Vinyl LP pressing. 2022 release. In These Times is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as McCraven's personal experience as a product of a multinational, working class musician community. It's the recording that he's been trying to create for 7+ years, as it's been consistently in process in the background while he's put forth a prolific run of releases including: In The Moment (2015), Highly Rare (2017), Where We Come From (2018), Universal Beings (2018), We're New Again (2020), Universal Beings E&F Sides (2020), and Deciphering the Message (2021). With contributions from over a dozen musicians and creative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators - including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, and Marquis Hill - the music was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work at home. Featuring orchestral, large ensemble arrangements interwoven with the signature "organic beat music" sound that's become his signature, the album is an evolution and a milestone for McCraven, the producer. But moreover, it's the strongest and clearest statement we've yet to hear from McCraven, the composer.

Nonesuch Records releases pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan's StandArt-his first album of American standards-on April 29, 2022. StandArt includes songs from the 1920s through the 1950s, by Richard Rodgers, Charlie Parker, Jerome Kern, David Raksin, and others; it also includes a piece Hamasyan improvised with his bandmates-bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Justin Brown-and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, who is featured on two of the album's tracks. Other special guests include saxophonist and label-mate Joshua Redman on Charlie Parker's "Big Foot, " as well as saxophonist Mark Turner on Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's "All the Things You Are."Produced by Hamasyan and recorded last spring in Los Angeles, StandArt is Hamasyan's first release of American music, having previously only released original compositions and traditional Armenian music.

Vinyl LP pressing. 2020 release. The members of the original Joshua Redman Quartet-Redman (saxophone), Brad Mehldau (piano), Christian McBride (bass), and Brian Blade (drums)-reunite with the release of RoundAgain, the group's first recording since 1994's MoodSwing. The album features seven newly composed songs: three from Redman, two from Mehldau, and one each from McBride and Blade.

Vinyl LP pressing. M�lusine features a mix of five originals and interpretations of nine songs, dating as far back as the twelfth century, mostly sung in French along with Occitan, English, and Haitian Krey�l. M�lusine follows last year's label debut, Ghost Song, which has received two Grammy nominations and tremendous critical praise, including spots on best albums of 2022 lists from the New York Times and NPR, among others. The new album's songs tell the story of the European folkloric legend of M�lusine, a woman who turns into a half-snake each Saturday as a result of a childhood curse by her mother. M�lusine later agrees to marry Raymondin on the condition that he never see her on Saturdays. He agrees but is ultimately convinced by his brother to break his promise, piercing his wife's door with his sword and finding her naked in the bath, half snake, half woman. When she catches him spying on her, she turns into a dragon and flies out the window, only to reappear every time one of her descendants is on their deathbed. Salvant, whose parents are French and Haitian, says M�lusine is also "partly about that feeling of being a hybrid, a mixture of different cultures, which I've experienced not only as the American-born child of two first generation immigrants, but as someone raised in a family that is racially mixed, from several different countries, with different languages spoken in the home. "

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Brad Mehldau / JACOB'S LADDER - The album features new music that reflects on scripture and the search for God through music inspired by the prog rock Mehldau loved as a young adolescent, which was his gateway to the fusion that eventually led to his discovery of jazz. Jacob's Ladder is made up of original compositions by Mehldau alongside interpolations and covers of songs by Rush, Gentle Giant and Yes. Featured musicians on the album include Mehldau's label mates Chris Thile and C�cile McLorin Salvant, as well as Mark Guiliana, Becca Stevens, Joel Frahm, and others.

Vinyl LP pressing. 2022 release. Singer/songwriter C�cile McLorin Salvant's Nonesuch Records debut album, Ghost Song, features a diverse mix of seven originals and five interpretations on the themes of ghosts, nostalgia, and yearning. Salvant says, "It's unlike anything I've done before-it's getting closer to reflecting my personality as an eclectic curator. I'm embracing my weirdness!"

JEFF PARKER / FORFOLKS Jeff Parker's Forfolks-a new album of solo guitar works-will be released on December 10, 2021 via International Anthem and Nonesuch Records. The albumincludes interpretations of Thelonious Monk's "Ugly Beauty" and the standard "My Ideal, " plussix original compositions including "Four Folks" (a tune first written by Parker and recorded in 1995) and "La Jet�e" (a tune he recorded with Isotope 217 in 1997 and with Tortoise in 1998). The four totally new original compositions are loop-driven, stratiform works that marry melodic improvisation with electronic textures. The album was recorded by Graeme Gibson at Sholo Studio in Altadena, California (aka Jeff's house) over two days in June 2021.

Limited double 140gm vinyl LP pressing in a single pocket jacket with insert and digital download. 2016 collaboration between saxophonist Joshua Redman and pianist Brad Mehldau. Nearness is a selection of duets recorded live during their recent European tour and the longtime friends' and collaborators' first duo album. Mehldau first came to prominence as a member Redman's quartet in the 1990s before becoming a bandleader himself. The pair first reunited in 2010 when Redman was featured on Mehldau's album Highway Rider. In 2013, Mehldau was featured as a performer and producer on Redman's Walking Shadows. Each artist has recorded extensively for Nonesuch, with a wide variety of collaborators.

Mehldau performs four preludes, from a thirty-seven-year span of Gabriel Faur�'s career, as well as a reduction of an excerpt from the Adagio movement of his Piano Quartet in G Minor. Here Mehldau's four compositions that Faur� inspired are presented in a group, sandwiched between two sections featuring the French composer's works. Discussing the Apr�s Faur� album in his note, Mehldau says: "If the sublime foreshadows our mortality, this music might communicate the austerity of death-Faur�'s as it approached him, but also the apprehension of our own. We find a kinship with the composer finally, in the form of a question that he tossed off into the future, to us. I have composed four pieces to accompany Faur�'s music here, to share the way I have engaged with Faur�'s question, with you, the listener."This format is similar to my After Bach project," he continues. "The connections are less overt, but Faur�'s harmonic imprint is on all four. There is also a textural influence, in terms of how he presented his musical material pianistically-he exploited the instrument's sonority masterfully, as an expressive means. So, for example, in my first 'Prelude,' melody is welded to a continuous arpeggiation, both part of it and hovering above it; in my 'Nocturne,' it is possible to hear the harkening chordal approach in the opening of Faur�'s No. 12."

Vinyl LP pressing. 2020 release. "Suite: April 2020 is a musical snapshot of life the last month in the world in which we've all found ourselves. I've tried to musically portray on the piano some experiences and feelings that are both new and common to many of us. In "keeping distance", for instance, I traced the experience of two people social distancing, represented by the left and right hand - how they are unnaturally drawn apart, yet remain linked in some unexplainable, and perhaps illuminating way. As difficult as Covid-19 has been for many of us, there have been moments of revelation along the way. "Stopping, listening: hearing" highlights that moment as well. I've pointed to some of the strong feelings that have arisen the past month or more: "remembering before all this" expresses a bittersweet gut-pain that has hit me several times out of the blue, when I think back on how things were even just a few months ago, and how long ago and far away that seems now; "Uncertainty" hits on the feeling that can follow right after that - a hollow fear of an unknown future. There's also been a welcome opportunity to connect more deeply with my family than we ever have, because of the abundant time and close proximity. The last three pieces hit on that connection - the harmony we find with each other, making meals together or just horsing around. "Lullaby" is for everyone who might find it hard to sleep now. Neil Young's words in "Don't Let It Bring You Down" have always been council for me, now more than ever, when he instructs: "Don't let it bring you down/It's only castles burning/Find someone who's turning/And you will come around. " Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind", a song I've loved since I was 8 years old, is a love letter to a city that I've called my home for years, and that I'm far away from now. I know lots of people there and miss them terribly, and I know how much that great city hurts right now. I also know that it too will come around. "

Brad Mehldau / JACOB'S LADDER - The album features new music that reflects on scripture and the search for God through music inspired by the prog rock Mehldau loved as a young adolescent, which was his gateway to the fusion that eventually led to his discovery of jazz. Jacob's Ladder is made up of original compositions by Mehldau alongside interpolations and covers of songs by Rush, Gentle Giant and Yes. Featured musicians on the album include Mehldau's label mates Chris Thile and C�cile McLorin Salvant, as well as Mark Guiliana, Becca Stevens, Joel Frahm, and others.

Nonesuch Records releases pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan's StandArt-his first album of American standards-on April 29, 2022. StandArt includes songs from the 1920s through the 1950s, by Richard Rodgers, Charlie Parker, Jerome Kern, David Raksin, and others; it also includes a piece Hamasyan improvised with his bandmates-bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Justin Brown-and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, who is featured on two of the album's tracks. Other special guests include saxophonist and label-mate Joshua Redman on Charlie Parker's "Big Foot, " as well as saxophonist Mark Turner on Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's "All the Things You Are." Produced by Hamasyan and recorded last spring in Los Angeles, StandArt is Hamasyan's first release of American music, having previously only released original compositions and traditional Armenian music.

2020 release. "Suite: April 2020 is a musical snapshot of life the last month in the world in which we've all found ourselves. I've tried to musically portray on the piano some experiences and feelings that are both new and common to many of us. In "keeping distance", for instance, I traced the experience of two people social distancing, represented by the left and right hand - how they are unnaturally drawn apart, yet remain linked in some unexplainable, and perhaps illuminating way. As difficult as Covid-19 has been for many of us, there have been moments of revelation along the way. "Stopping, listening: hearing" highlights that moment as well. I've pointed to some of the strong feelings that have arisen the past month or more: "remembering before all this" expresses a bittersweet gut-pain that has hit me several times out of the blue, when I think back on how things were even just a few months ago, and how long ago and far away that seems now; "Uncertainty" hits on the feeling that can follow right after that - a hollow fear of an unknown future. There's also been a welcome opportunity to connect more deeply with my family than we ever have, because of the abundant time and close proximity. The last three pieces hit on that connection - the harmony we find with each other, making meals together or just horsing around. "Lullaby" is for everyone who might find it hard to sleep now. Neil Young's words in "Don't Let It Bring You Down" have always been council for me, now more than ever, when he instructs: "Don't let it bring you down/It's only castles burning/Find someone who's turning/And you will come around. " Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind", a song I've loved since I was 8 years old, is a love letter to a city that I've called my home for years, and that I'm far away from now. I know lots of people there and miss them terribly, and I know how much that great city hurts right now. I also know that it too will come around. "

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