Born three decades ago, this 18-piece big band made a particular name for themselves with their reverently irreverent arrangements of Frank Zappa compositions. Here, though, they offer something tasty for jazz heads and rock lovers alike: inspired big-band arrangements of "Eleanor Rigby," "21st Century Schizoid Man," "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys," the Crazy World of Arthur Brown's "Fire," the Beatles' "Don't Bother Me," Radiohead's "The Tourist," Miles Davis's "Nardis" and more, from Jethro Tull to Green Day! Cuneiform.

BEEN UP SO LONG IT LOOKS LIKE DOWN TO ME: MICROS

MOTHER STUMP

CHAD TAYLOR: Drums BRIAN SETTLES: Tenor Saxophone NEIL PODGURSKI: Piano As the debut recording of an ensemble rooted in deep and abiding friendships The Daily Biological is a creatively rolling conversation. The unusual trio of drums (Chad Taylor), saxophone (Brian Settles) and piano (Neil Podgurski) creates tough and engaging music that unfurls in kinetic conversational bursts.

Gibbs' intermittent relationship with Germany's NDR Bigband, one the world's longest-running jazz ensembles, dates back to the early 1970s and has provided a particularly valuable vehicle for his vivid musical imagination. "I feel I know the individual players so well, that I write for them personally, or use how I know them in making orchestrational choices," Gibbs says of the NDR Bigband. "That's a luxury these day, when other projects are written more for the standard instrumentation without knowledge of the personal attributes (stunning as though they might be, and often are)." Born on September 25th, 1937, Gibbs has studied with such noted figures as Gunther Schuller, George Russell J.J. Johnson, Aaron Copland, Iannis Xenakis, and Lukas Foss. By the beginning of the 70s, he was recognized as one of jazz's leading young arrangers and composers, and he developed a personal, thickly textured approach inspired by Gil Evans, Charles Ives and Olivier Messiaen. Gibbs has honed a subtle and highly personal approach to arranging and composition, incorporating driving rock rhythms and asymmetrical phrasing. When first emerging, his work anticipated the jazz/rock movement of the 70s. Although better known as an arranger than a composer, he really is one of the great writers to emerge out of the 'Brit-jazz' scene, and four wonderful, new original pieces are highlighted here. With 'In My View', Gibbs makes an unimpeachable case that this jazz cat in winter hasn't lost a step. Gibbs' View adds up to one of the year's most rewarding and successful big band projects.

TURNING TOWARDS THE LIGHT

NIGHT WALKING THROUGH MIRRORS

Tomeka Reid was awared a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2022. This is her second release by her quartet, which also includes a SECOND Genius Grant winner, guitarist Mary Halvorson.

BEHIND THE VIBRATION

HEARTS REFLECTION

2013 release, the seventh album from the award winning, hugely respected and ultra-hip 'Jazz and beyond' group. The Claudia Quintet are one of the most influential Jazz groups in existence today. Led by composer and drummer John Hollenbeck, Claudia have quietly but firmly and definitively recast Jazz into shimmering new shapes inflected by classical minimalism, new music, progressive rock and post-rock. Celebrating 15 years of work together with the release of September, this NYC ensemble's sound continues to explore the edge without alienating the mainstream, proving that genre-defying music can before everyone.

Dawn presents Mike Osborne in both his earliest surviving recording, as a co-leader with John Surman of a quartet from 1966, and in 1970 with the first known recordings of his mighty trio with the transplanted South African rhythm team of Harry Miller and Louis Moholo. These unearthed recordings not only fill in important gaps in Osborne's own discography but in the history of British jazz as a whole. The first six tracks, recorded in 1970, are by his trio, his main vehicle as a leader and featuring his most long-standing partners in Miller and Moholo. The band only made two albums during it's lifetime, Border crossing and All Night Long. Dawn is significant for presenting the trio years before these sessions and demonstrating that the group's sound, marked by Osborne's tart melodicism, Miller's brawny lines and Moholo's propulsive freedom, was established at the beginning of their partnership. Listeners will then travel back four years earlier, with four recordings taken from a period when names now famous were just coming out from the shadow of Britain's traditional jazz scene. Osborne, 24, is there in his first recording, Surman, 21, in only his second, supported by Miller and drummer Alan Jackson. This was an era of formal suits and allegiance to the innovations in American jazz happening on labels like Blue Note and ESP-Disk', reflected in the performances and the material. In all, there is well over an hour of excellent quality, previously unheard and unreleased recordings here, as well as a 12 page booklet with informative liner notes and many previously unseen photos. This is an important document historically, but even more importantly, it's really great music.

ONE CHILD LEFT BEHIND

HOLY ABYSS

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE MICROS PLAY MONK