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.

In 2005, Fr�d�ric 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 St�phane Belmondo feat. K�ba K�b� 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. Fr�d�ric 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.

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

Just Friends is a 1998 jazz album by French pianist Martial Solal, featuring bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian. The trio is highly regarded for it's blend of high-energy, straight-ahead swing and avant-garde improvisational complexity. The album features a mix of jazz standards and original compositions by Solal. Critics have noted the trio's remarkable technical facility, harmonic imagination, and ability to navigate both aggressive, complex avant-garde passages and traditional swing.

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

'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 �sman 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).

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

JP Soars has spent over two decades building his reputation the way roots music was meant to be built: onstage, night after night, delivering a high-energy, blend of roots music that moves effortlessly through blues, rock & roll, Latin grooves, country, and gypsy jazz-never confined by genre, always guided by feel. That musical vision comes fully into focus on Gypsy Blue Revue, a collaborative project with acclaimed violinist, vocalist, and songwriter Anne Harris (Keb Mo & Taj Mahal, Otis Taylor, Cracker): a blend of songwriting styles and instrumental chops, set to a backdrop of Southern soul, roadhouse blues and rock, and eclectic folk music, recorded "all in one room, playing together. We just wanted it to sound like we do live."

A timeless masterpiece revisited by a master of Baroque music The release of Bach's St. John Passion, conducted by Jordi Savall, marks an exceptional musical event. This monumental work, composed in 1724, remains one of the pinnacles of sacred music, combining spiritual depth and musical virtuosity. Under the inspired baton of Jordi Savall, renowned for his subtle and respectful interpretation of Baroque scores, this Passion takes on a new dimension, combining historical rigor with pure emotion. Jordi Savall, a leading figure in early music, brings a rare sensitivity to this interpretation, highlighting the richness of the choruses, the power of the narratives, and the beauty of the arias. His approach, both scholarly and accessible, allows listeners to appreciate the complexity and modernity of this score, which continues to touch hearts after three centuries. This recording is aimed at both seasoned music lovers and newcomers alike, offering an immersive and moving experience. It is a unique opportunity to rediscover a gem of the repertoire, performed by one of the greatest interpreters of our time.

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.

Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra present a gripping new recording of Samuel Barber's Vanessa, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American opera of love, longing, and illusion. In Barber's atmospheric, emotionally charged score, echoes of Verdi, Puccini, and Hitchcock-era Hollywood intertwine with a distinctly modern American voice. This performance brings together an exceptional cast, including Nicole Heaston, J'Nai Bridges, Matthew Polenzani, Susan Graham, and Thomas Hampson, who illuminate Gian Carlo Menotti's haunting tale of desire across generations. Recorded live in concert, this release captures Vanessa's sweeping romanticism and psychological depth with vivid orchestral color and extraordinary vocal artistry. A landmark addition to the contemporary operatic discography, it reveals why Vanessa remains one of the 20th century's most compelling operas.

One of the more defining features of Blues upstarts GA-20's approach to traditional Blues music is their unwavering dedication to playing the songs they love, or as bandleader Matthew Stubbs puts it, "we play the music we would want to hear." Those in the know have been captivated by the visceral energy the band brings to the heavy Blues arena, and the songs they choose to perform. With ORPHANS, the band has assembled a collection of Blues and Blues- adjacent tracks that fit handily within that parameter. The songs found on ORPHANS are just that - singular tunes heard only at live shows, singles released between albums, and simple favorites that the band (Stubbs, Cody Nilsen & Josh Kiggans) have been itching to lay down. And just as Blues is a tradition of borrowing, sharing and transformation, these melodies and words are similarly reinterpreted and reimagined, orphans and strays lovingly adopted and given new breath. The fan demand for a proper full length release of these songs, along with the mandate to showcase Nilsen's vocals and auxiliary guitar mastery, are realized here in physical form.

One of the more defining features of Blues upstarts GA-20's approach to traditional Blues music is their unwavering dedication to playing the songs they love, or as bandleader Matthew Stubbs puts it, "we play the music we would want to hear." Those in the know have been captivated by the visceral energy the band brings to the heavy Blues arena, and the songs they choose to perform. With ORPHANS, the band has assembled a collection of Blues and Blues- adjacent tracks that fit handily within that parameter. The songs found on ORPHANS are just that - singular tunes heard only at live shows, singles released between albums, and simple favorites that the band (Stubbs, Cody Nilsen & Josh Kiggans) have been itching to lay down. And just as Blues is a tradition of borrowing, sharing and transformation, these melodies and words are similarly reinterpreted and reimagined, orphans and strays lovingly adopted and given new breath. The fan demand for a proper full length release of these songs, along with the mandate to showcase Nilsen's vocals and auxiliary guitar mastery, are realized here in physical form.

Entre dos aguas, first issued in France in 1975, was a compilation LP that presented Paco de Luc�a's greatest hits up to that point, obviously including the title tune, an iconic rumba that brought the flamenco guitarist's name to a wider audience. The album includes a variety of musical compositions, some of which are rooted in the flamenco tradition, while others are in line with the style popularly known as "Nuevo Flamenco," which was emerging at the end of the 1960s.

Released by Philips in 1973, Fuente y caudal (Source and Flow) was Spanish guitarist Paco de Luc�a's fifth solo LP and marked the beginning of a new chapter in his career. On this album, he reached a level of technical mastery unparalleled in the history of flamenco guitar. Only 25 years old at the time of recording, Paco de Luc�a saw his fame expand far beyond Spain after the release of Fuente y caudal.

Music is the language of New Orleans, and at 85 years of age Little Freddie King has been speaking that blues language for over 60years. Even with his long blues history and international tours, gigs for a deep blues man still don't come easy in New Orleans. This album happens to catch "lighting in a bottle" with Freddie and his seasoned band mates putting down an extraordinary show that happens to catch the spirit of the night with this recording. His meditative, hypnotic style will transform you into the world of his friends that he palled around throughout his musical career, legends like Boogie Bill Webb, Slim Harpo, his cousin, Lighting Hopkins, Snooks Eaglin and John Lee Hooker to name a few.

Members... Don't!, the tour-de-force new release by acclaimed drummer and composer Tyshawn Sorey, offers a bold reinterpretation of Max Roach's landmark album Members, Don't Git Weary, connecting it's message of resilience in the face of struggle to the present day. Recorded during the turbulent year of 1968 - after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. And Robert F. Kennedy and amid widespread social unrest - Roach's album served as a call for perseverance in the fight for justice. Sorey approaches this music not as repertory, but as living material: something to reshape and reimagine for our own turbulent time. He expands and reframes the material through a contemporary lens, expanding the music into a sweeping suite that draws inspiration from symphonic works and the extended works of Charles Mingus. Recorded live at the end of a four-night engagement at New York's Jazz Gallery, the group - Adam O'Farrill on trumpet, Mark Shim on tenor saxophone, Lex Korten on piano, and Tyrone Allen on bass - maneuvers through the music's precarious turbulence with virtuosity and inspiration. Over more than ninety minutes, Sorey's ensemble gradually accumulates intensity before arriving at the album's shattering climax, delivered in an ecstatic performance by vocalist Fay Victor; an exhortation that in times of crisis and turmoil, we all must remain resolute and persist "until the work is done."

A major work in Fran�ois Bayle's repertoire, Je�ta ou murmure des eaux provides a journey and an immersion into a world of unleashed energies, with the Je�ta cave serving both as a backdrop and a particle accelerator. Here, the cave indeed stands for the concrete source of the composer's inspiration as much as the mind space where metamorphoses occur. By combining such figurative spaces and immaterial sound projections, Fran�ois Bayle evokes another subject, an inhabitant of the multiple and symbolic cave: the listening subject, who always reveals himself, implicitly, at the heart of Fran�ois Bayle's musical concerns and the path he has always defended: the acousmatic approach. -Fran�ois J. Bonnet, Paris, 2025

Embracing the whole world, Mahler's Symphony No. 3 is a vast fresco in which nature, man and the spiritual interact on a cosmic scale. Directing the combined forces of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Chorus and Tiffin Boys' Choir, and with the movingly expressive voice of Hanna Hipp, Vasily Petrenko reveals all the richness of this visionary peak of Post-Romanticism.

Elements explores the distinctive sound world of saxophone and harp in a program that moves between Baroque masterworks and newly commissioned music inspired by the four classical elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Performed by saxophonist Huw Wiggin and harpist Oliver Wass, the album places Bach, Purcell, Vivaldi and Couperin alongside contemporary works written specially for the duo. Each commission reflects a different elemental idea, from the luminous textures of Charlotte Harding's Euphotic to the volatile energy of Laura Bowler's Caesium and the wind-driven virtuosity of David Wallace's blowing A gale. Interwoven throughout are inventive arrangements of Baroque works, drawing subtle connections across centuries. The pairing of saxophone and harp creates a sound palette that is intimate and richly coloured, capable of lyric stillness and brilliant display. Praised for his "liquid gold tones" by The Times, Wiggin joins forces with leading harpist Oliver Wass in a programme that moves between reflection, drama and radiant beauty.

This album aims to highlight one of the instruments that Barrios loved and played most, his Francisco Simplicio guitar, made in 1927. The selected pieces underline the main musical directions that stand out within the vast repertoire linked to Barrios, also making reference to the works of authors that he used to perform and who therefore had a voice on this instrument, like Chopin, Bach or Tarrega.

The Curious Bards immerse us in the 18th-century popular music of Ireland and Scotland, with reels, jigs, songs and dances that circulated in the oral tradition and in print, from the airs of Turlough O'Carolan to the great collections of the period. Impelled by an irresistible energy and underpinned by historical research, this album restores the vitality of this music that lives for the dance, for the preservation of folk memory, and for sharing with others.

Juliette Hurel and Isabelle Moretti present an inspired selection of French music for flute and harp, featuring key masterpieces alongside some rare delights. From the intensely vocal melodic line of Faur� and Debussy's playful exploration of timbres and resonances to the subtly sculpted writing of Jean Cras, this recital highlights the virtuosity and expressive verve of a duo of great stylistic finesse.

As keyboard maestro James Taylor arrives at his 40th year leading his Quartet, he has re-signed with his original label Acid Jazz and is embarking on a series of the most radical projects he has ever worked on. Following his first classical album, Shadows and Dreams earlier this year, he brings the Quartet together for a remarkable new album. Te Deum sets the ancient, 4th-entury Christian text to intense jazz, funk, and Latin grooves. The music sees the James Taylor Quartet working alongside the children of the Benenden Chapel Choir, and a guest horn section and legendary Acid Jazz percussionist Snowboy. Lead track, "Have Mercy On Us," mixes Brazilian samba with Gregorian chants, "The Comforter" sounds like a Donald Byrd with voices Blue Note Records experiment, and last year's radio favorite "Wildflower," mixes bossa nova with sunshine pop harmonies and a positive message.

As keyboard maestro James Taylor arrives at his 40th year leading his Quartet, he has re-signed with his original label Acid Jazz and is embarking on a series of the most radical projects he has ever worked on. Following his first classical album, Shadows and Dreams earlier this year, he brings the Quartet together for a remarkable new album. Te Deum sets the ancient, 4th-entury Christian text to intense jazz, funk, and Latin grooves. The music sees the James Taylor Quartet working alongside the children of the Benenden Chapel Choir, and a guest horn section and legendary Acid Jazz percussionist Snowboy. Lead track, "Have Mercy On Us," mixes Brazilian samba with Gregorian chants, "The Comforter" sounds like a Donald Byrd with voices Blue Note Records experiment, and last year's radio favorite "Wildflower," mixes bossa nova with sunshine pop harmonies and a positive message.