Freedom from, or freedom to, that is the question. When the word was first applied to jazz, it was mostly the former; free jazz rebelled against increasingly confining practices and expectations. But when Argentine sopranino and tenor saxophonist Ada Rave and Polish pianist Marta Warelis play together, it’s more a matter of the latter. Do they want to form a tune on the spot, or sink deep into a sonic texture? Rip it up, or wax reflective? The answer is yes. When they recorded this album in concert on June 3, 2024, the Amsterdam venue Splendor’s stage was a free zone where anything was permitted.
But these are players who sincerely reckon with the responsibility that accompanies such freedom. They have responsibilities to each other…
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Trumpeter Theo Croker’s recent releases present his fluency and warmth as appealing flavours in a bed of studio-crafted hip-hop and R&B. Jazz is in the mix, but mostly limited to a few brooding phrases and occasional pithy bursts. Sullivan Fortner remains best known for his immaculate piano accompaniment and wide stylistic range — collaborators include Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon and vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant. The two now combine for Play: an exquisite, jazz-rich, equal-partners trumpet/piano duet that showcases their superb sonic control and grasp of mood.
Emily Fennel, aka Miss Emily, is likely an unfamiliar name… unless you live in Canada. Blues fans have long been acquainted with Fennell’s tough, throaty vocals, knockout live performances and albums that have notched her five Canadian Maple Blues Awards. She is also a Juno (Canada’s GRAMMY) nominated musician.
Blues Hall of Famer and three-time Grammy nominee, harmonica great and singer-songwriter Billy Branch, releases his career-defining album, the aptly named The Blues Is My Biography. The septuagenarian is still hailed as the successor to Little Walter as the “King of Chicago Blues Harmonica,” Branch is opening a new chapter with this release. The Blues Is My Biography is the inaugural release for Rosa’s Lounge Records, from the city’s stalwart live music blues club of the same name. It is only appropriate as Branch and his band, the Sons of Blues, were the first act of the day when the nightclub opened 41 years ago.
We’ve long marvelled at Jano Rix’s ability to play drums and keyboards simultaneously with 
The Lonesome Ace Stringband are John Showman and 
…This limited edition release is part of the Corb Lund – Dark Horses Club. New West Records will be releasing unreleased records and material from Corb Lund throughout 2025 and 2026.
In 
“Don’t you know a warning sign when you see it?” asks Hannah Pruzinsky. Their sophomore album as 
Magnificent Fall, 
The subgenre of cumbia, cumbia rebajada, was born in the ’90s when Gabriel Dueñez was DJing a club in Monterrey. All of a sudden his tape deck overheated, and the music began to slur. The beat of tracks like El Manicomio de Vargasvil’s “Mi Abuelo” were slowed from cumbia’s usual 100 BPM chug to a sluggish 65 BPM, their once peppy choruses resembling the gurgly bass of the Star Wars character Jabba the Hut. Fortunately for Dueñez, though, the dancers loved it.
A few years ago, Dominik Eulbergreleased the magnificent Mannigfaltig, a celebration of fauna available with a boxed memory game. This year the artist ups the ante significantly. Lepidoptera began with the study and breeding of butterflies, and the choice of twelve subjects to represent the 3700 known species in Germany. Then the LP and CD, with divine liner notes, soon to be joined by videos and interactive games. Finally, the project will go on tour, but not a traditional tour; instead; Eulberg hopes to join artists and scientists on an educational tour, melding music, science and art, an original and laudable concept.
For an artist with such a distinctive sound, Henry Laufer’s music as Shlohmo is unusually pliable. Since 2009, the Los Angeles-based producer has built instrumental arrangements out of tape hiss and grainy textures, gloomy synths and gristled percussion, crunchy guitar and hard-to-identify samples, constructing a world where hip-hop, slowcore, bass music, ambient, R&B, and pop meet in a murky, disorienting middle. He’d already established himself as a leader in the L.A. beat scene when, in 2012, he flipped Jeremih’s “Fuck U All the Time” and found himself with an unexpected SoundCloud hit. The original version was all bubblegum and rosé, but in Shlohmo’s hands it became dark and unnerving, a shift that morphed the song’s meaning: What if telling…
Cambridge-formed 
Made up of an all-star roster (