The incredible relationship between legendary British musicians Norma Winstone and John Taylor has been admired for nearly five decades. The vocalist and pianist have been inextricably linked from their early avant-garde work from the late 1960s through their gorgeous work with Kenny Wheeler and Azymuth.// The couple was also well documented in duo performance; their affinity for each other and their unique abilities are easily comprehended. Winstone and Taylor's In Concert is a remastered reissue of Enodoc Records' 1999 cassette tape release of a fascinating 1988 duo concert. Four years after the pianist's passing, this recording will remind listeners of the wonderful interplay and feel between Taylor and Winstone.// The performance presented on In Concert documents a quickly assembled concert that coincided with the culmination of Winstone and Taylor's teaching residency at the Guildhall Music School in London in August 1988. Though they didn't have time to put together an ensemble or theme, the two were able to provide the listeners, including many of their students, with a wonderfully diverse and masterful performance.

Franzetti's new recording, Ricordare, takes all of these elements, namely his original compositions, film music and jazz standards, and throws them together with the aid of new trio for an off the cuff recording session. The music made with bassist David Finck and drummer Eliot Zigmund is fresh and inspired, as the recording marks the first time the trio has played together.

Drummer/composer Paul Motian was brilliant at creating subtle, singable melodies and rhythmically ambiguous, floating forms. Former Motian collaborator and pianist Russ Lossing chose to honor Motian and his work by recording Motian Music, a collection of Motian's idiosyncratic pieces played by Lossing's trio.

According to Wharton, a bonegasm is the overpowering joy that can only be accomplished through the experience of listening to trombonists. Bonegasm would be the first ensemble that Wharton had ever led, so she recruited some expert musicians to assist in her transition to leader, including trombonists John Fedchock, Nate Mayland and Alan Ferber, along with pianist Michael Eckroth, bassist Evan Gregor and drummer Don Peretz.

2018 release. New York City can be like a jungle. With a menagerie of people intermingling in seemingly never ceasing action, the City has ecosystems within ecosystems. Vibraphonist/composer Yuhan Su has been inspired by her chaotic new home and her experiences with the individuals she has met there. Her new recording, City Animals, captures her enthusiasm for the craziness of the City and the adventures she has had since her arrival. // Originally from Taiwan, Su came to the States in 2008 to further her music studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she expanded her classical percussion knowledge to the world of jazz and improvisation. In 2012, Su moved to New York; she fell in love with the City and immediately immersed herself in the wilds of the jazz scene. // For City Animals Yuhan Su recruited saxophonist Alex LoRe join a tightly knit ensemble, which features trumpeter Matt Holman, bassist Petros Klampanis and drummer Nathan Ellman-Bell.

2018 release. Although featured in a wide variety of performance arenas, Green is in his element and shines as the leader of the Benny Green Trio. With drumming master Kenny Washington and revered bassist David Wong completing the piano trio, Green commands the stage, delighting international audiences in his 38th year as a bandleader. It was only natural that this trio would become the springboard for Green's recent new musical adventures. A recording session led by prodigy vocalist Veronica Swift made such an impact on Green that he expanded his own generally instrumental traditions and began collaborating with both Swift and his trio. Green's authoritative skill at the keyboard and hard-swinging ensemble were the perfect sonic landscape for Swift's masterful musicianship and organic approach to scat singing, with Swift proving her voice was the perfect soloing instrument to complement Green's stylistic swing.

More a decade since his passing, woodwind master Jimmy Giuffre has remained an inspiration to improvising musicians of many stripes. Giuffre's long career spanned nearly six decades, over wide stylistic varieties, from the swinging big band of Woody Herman and the chamber jazz experiments of the West Coast of the 1950s to the avant-garde flights of his own classic trio with pianist Paul Bley and bassist Steve Swallow. It was the music of this trio that inspired pianist Lucian Ban and clarinetist Alex Simu to partner and release their new album, Free Fall.

2018 release. The best week of the young composer/arranger Miho Hazama's life was a hectic one. In 2011, she was invited as one of eight arrangers from around the world to take part in the famed Metropole Orkest Big Band's residency program, led by the legendary Vince Mendoza. There were master classes and rehearsals all week for arrangements the residents would write, in four days, to be performed by the Big Band conducted by Mendoza and featuring vocalist Roberta Gambarini. The trial by fire was exhilarating and made Hazama crave another chance to arrange for the world's only jazz philharmonic orchestra. In 2017, Hazama got another chance to write for the Metropole Orkest Big Band when her project to arrange original pieces and orchestrate solo pieces by the pianist Thelonious Monk, in his centennial year, for the ensemble. The results of the collaboration can be heard on this recording, The Monk: Live at Bimhuis.

2018 release. Scientists spend long hours investigating their passions, delving into the complex details of their research in pursuit of new knowledge. In a science fair, they demonstrate their findings, making them accessible and even fun. As a combustion reaction generates heat and light, a similar reaction happens between sound and movement. With the wonder of kids making a baking soda volcano, drummer Allison Miller and pianist Carmen Staaf combine bold musical concepts, tremendous collaborators, and a passion to challenge and explore into an eruption of energy on their fantastic recording, Science Fair.

2018 release. Four forward thinking musicians came together to create Quartette Oblique, an ensemble which, as their name suggests, approaches the music from a skewed but engaging angle. Brought together by drummer Michael Stephans, the group features saxophone great Dave Liebman, pianist extraordinaire Marc Copland and the stalwart Drew Gress on bass. Their eponymously titled recording finds them at their most freewheeling in a live performance at the Deer Head Inn in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania. For Quartette Oblique, Stephans reached out to three brilliant, improvising musicians who he knew would trust their instincts and play collective music in an open and exploratory way. Copland is a pianist who Stephans appreciated for decades and who made perfect sense for the ensemble. Having been a longtime fan of woodwind master Dave Liebman, Stephans first worked with Liebman in 2004 and their relationship has truly blossomed. Gress was a perfect pick on bass, as his personal touch and beautiful sound have buoyed Stephans 's drums in a number of rhythm sections in the recent past. Ythm sections in the recent past.

2018 release. Sabbagh and Tuohey have put a band together. Joe Martin, one of today's great bassists and an alumnus of Sabbagh's quartet, was an obvious choice. Drummer Kush Abadey impressed when he came to a session at Sabbagh's house; his commitment, versatility and musicianship cemented his position in the quartet. //The two leaders knew they wanted to record an album of original pieces. Following the success of The Turn in the audiophile community, they also aimed to release the best sounding record possible (No Filter will be available in audiophile vinyl, as well as high resolution download). // Recording direct to analog tape, all in the same room, without edits or overdubs, required some preparedness. Following a tour last fall, the band knew the material and veteran engineer Farber mixed on the fly. This urgency and directness are very much representative of the band's esthetics. The goal was to capture the moment and produce an album in which there is as little barrier as possible between the artists and listeners.

2018 release. For the past two decades, pianist Aaron Goldberg has crisscrossed the globe, spreading his music and absorbing local knowledge along the way. True to the jazz mentality, he learned to embrace serendipity as an artistic muse. Five years ago this month, in an historic chateau at the exact geographic center of France, Goldberg was reunited with an early influence. Soon a new project began to take shape. Goldberg's latest recording, At The Edge of The World, documents this recent collaboration with drummer and percussionist Leon Parker, a brilliant innovator and performer, in a new trio along with the gifted bassist Matt Penman.

2018 release. The Chicago based pianist and composer Stu Mindeman spent his toddler years in Chile. As an adult Mindeman revisited Chile, became tied to the culture, and decided to embark upon a project celebrating Chile's musicians and legendary wordsmiths on his new recording, Woven Threads.

2018 release. The Painted Lady Butterfly is a remarkable and mysterious little creature. It's flamboyant coloration and wing ornamentation makes it one of the world's most beautiful insects. But, it is it's incredible migration, which spans over 9,000 miles and six generations, that makes it so intriguing. The journey of these miniscule travelers inspired trumpeter/composer Michael Leonhart to write and record his Painted Lady Suite for the Michael Leonhart Orchestra (MLO).

2018 release. During the brutal cold, Mooney and Omura met in New York City to record with a small ensemble. It was a warm, reunion-like atmosphere in the studio, as Mooney had long friendships with all involved. But apart from pianist Glenn Zaleski, it was the first time Omura had met the assembled cast, which included John Ellis, bassist Matt Clohesy and engineer Michael Perez-Cisneros. Penman's compositions are meant to stimulate the ensemble into reactions and conversations within their framework. The pieces either present musical puzzles or are think pieces for reflection on topics, mainly natural or political. The ensemble handled the task with aplomb over three days of recording at Brooklyn Recording during the spring and summer of 2017.

2018 release. Judy Niemack's experiences, and friendships created in New York have shaped her career and life. One of the most important friendships turned out to be that of the great pianist, composer and arranger Jim McNeely. Niemack's new recording with McNeely, New York Stories, shows the depth of their musical and personal affinity as they present pieces they arranged together over the years, and, finally, have recorded together, along with the Danish Radio Big Band.

2018 release by the jazz pianist. "By 2009, Buster Williams, Matt Wilson, and I had been performing as a trio for eight years, and this recording of a night at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola captures some of our best music-full of surprise, exploration, confidence, excitement, nuance, and empathy. The program has some of my favorite originals and standards. I had recorded all of them previously; they have always provided a special springboard into improvisation." - Denny Zeitlin.

2018 release. Bassist/composer Matt Penman has spent much of the past decade developing and presenting music for the illustrious SFJazz Collective and the fantastic James Farm collective. That had left a gap between solo recordings that he felt it was time to abate. The result of his efforts are presented here on Good Question, a poignant recording of pieces meant to challenge, engage and entertain both it's listeners and the musicians involved in it's creation. Originally from New Zealand, Penman, since his arrival in 1995, has been an essential voice in the musical landscape of New York. His experience in the States has provided him with both inspiration and exasperation. He has chosen to address his feelings as a part of his new music:

2018 release. It's almost trite to mention the indelible mark that saxophonist Charlie Parker left on the world of culture at large, and more specifically with the practitioners of jazz, the music that he redefined. In the years since his death, his music has been covered incessantly, which in many ways, has robbed the music of it's essential vitality. One solution to this ubiquitous problem lies in the stunning invention of the NYC based quartet Walking Distance and their second album, Freebird, which features the resplendent piano playing of Jason Moran on a number of tracks.

2018 release. Pianist-composer Edward Simon presents the album Sorrows and Triumphs, featuring Afinidad, his quartet with alto saxophonist David Binney, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade. The richly textured Sorrows and Triumphs is also colored by very special guests: vocalist Gretchen Parlato, guitarist Adam Rogers and chamber quintet Imani Winds.

2018 release. Our light shines brightest in the darkness and things in life don't always turn out the way that we have planned. It is with these maxims in mind that the brilliant pianist and composer Shamie Royston presents her new recording, Beautiful Liar. Her second release is a testament to perseverance and the proposition that learning from mistakes will help in the pursuit of goals and subsequent triumphs.

2018 live release. The recording Chano & Colina was culled from the duo's live performance at Sala de Camara del Auditorio Nacional de Musica in Madrid on January 19, 2017. The performance captures the musicians' incredible musical breadth and skill, not to mention their fascinating rapport as musicians and friends.

2018 release. Having just completed a solo acoustic guitar record (Alleviation), Mikkel Ploug very much had a sound in his head for a meeting of his vintage Gibson Banner acoustic guitar and Mark Turner's saxophone sound (though he plays electric on half of the record), and he wrote a number of pieces while playing the guitar and singing what would become Turner's parts. Each piece was written or adapted to Turner's strengths and this becomes evident as the distinction between written and improvised music becomes blurred.

2018 release. Duduka Da Fonseca Trio Plays Dom Salvador was born from the leader's love of Salvador and his music and Fonseca's effort to make a proper tribute to his friend and mentor. The featured trio was born of a 2000 meeting with pianist David Feldman, who was studying then at the New School in New York, and with whom Fonseca recorded with later in 2009 in Brazil, where he also met the trio's bassist, Guto Wirtti.

2018 release. When Caroline Davis found out that her father had heart arrhythmia the news prompted her to do detailed research on the physical aspects of the human heart. It was with all of this in mind that Davis decided to compose pieces relating to the heart, whether it was an emotional connotation or the utilization of rhythms derived from heartbeats. Composing really helped to get her through much of her emotional transition. Heart Tonic finds Davis employing more standard jazz elements than much of her previous work, including formal harmonic changes and shifting meters.