra. Drawing on vast musical experience and formidable technique, the endlessly curious Evans blends styles and moods, shaping the pitch and contour of his phrases for maximum impact across four original compositions and one cover.
Anyone approaching this album unawares needs to be warned that its playing time of 36′ 34″ is divided into sixty nine tracks ranging in length from six seconds to a minute and 41 seconds, and that the tracks are labelled as Roman numerals from one to 69 with 10 of the track titles being extended by dedications to unidentified individuals (for example, “XXXIV to Sisa Wandeler”). For anyone keen to know more, the track titles are printed on the rear sleeve. Given the album’s release day, this is not an elaborate joke…
It turns out that Patricia Brennan is not the only vibraphonist exploring ambitious concepts these days. On this album, 
Given Marilyn Crispell’s moody, evocative albums on the ECM label with Joe Lovano and under her own name, and her two subdued albums from last year (one with guitarist Jakob Bro and the other with Danish drummer Michala Østergaard-Nielsen), you’d be forgiven for forgetting her noisier roots. The pianist came to prominence in the ‘80s, playing with avant-garde titan Anthony Braxton, and her first album as a leader, 1983’s Spirit Music, features free violinist Billy Bang. Crispell may have worked mellower territory in the ensuing years, but 
Even though he has surely heard this more than a few times, Gregory Groover Jr. is a pretty hip name for a jazz saxophonist. Not so much for the pastor of Boston’s Charles Street AME Church, the position held by the Groover for whom he is named, Gregory Sr., who no doubt grooves in his own way. Gregory Jr. plays high-energy tenor on Old Knew, the second recording under his name, wherein he leads a sturdy quintet through its paces on ten of his original compositions and one (“Retrograde”) by pianist and composer Jason Moran.
Sounds the Color of Grounds, the sophomore album by the progressive trio 
Many classical composers have woven jazz into their works — Gershwin, Stravinsky, and Bernstein come to mind — but this solo piano collection of material by Ukrainian composer Nikolai Kapustin (1937–2020) takes the idea to the extreme. Performed with breathtaking verve by British pianist Ophelia Gordon, Kapustin: Between the Lines collapses whatever boundaries exist between the genres when the material, as notated as it is, exudes the boundless exuberance of jazz. That it’s Gordon’s debut album frankly boggles when the technique showcased throughout is so extraordinary. While jazz pianists from Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson to Bill Evans, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock are referenced in the liner notes, Gordon’s dynamic playing…
One of several recordings issued by the Art Ensemble’s own label and the only one to document the group as a whole, 
Julee Cruise was a remarkable enough talent in her own right that it seems a shame to emphasize her links with David Lynch, but he’s an inescapable presence on this 2-CD set. That’s because 
…digital Deluxe Edition adds four new tracks.