With this reflection on breathing as the most intimate human experience - one that connects people through language, movement and touch - Berlin-based jazz vocalist Esther Kaiser has dedicated her ninth album to 'Breathing'. Critics have described her as a 'voice artist','shaman of jazz', and a 'jazz poet'. Esther takes responsibility where she is. Her albums breathe and are politically and socially charged, as jazz has always been. With BREATHING, the vocalist and composer provides a glimpse into the heart of jazz. It breathes in what is, and it feels and exhales that which creates space for more understanding, tolerance, peace, and freedom. The interplay of lyrics and compositions by Esther Kaiser and pianist Alexander Wienand, alongside Kaiser's own works, interwoven with elements of spoken word, invites listeners to become part of the act of breathing itself.
Em Julho is the second album by singer Elsa Johanna Mohr and guitarist Flávio Nunes, following their 2023 debut Passadinha. Recorded in Bonn in August 2025, the album brings together Brazilian classics and original songs in an intimate, warm setting shaped by voice, guitar, and subtle rhythmic detail. The repertoire moves from "Água de Coco" and "Tico-Tico no Fubá" to Mohr's own compositions, including "Beijo da Lua," "Jaguar," and the title track "Em Julho." Drawing on Mohr's deep connection to Brazilian language and culture and Nunes's virtuosic seven-string guitar playing, Em Julho blends Música Popular Brasileira, singer-songwriter intimacy, and jazz-inflected elegance. The result is a musical summer of warmth, longing, and Brazilian joie de vivre-light, lyrical, and transportive.
Susheela Raman's voice, whether solo or in unearthly harmonies, performs it's unique magic drawing the musical world together. With it's bold meddling with tune and tempo, this fresh set of songs threatens not to work but achieves a compelling integrity. Susheela Raman's Ghost Gamelan is a rich new landscape unlike any of her previous work and quite unlike anything else. Born in London to South Indian parents, singer Susheela Raman, alongside producer/guitarist Sam Mills, has released a chain of adventurous albums and is known as an intense, captivating live performer. Spirited encounters with musicians from a wide range of backgrounds has been a hallmark of her work. Now a new ambitious collaboration with Indonesian musicians is bearing fruit. Raman has delivered this extraordinary album, the body of which was recorded in Solo, Indonesia in 2016. The album is a collaboration with Javanese contemporary gamelan composer Gondrong Guanarto and his team of virtuoso gamelan players. Gamelan, for non-initiates, is the music of Bali and Java, played mostly on tuned gongs, which has long inspired smart western music makers from Debussy, Messaien, Philip Glass and Steve Reich to Sonic Youth. Traces of it's shimmering, loopy DNA are over everything from modal jazz to electronic dance music.
Alvin Lucier’s work has been more often described in terms of science than of art and his scores often contain experimental procedures. Lucier perfectly represents the fusion of a scientist with an artist. His pieces arise from an inspection of a pure physical phenomenon. The performers on Mode’s fourth disc of Lucier’s music are the Italian experimental music ensemble Alter Ego- two of the works were written for or dedicated to them- and Alvin Lucier himself. The interaction of electronic and acoustic sounds is the central point of Two Circles. These electronic sounds move from the same note in two glissandi, ascending and descending. The acoustic instruments interfere, generating beating from the interaction of closed frequencies. In some cases, these pulsations give the impression to expand the sonic space, whilst in others they appear to bring to an ending. The work is receiving here its first recording.
One of the towering figures of American music, Cherry was part of the revolutionary free-bop quartet led by Coleman, an ensemble that helped shift the conversation about jazz from chord changes and swing to freedom and energy. By the late '60s, the pocket-cornet player was living in Sweden, with his wife Karlsson, playing with Swedish musicians from all backgrounds, seeking out exciting partners in a somewhat hippie-like atmosphere. It was in this milieu, in the summers of '71 and '72 that Cherry recorded the tracks for his legendary double LP, Organic Music Society, which was released on Caprice and is now reissued for the first time on CD. The sessions that comprise Organic Music Society are varied and represent several directions in Cherry's oeuvre.
On this new release, Swedish artist Meta Roos joins up with Trio X to present a varied program of folk and jazz tunes by various composers. Meta Roos was born and raised in Boda Kyrkby in but lives since 2002 in Bålsta in Uppsala county. She made her debut as a sixteen-year-old when she started singing with various dance bands in Dalarna; She achieved the greatest success with the Nippe Sylwéns Band. Since 1984 she has been a full time artist. During the 1980s, she sang in the dance band Rose Band, which became popular throughout Europe. Roos played New Year's Rev in Borlänge and came a few years later to Peter Flack in Örebro where she participated in four reviews.
Quality Time in NYC is a vocal jazz project by Erik Leuthauser, recorded in New York with esteemed collaborators such as Alan Broadbent, Ken Peplowski, Allen Farnham, Steve LaSpina, and Rich DeRosa. The album features 19 tracks, including standards, rare gems, and one bonus track with Erik's original German lyric to Miles Davis's "Little Willie Leaps"
The year was 1961, the venue the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. After a memorable performance in Berlin a year earlier, Fitzgerald was once again singing to a packed concert hall. This release has captured that performance, and has been remastered for crystal-clear sound quality. It’s the closest thing to being right there in the audience those five decades ago. (Fondamenta)
Memorabilia was written in 2016 followed by a premiere at JazzFest in Trondheim. The music is written by jazz bassist and composer Mats Eilertsen and performed by two trios: Mats Eilertsen Trio (Harmen Fraanje, piano: Thomas Strønen, drums and Mats Eilertsen, bass), and the vocal ensemble Trio Mediaeval (the acclaimed trio of Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Jorunn Lovise Husan), both known for numerous recordings for ECM. This recording was made in Newtone studio in Oslo January 2020. The music unites the two trios in a sacred, lyrical expression, giving the piano trio room to improvise and the vocal trio space to shine. The lyrics are a mixture of traditional masses and poems by the Norwegian lyricist Tor Ulven. About faith, doubt, nostalgia and time.
The Hot Club of San Francisco = Live at Yoshi's San Francisco = Starring Isabelle Fontaine, vocals = the Hot Club of San Francisco, in it's 20-year history, has released ten adventurous, critically acclaimed CDs in the passionate gypsy-jazz style that traces it's origins to guitarist Django Reinhardt and his Quintets du Hot Club de France. = This latest CD starring vocalist Isabelle Fontaine puts their gypsy-jazz style in the forefront of interpretations of songs from the Great American Songbook. Sprinkles in between Cole Porter and Victor Young are songs from Miss Fountaine's homeland of France. A fun Live at Yoshi's ride through songs interpreted by these gypsy jazz virtuosos.
AMNESIA is an intimate yet universal odyssey: While exploring themes of alienation from nature, self and home, it's songs represent a search for deeper connections, a pursuit of the beautiful and the cathartic on the way of finding one's place in the world.
"Our new album In Between is a homage to those intermediate states, those moments of laughter and crying in which music stands against the rational order of our daily life and makes room for our souls.” Singer Juliana Blumenschein and guitarist Florin Küppers are musical storytellers. On In Between they tell stories situated between North and South America, more precisely from the Great American Songbook to the sambas and bossa novas of Brazil.
A leading drummer and producer, Nate Smith seamlessly blends jazz, funk, R&B, and hip-hop, driven by a groove that is both razor-sharp and deeply musical. LIVE-ACTION quickly made an impact, earning two GRAMMY® Award nominations in the categories of Best Alternative Jazz Album and Best Arrangement, Instruments & Vocals for the track featuring säje. With LIVE-ACTION Deluxe, Smith expands on the album's live energy, staying true to his organic, hands-on approach while once again collaborating with top voices in contemporary jazz, including Braxton Cook. Nate Smith envisioned LIVE-ACTION as a producer-driven project inspired by the legacy of Quincy Jones. "As a producer, I wanted to activate all the relationships I've built over the past five or six years, especially since the pandemic, many of them through social media," he explains. The album features an all-star cast of collaborators including Josh Johnson and Marquis Hill, rapper JSWISS, guitarists Charlie Hunter and Lionel Loueke, bassists Michael League, Ben Williams, and CARRTOONS, keyboardists DJ Harrison and Keifer, the vocal group säje, singer Jermaine Holmes, and Lalah Hathaway. Hathaway delivers a standout performance on a bold reimagining of the Pointer Sisters' 1984 classic Automatic, fully reharmonized and reworked alongside Smith. While LIVE-ACTION is highly collaborative, Smith maintains a strong sense of cohesion through intentional creative limitations. "I wanted the record to feel like it was recorded to tape in my bedroom. I limited myself on purpose, using analog gear and the same instruments throughout. I did just two or three takes per part, with no copy and paste or studio tricks. Everything you hear was played live. Nothing is programmed or sequenced." With the release of LIVE-ACTION Deluxe, Nate Smith builds on that momentum, introducing new collaborations and previously unreleased performances while celebrating the success of the original album, which earned two GRAMMY® Award nominations.
The Guesthouse is about collaboration, inclusion, and the essence of welcoming which is the essence of an open door. It's my most ambitious project to date, sonically and compositionally. It involves so many incredibly talented people: some are in the front, playing music together with me, offering their insight, time, effort, and love, and some incredibly talented and hardworking people are behind the scenes, facilitating, allowing, and inspiring me to keep pushing forward. Musically speaking, the color palette on The Guesthouse is huge. It introduces many musical guests that I admire deeply: MARO, Immanuel Wilkins, Michael Mayo, and many more. It includes lyric writing for the first time, electronic instruments, guitars, trumpets, flutes, flamenco musicians, in-depth production work, my quartet, solo piano, odd meter explorations, improvisations, songs with no time, strings, two pianos conversing and more and more and more.. I dove as deep as I could into these deep waters. The result is my attempt to turn the creative chaos that lives in mind mind into one coherent artistic statement, always having a simple melody as a thread that tells the story of this collective. Shai Maestro Shai Maestro (b. 1987) is one of the most inventive and influential pianists of his generation. Since debuting with his own trio in 2011, he has developed a distinctive musical voice that is fluid, expressive, and profoundly lyrical. His artistry has made him a defining figure in contemporary jazz, merging improvisation, composition, and global influences into a sound that is both cinematic and deeply personal. Maestro began studying classical piano at the age of five and discovered jazz at eight through the recordings of Keith Jarrett and Oscar Peterson. At nineteen, he joined bassist Avishai Cohen's trio, co-writing the acclaimed Gently Disturbed and performing worldwide. In 2011, he formed his own trio, recording six albums that solidified his reputation as a singular voice in modern jazz. His years with ECM Records, under the guidance of Manfred Eicher, placed him among the lineage of pianists such as Keith Jarrett, Paul Bley, and Chick Corea. With drummer Ofri Nehemya and bassist Jorge Roeder, he recorded his first ECM album "The Dream Thief", later joined by trumpeter Philip Dizack for the second - "Human", both expanding the expressive language of the modern jazz quartet. Today, Maestro continues to evolve artistically with a new quartet featuring keyboardist Gadi Lehavi, drummer Ofri Nehemya, and bassist Jorge Roeder. Gadi, the new wild card in the group, brings a distinctive energy and vision; his presence as another pianist opens fresh possibilities for dialogue, texture, and experimentation between two keyboards. This lineup functions as a powerful, cohesive engine driving Maestro's musical exploration, blending jazz improvisation with modern production into a sound that is organic, cinematic, and forward-looking. In 2025, Maestro signed a long-term partnership with the Paris-based label naive records, a defining milestone that opened an expansive new chapter in his artistic life. The collaboration with naive marked a moment of renewal and bold creative ambition, setting the stage for a period of profound exploration. The first fruit of this partnership was his solo piano album, Solo: Miniatures & Tales. Introspective and deeply personal, it revealed the most intimate side of Maestro's artistry; a work of quiet reflection, nuance, and restraint. This album stands in deliberate contrast to the broader, outward-looking vision of his forthcoming project, The Guesthouse, highlighting the duality at the heart of Maestro's creative world: the tension between introspection and expansion. In March 2026, Maestro will release The Guesthouse, a record that features Portuguese singer MARO alongside Immanuel Wilkins, and Michael Mayo. The album represents a bold leap forward, combining the sensitivity of modern jazz with electronic sound design and the harmonic depth of classical music. The Guesthouse creates a lush, cinematic space where boundaries dissolve, embodying Maestro's exploration of openness and collaboration.
