Eternal Child, Avishai Cohen's new album, will be released in May and showcases the full depth of his artistry as a bassist and composer. Years later, he reunites with drummer Jeff Ballard on selected tracks, recalling their strong musical connection forged alongside Chick Corea. Recorded at the renowned Studio de Meudon in Paris, Eternal Child stands as a major new chapter in Cohen's work.

Here is Dizzy Gillespie's complete 1961 Monterey Jazz Festival performance, introduced by Diz as 'A Musical Safari'. This remarkable set reflects the quintet's working repertoire of the period, including a foray into bossa nova and features the superb Leo Wright and Argentinian pianist Lalo Schifrin. The first Monterey Jazz Festival was staged in 1958 and, since then, Jimmy Lyons and musical director John Lewis have traditionally gathered each September under the California sky many of the great names in jazz, along with several thousand enthusiastic listeners.

Joe Hisaishi - "Joe Hisaishi Conducts The End Of The World; Reich: The Desert Music". Joe Hisaishi's new album blends cinematic sound worlds with the spellbinding power of a live performance experience. Recorded in 2024 at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Hisaishi's album features the maestro's original piece "The End of the World" and Steve Reich's "Desert Music," performed with the Futures Orchestra Classics and the Philharmonic Chorus of Tokyo. Now in it's seventh volume, the "JOE HISAISHI FUTURE ORCHESTRA CLASSICS" series highlights Joe Hisaishi's signature versatility, precision and passion. CD Digipak.

Aja Monet is a Surrealist Blues Poet in the business of goosebumps and heart-gut-telling truths. Her poems are harmolodic, vulnerable, and insurgent. As the youngest recipient of the Nuyorican Grand Slam Poetry title, she first cut her teeth in New York City's Lower East Side poetry clubs and bars, honing her voice and craft on the storied stages of a burgeoning grassroots poetry movement. She follows in the long legacy and tradition of poets organizing in social movements for change. Her collaborative spirit has seen her shape and shift culture alongside internationally renowned artists, scholars, activists, and organizers. aja's first full collection of poems, my mother was a freedom fighter (2017), is a powerful tribute to women who embody freedom, earning a nomination for a NAACP Image Award for Poetry. Her debut poetry album, when the poems do what they do, was nominated for a Grammy Best Spoken Word Poetry Album in 2024. The album explores themes of resistance, love, and the inexhaustible quest for joy. As a poet and touring bandleader, she has performed at festivals, concert halls, and theaters across the globe including but not limited to, the Guggenheim, Lincoln Center, Newport Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Fremantle Biennele and the Barbican Centre to name a few. Aja Monet's awards include the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Award for Poetry (2019), the Nelson Mandela Changemaker Award (2024), The Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award (2024), the EBONY 100 Artist In Residence Award, and the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Vanguard Award (2025). She also serves as the Artistic Creative Director for V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. In 2022, she created "VOICES," an audio play amplifying the stories of Black women across the diaspora and the African continent. Aja Monet's most recent book of poems inspired by several years living and organizing in South Florida is called, Florida water on Haymarket Books. Her sophomore studio album the color of rain, is set to be released in May 2026 with drink sum wtr.

Bay Area guitarist George Cotsirilos returns to the intimate language of solo nylon-string guitar on "In the Wee Hours," illuminating beloved standards and two original compositions with patience and depth. Recorded largely in unedited first takes over several years, his seventh recording on OA2 unfolds with the quiet authority and refined lyricism that have defined Cotsirilos's career-from his celebrated quartet release Refuge to earlier trio and solo recordings praised for their fluidity and swing. Here, classics such as "Come Sunday," "Haunted Heart," and the title ballad are rendered with a meticulous touch and subtle dynamic shadings that reveal the hidden architecture of each melody. Alternating between exquisite instruments by Jos' Ram¡rez and Alberto Morales, Cotsirilos draws out warm, singing tones that blur the line between jazz phrasing and classical resonance. "- an impeccable sense of timing especially in revealing the hidden rhythms of complex melodies. His approach to harmony is whimsical, but patently beautiful at all times." - All About Jazz " - an unerring sense of swing and melody. His solos, while displaying accuracy and technique, are filled with soul." Vintage Guitar Magazine

Pianist & composer Andrew Moorhead offers a strikingly personal suite of etudes-music born of inquiry, discipline, and risk. Conceived as a kind of private journal, these pieces explore phased time signatures, interlocking melodic cycles, and the elusive space between muscle memory and pure spontaneity. Moorhead's long pursuit of "total liberation" at the piano-having reshaped his technique after catastrophic injuries from a 47-foot fall in 2011-yields a language where skeletal gestures bloom into fluid counterpoint. The result is music that feels at once architectural and airborne. Finding the perfect bandmates in the towering bassist Fran‡ois Moutin, and one of the most idiosyncratic drummers in jazz, Ari Hoenig, their deep rapport generates a kinetic, almost telepathic interplay. Mirage stands as a bold trio statement-intellect and intuition in vivid balance, and a compelling new chapter in Moorhead's evolving voice. "I thought I'd heard just about every approach to the piano, then Andrew Moorhead's new album came along - it's a great reminder that true originality is still out there." Scott Kinsey "... The music is exceptional and consistently engaging. A wonderful recording." All About Jazz

Paul Hindemith is among the most significant German composers of the 20th century. The Sonata for Trombone and Piano - one of a multitude of sonatas he composed for various instruments - is a lively tour de force, performed here with an additional Ruhig movement from a sonata left unfinished before he was forced to emigrate. Hindemith's songs lean towards the refined simplicity of the French melodie and are connected here with Poulenc's lyrical Oboe Sonata, Koechlin's brooding Trois Pieces, and selections by Ravel and Debussy, all specially arranged to display trombonist Guilhem Kusnierek's expert musicianship.

Charlie Parker's music has been recorded, studied, debated, and canonized for more than seventy years. Which is precisely why paying tribute to Bird still takes a lot of nerve. There is no safe middle ground. You either bring something new to the conversation, or you risk being drowned out by history. On Another Kind of Bird, Richard Baratta does not tiptoe around this dilemma. Joined by arranger and pianist Bill O'Connell, Baratta revisits Parker's music with a clear sense of purpose and a refusal to play it safe, delivering bold reimaginings propelled by a powerhouse ensemble. Baratta anchors the session with his working band, then raises the stakes. On select tracks, saxophonists Eric Alexander, Abraham Burton, and Craig Handy join regular altoist Vincent Herring to form a dynamic horn section that adds muscle and urgency to the music. Parker emerges here not as relic, but as catalyst: energized, expanded, and unmistakably alive.

Bassist and composer Gabriel Espinosa's "The Brazilian Project" is the realization of a lifelong devotion to the music that first stirred his imagination in the 1960s, when the sounds of Jobim, Joao Gilberto and Sergio Mendes reshaped the global jazz landscape. Raised in Mexico on boleros and the Beatles, Espinosa later found in bossa nova a language of melodic grace and rhythmic subtlety that would define his artistic path through Berklee, North Texas State, and to his present home in Iowa. For his eighth solo album, his bass is set aside while his compositions are brought vividly to life by a Brazil-based nonet, with scintillating arrangements by trombonist Rafael Rocha and flugel hornist Bruno Santos. Recorded in Rio de Janeiro and enhanced by the Tallinn Studio Orchestra, the album radiates warmth, elegance, and rhythmic vitality. The Brazilian Project stands as a joyful summit in Espinosa's decades-long journey-an inspired cross-cultural collaboration that honors tradition while speaking in a fresh, contemporary voice. "Bossa nova literally means "new tendency" or "new thing". Gabriel Espinosa renews the genre with his imaginative compositions and top-class musicians." Music Web International " - a mellifluous musical expedition led by this mature bassist, who crafts his music with utmost confidence and grace - The depth of emotion of his music is truly touching." - Latin Jazz Net

In 2005, Frederic Galliano, founder of the Frikyiwa label, decided to put it on hold for a few years. In his archives, many albums recorded during his years of travels in Africa remain unreleased. In the context of the reactivation of the Frikyiwa label, the album Lionel and Stephane Belmondo feat. Keba Kebe Diolas Orchestra: "Calypso Diola" is therefore being released today. It was in the heart of Casamance, in the village of Bignona, that this album was recorded, in a house typical of the region, built of earth, with thick walls producing a warm acoustic open to the outside world. Frederic Galliano's idea was to bring together the Belmondo brothers with Diola culture, renowned for it's distinctive percussion combining wood and struck metal, as well as singular instruments such as the ekontine (a four-string guitar) or Diola flutes. The vocal melodies typical of Casamance are also strong markers of this album, recorded over a few days, live and in an improvisational approach inherent to jazz. Often composed as duos, with the exception of "Osoforal," recalling a certain 1960s jazz, the tracks of the album are marked by an artistic direction that presents the Belmondo brothers in a more stripped-down light than usual. Composed of duos or slow tempos, these tracks and their particular recording approach give this album an original colour in which each part expresses it's own specificity of improvised jazz and Diola culture. Sometimes tinged with humour (Bach to Casamance or Calypso Diola) or with greater softness (Casa Sport), what we are given here is a truly original and creative recording. It is also important to place this album in it's context: recorded in 2002, it was at the time quite unprecedented to have this kind of in situ encounter between European and African musicians. It should therefore be listened to in this specific light. It nonetheless remains both contemporary and timeless.

Amsterdam-based Ghanaian trumpeter, composer and bandleader Berima Amo blends highlife, Afrobeat, traditional West African rhythms, jazz and soul into a rich, contemporary sound. Rhythms of Love is a heartfelt tribute to the music and icons that shaped his journey-exploring love, unity and cultural pride through hypnotic grooves, expressive trumpet lines and soulful melodies. Bridging tradition and innovation, the album celebrates African musical heritage while carrying it boldly into the future.

The intrepid contemporary vocal ensemble Ekmeles, directed by Jeffrey Gavett, releases their third recording featuring works written for the ensemble by George Lewis, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, and Katherine Balch. Ekmeles has cultivated an unparalleled reputation for tackling the most challenging vocal scores of our era, navigating microtonality, complex rhythmic textures, and experimental structures with virtuosity and expression.

Anton Rubinstein stood at the heart of Russian musical life for nearly half a century and had a profound influence on generations of Russian musicians, including Tchaikovsky. His piano sonatas reveal a composer intent on uniting intellect and passion within a symphonic conception of the keyboard. With it's heroic, noble themes, the Third Piano Sonata was Rubinstein's own favourite of the set. The final Piano Sonata No. 4 represents the composer at the height of his creative command, pouring a lifetime of emotions into a single piece and distilling the paradoxical tensions between intellect and impulse, Germanic structure and Russian ardour. Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2, played by Han Chen, can be heard on 8.573989.

After the success of Mandolin on Stage, dedicated to the most emblematic 18th-century concertos for mandolin and recorded with Il Pomo d'Oro directed by Francesco Corti, Raffaele La Ragione returns with his third album for Arcana. This time he recounts a fascinating chapter in French musical history, joined by pianist Francois Dumont (who has chosen an exceptional 1896 Pleyel for the occasion) and special guest, soprano Sandrine Piau. In the 1880s and 1890s Paris discovered a deep passion for the mandolin: a fondness fuelled by the concerts held at the Trocadero during the Universal Exhibition of 1878. In the drawing rooms of high society the Neapolitan instrument became a supreme symbol of elegance and exoticism, conjuring up the atmosphere of southern Italy and immediately winning over poets and composers. The recording, created in collaboration with the Palazzetto Bru Zane, brings together original pieces, contemporary arrangements from French operas and operettas, and vocal works dedicated to the mandolin, thereby effectively recreating the soundscape and distinct allure of a fin-de-siecle salon.

Always curious and seeking new horizons, the musicians of the Voce quartet fell in love with Argentina during their concert tours. In Buenos Aires and Rosario, they frequented penas and milongas (folk music dance clubs) and had exciting working sessions with the illustrious Dino Saluzzi... They decided to ask composers Fernando Fiszbein, Gabriel Sivak and Jean-Baptiste Henry to write music and arrangements for them. They perform these pieces with the great Argentine guitarist Pablo Marquez and Jean-Baptiste Henry on bandoneon. This colourful programme features tangos, but also zamba, chacarera, cueca, baguala... Not to mention a tribute to Piazzolla (Four for Tango for string quartet) and Alberto Ginastera, with his first string quartet and his emblematic sonata for guitar.

Mithras Trio' second album for Linn showcases early works by Shostakovich, Korngold and Lisney, continuing the 'intriguing and eclectic' programming The Guardian praised on it's first album Eros. Fountain of Youth highlights the surprising number of piano trios written by composers at the very start of their careers and features the world premiere recording of Petrichor by cellist Joy Lisney. Commissioned by Mithras Trio and premiered at Wigmore Hall in January 2023, this evocatively titled work is named after the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. Two youthful works by Shostakovich and Korngold complete the album: in Shostakovich's First Piano Trio we find hints of the composer's mature style, where grotesque and late-Romantic moments mingle in a single-movement trio, and in Korngold's first published work, the Piano Trio, Op. 1, the influences of Mahler, Strauss and Puccini do not detract from the young composer's already unique voice and exceptional maturity.

'Black Butterfly' is Brooklyn Funk Essentials eighth studio album and includes the bands recent hits 'Never Give Up', 'Bust The Bus Stop' and 'Life During Wartime'. Playlisted on BBC Radio 2 and Jazz FM and supported by Craig Charles and Cerys Matthews at 6 Music as well as many stations across Europe and the Americas. The album was produced and co-written by bassist Lati Kronlund and features Alison Limerick, Ebba Asman and Desmond Foster on vocals. Kronlund and Limerick have been enjoying the recent renewed interest in 'Where Love Lives'. Kronlund wrote and produced it for Limerick in 1990, it was remixed by Frankie Knuckles and David Morales and became a club classic and was featured in this year's John Lewis Christmas TV Ad. Arthur Baker heard the original in a club in 1991 that he contacted Kronlund about working together and they then formed Brooklyn Funk Essentials. Since then, Brooklyn Funk Essentials have built a devoted international following and notched up over 100 million streams. Fusing Soul, Hip Hop, Spoken Word, Jazz, Latin, and, of course, Funk, the band's journey began experimenting with drum machines and loops in Baker's Shakedown Sound Studio in Jersey City-hunting for that perfect beat. The early recordings featured greats such as Maceo Parker, Lenny Pickett, Tower of Power Horns, Michigan & Smiley, and Dizzy Gillespie, leading to the acclaimed debut 'Cool & Steady & Easy' (1994). Fast-forward to April 2024, when Kronlund reunited with Baker in Miami, rediscovering recordings featuring percussion prodigy Bashiri Johnson, which inspired new creative sparks for the next chapter of Brooklyn Funk Essentials. The band's acclaimed catalogue also includes 'In The Buzzbag' (1998), 'Make Them Like It' (2000), 'Watcha Playin' (2008), 'Funk Ain't Ova' (2015), 'Stay Good' (2019) and 'Intuition' (2023).

Alim Beisembayev is featured in this 14th volume of the Next Generation Mozart Soloists series. Under the baton of Howard Griffiths, the Kazakhstani pianist, who studied in Russia and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, presents two of Mozart's last piano concertos. Two years separate Concerto KV 503 and Concerto KV 537, composed in February 1788. It is nicknamed the 'Coronation Concerto' because the composer played it in Frankfurt for the coronation of Emperor Leopold II: "Both works are primarily majestic, but they also exhibit moments of playfulness, tenderness and sometimes nostalgia. There are also frequent passages that are operatic in character", says Alim Beisembayev. "For a long time I thought his music was only played by children. Perhaps we understand Mozart best as children, before we feel a hunger for 'interpretation'. I feel that Mozart's music should sound pure and innocent."

The Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band releases Incarnadine, a landmark debut album celebrating the diversity and vitality of Indigenous people in jazz. Led by acclaimed vocalist Julia Keefe (Nez Perce) and featuring a 16-piece ensemble of Native and Indigenous musicians from across Indian Country, the album draws on compositions made famous by 20th-century Indigenous jazz luminaries like Mildred Bailey and Jim Pepper alongside new works by contemporary Indigenous composers. Mali Obomsawin's "Wawasint8da" transforms a Jesuit-translated Abenaki hymn into a haunting exploration of resilience and paradox. Delbert Anderson's three-movement DDAT Suite honors Dine code talkers and sacred tribal landscapes. Rogan Kahale's arrangement of Queen Liliuokalani's "Ku'u Pua i Paoakalani" brings a tender, cinematic sweep to the program. Incarnadine is history, protest, and celebration rolled into one, a necessary and overdue document of a vibrant jazz tradition that has long existed outside the mainstream spotlight. Fans of large ensemble jazz, vocally driven big band recordings, and socially conscious music will find this album both musically thrilling and deeply meaningful.

This is a first-rate album of contemporary American piano works for the left hand, performed by Nariaki Sugiura.

From Shanghai-born composer and bandleader Zhengtao Pan comes Day by Day, a sweeping nine-track album for jazz orchestra that draws on classical structure, Chinese musical tradition, film scoring, and the full expressive range of the contemporary big band. Recorded in 2025 and featuring guest artists Rufus Reid, Steve Wilson, Itai Kriss, and Sara Gazarek, the album balances orchestral ambition with deeply personal storytelling. Highlights include the patient, folk-like "Childhood" built on a repeating bass foundation conceived specifically for the legendary Rufus Reid; the groove-driven "Wind Dance" featuring Steve Wilson's soprano saxophone over an Afro-Cuban pulse with Celtic melodic fingerprints; the cinematic "Aurora" featuring Grammy-nominated vocalist Sara Gazarek in a Kenny Wheeler-inspired orchestral setting; and the epic title track, a portrait of artistry as persistence, opening with an intricate ostinato in shifting odd meters before building to a fully earned shout chorus. Pan, a graduate of Berklee College of Music and currently pursuing a master's degree at the Eastman School of Music, has drawn on mentorships with Steven Feifke, Miho Hazama, and Gabriela Ortiz to develop a compositional voice that is simultaneously global and deeply rooted in jazz tradition. Fans of Maria Schneider, Darcy James Argue, and Wayne Shorter's orchestral work will find Day by Day both thrilling and deeply humane.

This album, Ustica, marks a further stage in the firmly established relationship between Benoît Mernier and the record label Cypres, which over the course of 25 years has traced the evolution of the composer's musical language and the affirmation of his artistic identity. It will be released to coincide with the premiere of his new opera, Bartelby, at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie. Ustica marks a milestone in this collaboration, painting a portrait of a composer and offering testimony to a long-standing artistic partnership. Ustica reveals a moment of maturity in which formal rigour, poetry, and memory intertwine. The two symphonic movements contrast a contemplative adagio shaped by Baudelaire (Comme d'autres esprits) with a bright, virtuosic scherzo (Sur un ciel immense), a joyful tribute to Philippe Boesmans. Offering, for alto voice and ensemble, sets three spiritual poems by Rabindranath Tagore to music in a continuous flow moving from longing and hope to joy. Deux poèmes pour violon et piano, dedicated to Jacques de Decker, explore memory through a playful and light-hearted style of composition consisting of fragments and snippets. Finally, Ustica, inspired by a poem by Octavio Paz, unfolds an orchestral meditation on life, death, and memory that oscillates between sun-drenched stillness and the mysterious fluidity of incantatory melodies.

'Generally labelled as a Baroque instrument and thought to have disappeared with the French Revolution, the harpsichord flourished again in the first third of the 20th century and inspired original compositions': Justin Taylor offers us a 'personal' overview of the harpsichord in the 20th century. He has structured this album around four major concertos (Falla, Poulenc, Francaix, Gorecki) which are linked by pieces for solo harpsichord: Bartok, who, in his preface to Mikrokosmos, from which this Hommage to Bach is taken, suggests playing certain pieces on the harpsichord, Martinu and a new work by Stephane Gassot in reference to Ligeti... The programme concludes with a nod to Scott Joplin and his famous ragtimes. Always attentive and passionate about instruments, Justin Taylor chose to record the entire programme on a single instrument, a harpsichord built in the 1970s by Anthony Sidey, a hybrid model between Pleyel instruments and historical harpsichord making, which "gives a wide and highly varied range of colours". With this album, he follows in the footsteps of Wanda Landowska and Elisabeth Chojnacka, two pioneers who promoted the harpsichord in all it's modernity.

For his tenth solo recording for Alpha Classics and Outhere Music, Nelson Goerner returns to a composer he particularly cherishes: Schumann, here with the Davidsbündler, his imaginary music society created to combat the Philistines, musicians considered decorative and traditionalist (such as Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti). Robert began the Davidsbündlertänze a few days after 14 August 1837, the date of his engagement to Clara. Between idyllic dreams and impassioned protests, Goerner is able to develop his full sense of narrative... In addition, he puts his sensitivity to work on Handel's 21 variations on the Chaconne in G major, published in 1735 under the title 'Suite No. 2'. Viennese sweetness and virtuoso intoxication conclude this recital with the Arabesques on 'The Blue Danube' by Johann Strauss Jr., written by the Polish composer Adolf Schulz-Evler (1852/4-1905).

British mezzo-soprano and BBC New Generation Artist Helen Charlston and pianist Sholto Kynoch present their take on Robert Schumann's famous song cycle Dichterliebe (A Poet's Love), based on poems by early 19th-century German poet Heinrich Heine. The sixteen songs express the birth of love, wonder, fragility in the face of love, emotions and nuances, wounds, sorrow, nostalgia, dreams, tears, betrayal, pain, consolation, and death. The music conveys all the misfortunes that the poet had to face, as if a mirror image existed between the poet and Schumann. This release also features other songs based on texts by Heine, demonstrating the German poet's popularity with Austro-German composers of the early nineteenth century. Songs by Carl Loewe, Josephine Lang, Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, and Felix Mendelssohn complete this exploration of Heine's poetry. In addition to Schumann's cycle, the other highlight of this recital is the first recording of a work commissioned by Helen Charlston from composer (and singer) Héloïse Werner: Knight's Dream, also based on a text by Heine, and conceived as a companion piece for Dichterliebe. Imaginative and daring, this new work is both a tribute and a playful dialogue with Schumann and Heine, bringing the past and present together in a lyrical conversation.