JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU KNOW

'Figments' is trumpeter Ella Grace's debut album as a leader, featuring seven original contemporary jazz compositions for quintet and sextet. Exploring figments as catalysts for creative expression and themes of coming of age, the music comes to life through performances by some of Chicago's top emerging jazz artists, taking listeners on a distinctive and cathartic journey.

TRIUMVIRATE

Uncharted Realms is the bold new release from saxophonist and composer Sean Imboden, showcasing the visionary sound of the Sean Imboden Large Ensemble. Following the acclaimed debut Communal Heart, this second full-length album expands the ensemble's sonic landscape, blending dynamic big band arrangements with modern jazz textures and emotional depth. Featuring sweeping brass, intricate woodwind lines, and inventive solos, Uncharted Realms explores themes of imagination, connection, and optimism. From high-energy openers to introspective moments of calm, each composition reflects Imboden's forward-thinking approach to jazz orchestration. A must-have for fans of contemporary big band and large ensemble jazz.

Celebrated guitar virtuoso and composer Pat Metheny returns with Side-Eye III+, a new 8 song jazz project with his latest group, featuring Chris Fishman on piano and keyboards, Joe Dyson on drums, and Jermaine Paul on bass. In partnership with Green Hill Music, the 20-time Grammy award winner launches his own label imprint, Uniquity Music, and embarks on an extensive world tour with his new ensemble. The all-original album includes "In On It", "Don't Look Down", and "Make a New World".

With "My World is the Sun", Dominique Fils-Aim� seeks to dissolve expectations and invite listeners into an artistic space defined not by genre or market demands, but by presence, intuition, and emotional resonance. It is a project that reflects her commitment to freedom - sonic, creative, and spiritual - and her desire to create from a place of honesty and vulnerability. In "My World is the Sun", Dominique Fils-Aim� enters the second chapter of her second trilogy, a collection of introspective and intuitive work that began with "Our Roots Run Deep" (2023).

New York-based jazz vocalist and composer Aubrey Johnson presents her second studio album, her first on Dave Douglas' Greenleaf Music record label, featuring her intricate and vibrant original music and arrangements. As on her first release, Unraveled, she's teamed up with multi Grammy Award-winning producer/editor Steve Rodby (Pat Metheny Group) and engineer Rich Breen (Herbie Hancock, Diane Reeves, The Yellow Jackets). The album's title is drawn from the lyrics of "The Waking", a Theodore Roethke poem later set to music by Kurt Elling, and embodies the spirit of the music-buoyant, hopeful, and exuberant. In addition to her original compositions, the program also features two compositions by Johnson's uncle (the late, great keyboardist and composer Lyle Mays), Joni Mitchell's "Help Me", and a piece by violinist Tomoko Omura (who also plays on the album.) The Lively Air is an exciting and worthwhile sophomore effort by an artist who has truly come into her own.

On Bright Dawn, his 21st recording as a leader, Harvie S reaffirms why he remains one of the most expressive and sought-after bass voices in modern jazz. Long celebrated for bass lines that function "like the deep roots of a tree," Harvie uses this session to explore the full sonic and emotional range of the instrument, shaping music that is at once grounded, lyrical, and quietly adventurous. His original compositions-thoughtful, rhythmically alive, and rich with harmonic implication-sit naturally alongside inspired interpretations of Chick Corea's "Humpty Dumpty" and Bob Dorough's wry classic "Devil May Care," creating a program that feels both personal and expansive. Surrounded by Peter Bernstein's warm, articulate guitar, Miki Hayama's elegant and probing piano, and Matt Wilson's ever-responsive drums, Harvie leaves generous space for interaction, nuance, and collective discovery. The result is a recording that breathes, melodies unfolding organically and grooves emerging with unforced authority, all anchored by the unmistakable sound of a master bassist whose imagination and touch continue to evolve. "The bassist's horn-like, bebop-based phrasing is as engaging as it is inventive, leaving no doubts about his stature as one of the preeminent bass voices..." All About Jazz " a fecund mind that is continually searching for new horizons towards which to stretch, taking with him a bass violin that sings with almost limitless possibilities." Raul da Gama

Respected jazz veteran Jaimee Paul returns with a captivating new project: The Richard Rodgers Songbook. The latest collaboration between Green Hill and Burton Avenue, this album highlights Paul's rich artistry and the elegance of timeless classics. After years singing behind music's biggest names, Jaimee steps forward once again with a sound that's all her own.

It is often the case that the creation successful art comes down to basic factors. For jazz music, talent and creativity are obvious essentials. But what usually drives music further is trust between performers and a sense of spontaneity in performance. Keyboard master Gary Versace aimed to harness all these elements on his new recording, Three Track Mind, a vibrant collection of fresh arrangements of standards and favorites by a fledging trio, featuring bassist Fran�ois Moutin and drummer Rudy Royston. Versace has long been admired for his incredible touch on piano, organ, and accordion, appearing alongside a tremendous and eclectic of collaborators. His playing has adorned the work of artists as diverse as John Scofield, Maria Schneider, John Hollenbeck, and Madeleine Peyroux. Versace is also an accomplished composer and educator. In his catholic approach to musical collaboration, Versace has been fortunate to perform with some incredible musicians, including Fran�ois Moutin and Rudy Royston. Though, opportunities came often to appear on stage with both, the trio had never played all together. Versace first met Royston in performance with the dearly departed trumpeter Ron Miles in Colorado. Once Royston relocated to New York City, the two began performing more and more, including Versace as accordionist in Royston's Flatbed Buggy. Versace and Moutin regularly found themselves on the bandstand, especially behind vocalists. Versace knew that the two would be ideal in trio, as their musicality and energy were ideal for his style of playing. It was with this in mind that Versace invited Moutin and Royston to a two-day session at Chris Sulit's Trading 8s Studio in July of 2024. Versace wanted to create an environment that replicated the feeling of a live set, just interpreting standards and tunes in an open way to provide fresh takes and opportunity for improvisation, delivering a true sense of the music being able to go anywhere. The pieces the trio played were not planned. Versace would introduce the piece and Moutin and Royston would join in as they recognized it. As fantastic individual orchestrators, Moutin and Royston were able to help Versace make incredible, instantaneous arrangements. With all the takes being so different, Versace provided two takes of Joseph Kosma's standard, "Autumn Leaves," to show just how vastly different the trio could play them. Finding just the perfect balance of elements, Gary Versace brings to fore an openminded and expressive trio with Fran�ois Moutin and Rudy Royston. Together they present, Three Track Mind, an intimate and explorative recording of a trio that should not be missed.

Portrait in Jazz marks a pivotal shift in jazz history, introducing a revolutionary "democratic" trio format where the piano, bass, and drums act as equal partners in a continuous musical conversation. Recorded in late 1959, the album features the legendary synergy of Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro, and Paul Motian, blending standards with original compositions through their signature "simultaneous improvisation".

Grammy Award-winning Contemporary Jazz/R&B superstar Norman Brown has sold over 5 million albums in his extraordinary career and virtually lives at the top of the Billboard Contemporary Jazz sales and radio charts. Having headlined with with virtually every Contemporary Jazz superstar from Boney James to Dave Koz to Gerald Albright, Norman's non-stop touring has electrified audiences from coast to coast! Authentically Norman has Norman Brown's hit-making talents on full display. Highlights include the uber-funky "Home Stretch," the romantic "Valentine," the joyful "Chillax'" and much more.

Vocalist and composer Chenxi Pan introduces herself as a thoughtful new voice in contemporary jazz through this set of all original music. Unfolding as a series of reflections drawn from lived experience, emotions are rendered through a fluid blend of poetry, song, and instrumental writing, often using the voice as an expressive instrument within the ensemble as she dissolves the line between sung narrative and pure sound. Born and raised in China, her path shifted from literature to music during her early studies, eventually leading her to pursue jazz in New York City at the New School. Her writing reflects that lineage: lyrical yet searching, precise yet open to spontaneity. Produced by master drummer Matt Wilson, This Very Moment was recorded soon after her 2024 debut as a bandleader at The Stone NYC. Balancing intimacy with collective interplay, Pan allows each composition to breathe and evolve. Her emergence as a musical voice signals an artist attuned to nuance, collaboration, and storytelling-one who invites the listener not toward spectacle, but into a shared, resonant present.

NEW TROMBONE

Captured at the peak of her powers, this historic collection features the definitive recordings Billie Holiday made for the independent Commodore label between 1939 and 1944. The album is anchored by the haunting, revolutionary protest song "Strange Fruit" and showcases her emotive mastery across essential jazz standards like "I'll Be Seeing You" and "Fine and Mellow".

Betty Bryant is a Los Angeles treasure. The singer, pianist, and composer has been a regular on the Southern California jazz scene since 1955, when she moved from her hometown of Kansas City, MO, where she was mentored by the late, great Jay McShann. Now, at the remarkable age of 96, Bryant is releasing NOTHIN' BETTER TO DO, her 15th album. Dubbed "Cool Miss B" by her producer and saxophonist Robert Kyle, her blues-based piano and vocal stylings have garnered a legion of fans at numerous jazz clubs and night spots up and down the West Coast and beyond. NOTHIN' BETTER TO DO features three original tunes (one by Bryant, one by Bryant and Kyle, and one by Kyle) as well as several tracks that are off the beaten path. With Bryant and Kyle out front, the music swings with an appealing bluesy, lilting quality. The arrangements are mostly by Bryant and Kyle, with string arrangements on two tracks by Jim McMillen.

Composer Anthony Branker unveils a powerful new chapter in his ongoing exploration of music as cultural narrative, social inquiry, and collective expression. Leading his newly formed ensemble Other Ways of Knowing, Branker brings together an exceptional group of improvisers-saxophonist Steve Wilson, guitarist Pete McCann, pianist Simona Premazzi, bassist John H'bert, drummer Rudy Royston, and vocalist Aim'e Allen-for a program that is as rhythmically vital as it is conceptually resonant. Drawing inspiration from histories and lived experiences within the African and Indigenous diasporas, these expansive compositions balance cinematic scope with deeply personal storytelling. Like Branker's acclaimed earlier work, praised for it's ability to unite musical beauty with intellectual depth, Manifestations of a Diasporic Groove & Spirit stands as a compelling statement-one that invites listening not only as an aesthetic experience, but as a way of knowing, remembering, and bearing witness. "Musical beauty in the service of thought, or perhaps the reverse" Paris-Move "a sweeping opus with sociopolitical and poetic content woven into a musical tapestry at once cerebral, emotive and viscerally exciting." DownBeat

TRUMPET TALES

As a poet and musician, Joy Harjo channels a creative force she describes as a "vibration of love" to connect countless traditions and artforms, countering the despair and heartache caused by power and hate. Insomnia and Seven Steps to Grace, her debut for Smithsonian Folkways, draws on the long-intertwined rhythms of jazz and poetry, the power of improvisation and self-expression through sound, and the vitality of Native culture and spirituality to spark a chain of vibrational energy to engulf the whole world. Harjo's voice is bold and direct, supported producer and bass player esperanza spalding, covering a repertoire that includes a jazz standard, a song written by Harjo's mother and uncovered by her sister, and many originals that speak to contemporary issues and her life as one of the most celebrated American poets of the last century.

John Pizzarelli returns with one of his finest albums yet, Dear Mr. Bennett-a heartfelt tribute to the legendary Tony Bennett, whom he knew personally. The cover even features artwork drawn by Mr. Bennett himself. A celebrated name in jazz, Pizzarelli has collaborated with music's biggest stars and toured for years with Frank Sinatra. This release follows his acclaimed tributes Dear Mr. Sinatra, Dear Mr. McCartney, and Dear Mr. Cole. Clear Orange Vinyl