* Janel Leppin - cello, CP-70 *Larry Ferguson - drums * Anthony Pirog - guitar * Brian Settles - tenor saxophone * Luke Stewart - bass * A composer and cellist who's honed a singular synthesis of composition, orchestration and improvisation, while heavily involved for decades with Washington D.C.'s vibrant new music, jazz, rock and improvised music scenes, Janel Leppin releases the third album by her acclaimed Ensemble Volcanic Ash. The five-piece group melds an illustrious array of D.C. talent into a glimmering expressive organism that surges, expands, ebbs and dances in multiple directions at once. "Cinematic. Unrelenting. Brash. Tender. These are just a few terms that might help capture the majesty and mystique of... cellist Janel Leppin's Ensemble Volcanic Ash." - Capital Bop - Mike Johnson is the long time leader, composer and guitarist of the legendary US avant/progressive outfit THINKING PLAGUE, originally formed in 1982. Appearing with a number of alumni of 'the Plague', including vocalist Elaine diFalco and reedman Mark Harris included in the 'band', and also featuring a string and brass section, this very much has the musically dense and lyrically very dark Thinking Plague sound that Mike has always delivered! "... some of the most rhythmically complex, texturally inventive, and melodically challenging popular music of the last 30 years, and somehow makes it all sound easy and natural." - All Music Guide - "Thinking Plague are exciting and ridiculous in equal measure, as good Prog rock should be." - Wire

* Janel Leppin - cello, CP-70 *Larry Ferguson - drums * Anthony Pirog - guitar * Brian Settles - tenor saxophone * Luke Stewart - bass * A composer and cellist who's honed a singular synthesis of composition, orchestration and improvisation, while heavily involved for decades with Washington D.C.'s vibrant new music, jazz, rock and improvised music scenes, Janel Leppin releases the third album by her acclaimed Ensemble Volcanic Ash. The five-piece group melds an illustrious array of D.C. talent into a glimmering expressive organism that surges, expands, ebbs and dances in multiple directions at once. "Cinematic. Unrelenting. Brash. Tender. These are just a few terms that might help capture the majesty and mystique of... cellist Janel Leppin's Ensemble Volcanic Ash." - Capital Bop - Mike Johnson is the long time leader, composer and guitarist of the legendary US avant/progressive outfit THINKING PLAGUE, originally formed in 1982. Appearing with a number of alumni of 'the Plague', including vocalist Elaine diFalco and reedman Mark Harris included in the 'band', and also featuring a string and brass section, this very much has the musically dense and lyrically very dark Thinking Plague sound that Mike has always delivered! "... some of the most rhythmically complex, texturally inventive, and melodically challenging popular music of the last 30 years, and somehow makes it all sound easy and natural." - All Music Guide - "Thinking Plague are exciting and ridiculous in equal measure, as good Prog rock should be." - Wire

* Janel Leppin - cello, guitar, bass, Prophet-5, piano - "Janel Leppin is one of the most restlessly creative forces in 21st century jazz and rock." - AllMusic - Cellist, composer and improvisor Janel Leppin has performed and / or recorded with a huge number of artists, including the Sun Ra Arkestra, Eyvind Kang, Susan Alcorn, Priests and Marissa Nadler and leads her acclaimed group Ensemble Volcanic Ash. Slowly Melting is a solo album of deep possibilities and deeper results, featuring the cello.

* Janel Leppin - cello, guitar, bass, Prophet-5, piano - "Janel Leppin is one of the most restlessly creative forces in 21st century jazz and rock." - AllMusic - Cellist, composer and improvisor Janel Leppin has performed and / or recorded with a huge number of artists, including the Sun Ra Arkestra, Eyvind Kang, Susan Alcorn, Priests and Marissa Nadler and leads her acclaimed group Ensemble Volcanic Ash. Slowly Melting is a solo album of deep possibilities and deeper results, featuring the cello.

Celebrating ten years of work, the all-star collective trio Thumbscrew celebrates by adding new instrumental hues to their already well-established sound on Multicolored Midnight, the group's seventh album! An album laden with fully realized connections and reflections, Multicolored Midnight also provides tantalizing hints regarding Thumbscrew's future explorations. Integrating new textures, sounds and concepts, Thumbscrew has turned into an essential all-terrain vehicle for three of improvised music's most venturesome artists. After a decade of coaxing and inspiring each other, the trio's musical universe just keeps expanding, and Multicolored Midnight sheds dazzling light on where they'll be heading next.

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.

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.

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.

As a dauntingly prolific artist, Bill Frisell has recorded in a vast array of settings, but he's never made an album like 'Play A Bill Frisell Set List'. Captured live in concert with the superb NDR Bigband, the guitarist delivers a tour de force performance on a program of ingenious arrangements designed specifically for him and the NDR by Michael Gibbs. Recorded at the Uberjazz Festival with the NDR Bigband on Oct 26, 2013, 'Play A Bill Frisell Set List' captures Frisell interacting with one of the world's great jazz orchestras, exploring sleek, spacious, vividly expressive arrangements of compositions drawn from throughout his career.