Past albums from New York-based guitarist and singer-songwriter Chris Bergson have often straddled the line between blues and soul, especially those with vocalist Ellis Hicks. Yet, there have also been jazz tracks on his previous albums. After all, Bergson was a student of jazz great guitarist Jim Hall and has consistently expressed an affinity for Grant Green’s soul-jazz. Now, on East River Blues, Bergson collaborates with two of the most sought-after musicians in jazz. They are bassist Larry Grenadier (who has played with the likes of John Scofield, Brad Mehldau, Charles Lloyd, and the recent debut from Gabrielle Cavassa, released just two weeks ago), and drummer Herlin Riley, the premier New Orleans drummer, who has backed such giants as Dr. John,…
Category: jazz
Boundary-crossing jazz and Afro-Caribbean traditions come together on tenor saxophonist and percussionist David Sanchez‘s 2026 album, Tambó. A spiritual companion to 2019’s Carib, Tambó was born out of Sanchez’s continued travels, exploring the connections between improvisational jazz and the rhythms of not only his native Puerto Rico, but also Haiti and San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia; each locale offering musical inspiration and collaborative opportunities. Here, he is joined by his longtime band, including bassist Ricky Rodriguez, pianist Luis Perdomo, and drummer Tony Escapa. Also on board are master percussionists Franklin Tejedor, Jhan Lee Aponte, and Camilo Molino. Together, they conjure a vibrant sound that blends nuanced modal…
There is of course an extensive history of improvisational live jazz being mined for samples for beats. There’s perhaps a less of an established tradition of live improvisation being steered by the ethos of hip hop-orientated groove construction.
Based on the hypnotic, slow-burning workouts of Happy Today, Los Angeles-based guitarist Jeff Parker is willing and able to narrow (if not totally eradicate) the gap between jazz’s historic position as a ‘serious’ improvisational art and its potential for locking in on a robust head-nodding groove. Initially, the only thing that seems to have changed since Parker’s previous two live albums with the ETA IVtet – 2022’s Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy and 2024’s The Way Out of Easy, both superb – is the duration and…
Alto saxophonist and flutist Alan Braufman first emerged as a singular voice in New York’s 1970s loft-jazz scene with his 1975 debut Valley of Search, a record that would later be recognized as a landmark of spiritual and free jazz. After decades outside the spotlight, Braufman returned with a new wave of acclaim, releasing two highly regarded albums in 2020 and 2024 that reestablished him as both an essential elder and a vital contemporary presence-long described as “a legend in free music” (Gilles Peterson / BBC).
Recorded in a single day in the fall of 2025, Anthem for Peace is a fully new studio album that captures Braufman in the present tense. Leading a quartet with vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, bassist Luke Stewart, and drummer Chad Taylor…
Originally brought together in September 2015 to perform the Zorn Bagatelles, Julian Lage and Gyan Riley have become two of Zorn’s most trusted and soulful musical collaborators, having recorded over a dozen CDs of his compositions for acoustic guitars both in duo and in trio with Bill Frisell.
Seven Sonnets is their sixth CD together as a duo and the music is a lovely series of compositions referencing early music, minimalism, contemporary classical, soundtracks, folk, jazz, and more. Two of the world’s most accomplished and acclaimed guitar virtuosos perform a beautiful book of original music inspired by the Sonnets of William Shakespeare. Volume One of Zorn’s musical Sonnets contains some of his loveliest and most intimate creations.
Isotope was formed in 1973 by talented guitarist Gary Boyle and originally featured Jeff Clyne on bass, Brian Miller on keyboards and Nigel Morris on drums. Clyne had previously played with Ian Carr’s Nucleus, while Gary Boyle had played with Stomu Yamashta’s East Wind.
Isotope’s self-titled debut album was released in 1974 and continued the tradition of Jazz Rock fusion that had been pioneered by acts such as Tony Williams’ Lifetime and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. Although their debut album was critically acclaimed, Brian Miller and Jeff Clyne departed Isotope shortly after its release and were replaced by former Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper and keyboard player Laurence Scott. This line-up recorded the excellent…
The combination of tabla (tuned Indian hand drums), santur (Iranian dulcimer) and harp does not pop up often, but hearing them together on the new trio album from Montreal’s Shawn Mativetsky, Amir Amiri and Sara Pagé, you’ll wonder why it’s not more common. Though hailing from different countries and traditions, the santur and the harp have intriguing tonal similarities, the former bringing out the latter’s metallic tactility, and the latter bringing out the former’s gossamer ripple. The hopping, polyrhythmic bounce and ricochet of Mativetsky’s drumming emphasizes the percussive nature of both instruments, adding to the music’s harmonic breadth, while the resonance of the strings bring out the more melodic aspects of the tabla. Metamorphose, as its title…
With a voice unmistakably his own, clarinetist and composer Harry Skoler traverses a variety of open-ended atmospheres, displaying an instinctive ability to merge traditional jazz language with contemporary sensibilities in ways that continue to shape his artistic identity. On his seventh album as a leader, Echoes — a tribute to his jazz heroes — Skoler is joined by guitar visionary Bill Frisell and reunited with the rhythm section from Red Brick Hill (2024): bassist Dezron Douglas and drummer Johnathan Blake. Produced once again by saxophonist Walter Smith III, the album draws from familiar ingredients while embracing a welcome sense of risk through occasional ventures into avant-garde territory.
“Evocation” and “Allusion”, two irresistibly…
They just might not call it by its original name, but trip hop is back. And if you need any further proof that it is coming back in a big way, than you don’t have to go any further than Black Salt, the new (second) album by Kiiōtō. Those who might have forgotten about the prime time of trip hop back in the mid and late ’90s, Lamb were one of the big names in this genre, and Lou Rhodes was lead vocalist and co-founder of that band, and he even got a Mercury Music Prize nomination. Now, he is joined by award-winning songwriter/pianist Rohan Heath to form Kiiōtō, both being in a sort of hiatus from making music.
Joined by several guests, notably guitarist Hawi Gondwe (Amy Winehouse), double-bassist Andy Hamill (4 Hero, Carleen Anderson),…
After six albums dedicated to refracting the music of Ahmed Abdul‑Malik, أحمد [Ahmed] – the quartet of Pat Thomas, Seymour Wright, Joel Grip and Antonin Gerbal – turn their attention to Abdul‑Malik’s one‑time bandleader, Thelonious Monk, in their ongoing search for “future music.” Monk and Abdul‑Malik are more than historical neighbors. In the late 1950s, Abdul‑Malik worked in Monk’s quartets, appearing on Thelonious in Action and Misterioso (both 1958) and on the long‑buried Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall. Beneath the surface of those recordings lies a shared project: a radical engagement with time that refuses a simple linear trajectory, offering instead sites of synthesis and rupture where fragments…
Long a big man on the tenor saxophone campus, Chris Potter has never rested on his laurels, still hungry to make a significant statement significantly different from the one he made before. Alive with Ghosts Today manifests Potter as a saxophonist/composer/bandleader still in his prime for all three of these roles.
Potter’s guiding light for this project is the story of the notorious American abolitionist John Brown, who led armed and bloody anti-slavery activities in the run up to the American Civil War that exposed and illuminated a deep, complicated divide in American society. Potter felt it’s time to address that divide of which Brown symbolized that persists today. Of course, as an instrumentalist, Potter doesn’t address it through words.
Vocalist Daphne Roubini leads the Vancouver-based group Black Gardenia on Whisky Scented Kisses. The style and sound hark back to the 1940s and ’50s. Although not trying to revive that specific era, this homage does justice to the time period’s musical memory. With a solid team made up of Paul Pigat (guitar, arrangements), Brad Turner (trumpet, flugelhorn), Stephen Nikleva (guitar), Jeremy Holmes (bass) and Dave Say (saxophone), Roubini is well supported. The songs feel full yet never overpowering as the tracks flicker by.
Sometimes an artist can waver in their aesthetic attitude. Roubini and Black Gardenia do not. From the start, one understands where they’re coming from: a smoke-filled bar where all walks of life gather. The title track, especially,…
Led by two lifelong friends from Newcastle, bassist Stan Woodward and drummer King David Ike Elechi, Knats are not the easiest band to pin down to a single genre. So they created their own: “Geordie Jazz,” or as they sometimes call it, “Geordie Noir.” Drawing on their Tyneside roots (a “Geordie” being a person from the Tyneside area in the North East of England), the name captures their edgy fusion of soaring melody, driving danceable rhythms, rock energy, and spoken-word poetry.
The result is contemporary and deeply rooted in place — a homage to their hometown. Through evocative instrumental passages and hard-hitting regional accents, Knats channel the mining heritage, sporting culture and present-day realities of the North East, crafting music…
Despite its somewhat generic name, jazz trio The Setting have created something striking and quietly astounding on their self-titled debut album. The band, consisting of bassist and composer Eivind Opsvik, keyboard player Elias Stemeseder, and guitarist Will Graefe, have brought to fruition Opsvik‘s love of 1970s and 1980s synthesizer music, ECM solo guitar albums, and experimental art pop. But as the saying goes, the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
While there are certainly touchstones of previous subgenres and legendary artists – ranging from Brian Eno to Joe Zawinul to Ryuichi Sakamoto – all over this beguiling record, the result is a sound that is unlike anything else most ears have heard. The overall experience is decidedly…
On her Blue Note debut, 2026’s Diavola, vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa conjures a glowing, dream-like intimacy. The winner of the 2021 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, Cavassa has a soft, dusky voice in the Billie Holiday and Chet Baker style. She’s a torch singer in the classic sense, but with a spare, direct soulfulness all her own. It’s a style that helped make saxophonist Joshua Redman’s 2023 and 2024 albums where are we and Words Fall Short particularly memorable additions to his catalog. Redman returns the favor here, co-producing (and occasionally playing) alongside label president Don Was. Also on board is a truly all-star ensemble of jazz luminaries, including guitarist Jeff Parker, pianist Paul Cornish, bassist Larry Grenadier, and…
New York-based Japanese composer Miho Hazama, who has garnered accolades with her contemporary large ensemble m_unit, displays a maturity far beyond her years.
On Frames, the Grammy-nominated composer honors the legacy of the influential Danish Radio Big Band, crafting a new suite inspired by its musical directors, including Bob Brookmeyer, Thad Jones, Ray Pitts, Palle Mikkelborg, and the recently departed pianist Jim McNeely, to whom the album is dedicated.
The album opens with a sense of optimism and devotion to the music. “And The Door Unsealed” unveils cascading sonic layers in succession before settling into a mid-tempo, soulful flow. Driven by a warm swinging energy, the piece…
Jazz has long operated with something like an open-door policy, absorbing influences from classical, folk, rock, and beyond. Turkish-American composer Mehmet Ali Sanlikol extends that tradition in a particularly personal way on The Electric Oud Man Speaks and You Listen…, a five-track project that brings Turkish makam, jazz improvisation, and rock energy into a shared musical language.
Sanlıkol’s musical background reflects that synthesis. Raised in Istanbul by a classical pianist mother, he grew up surrounded by Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin before discovering jazz — a turning point that led him to study the music more deeply and eventually attend Berklee College of Music. Boston is now his home…
French TV’s latest CD, The Spanish Caper, is the 16th in their long history and their 2nd for Cuneiform.
Disc One is new songs recorded in Spain featuring charter member bassist/composer Mike Sary, guitarist Kasumi Yoneda (also from the Japanese band TEE), long-time drummer Jeff Gard, plus members of the French band Mentat Routage (who also make up French TV’s line-up when touring Europe).
The second disc is a collection of somewhat-obscure rock covers from the late 60s-early 70s. Songs featured include deep tracks from Iron Butterfly, Kinks, Mountain, Spirit, Procol Harum, Traffic, Steppenwolf, The Guess Who, James Gang and more The line-up…
At the Jazz Showcase: Live in Chicago is the first ever release of piano legend Ahmad Jamal’s trio captured live at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago on March 20-21, 1976.
In many ways Jamal entered the scene at the height of bebop with an approach unlike almost any of his contemporaries – rooted in spacing, tension and release, with an uncanny ability to perform lines most would call “busy” while making every note choice sound smooth, logical and inevitable. His influence on pianists from Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner to Herbie Hancock and Fred Hersch, and his enduring admiration from Miles Davis, speak to the singular place he occupies in the music.
Here Jamal leads a remarkable trio with bassist John Heard and longtime drummer…
Triumvirate, pianist Billy Childs‘ fourth Mack Avenue outing, marks his first trio recording since the mid-’90s. He’s accompanied here by bassist Matt Penman (James Farm, SFJazz Collective) and drummer Ari Hoenig (Chris Potter Underground, Kurt Rosenwinkle Group). Childs has played with this rhythm section while backing others live, but this is his first ever recording with them. The program chosen for this eight-track set includes revisitations of tunes the pianist cut for Windham Hill during the ’80s, and one for Metropolitan Records during the late ’90s. There is one new composition and tunes by Thelonious Monk, Benny Golson, Miles Davis/Bill Evans, and John La Touche and Jerry Moss.
Opener “One Fleeting Instant” originally…