Continuing is Tyshawn Sorey's highly-anticipated follow-up to Mesmerism and The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism, his two critically-acclaimed 2022 releases that were voted #4 and #5 best albums of the year, respectively, in the annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll of over 150 jazz critics. Continuing features the same musicians as on Mesmerism - Sorey on drums, pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Matt Brewer - with four long tracks allowing the musicians to explore crevices and possibilities while keeping the emphasis on melody, groove, swing, and the blues. The languorous pace taken on the standard "Angel Eyes" requires a rare intensity of concentration from the trio, but they dig deeply into the feeling of all of the songs, including compositions by Wayne Shorter and Ahmad Jamal, who both coincidentally passed away recently, and Harold Mabern, a mentor to Sorey. The performances are masterful and unforced, played with an honesty and spontaneity that get at the music's emotional core.

2019 two CD set. Comprised of two discs: a meticulous studio session and the capture of a rousing live set at Edgefest in Ann Arbor, MI, We are on the Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration is exactly that, a commemoration of a half-century of magical music making. The greatness of The Art Ensemble of Chicago has always been the shared commitment of it's original members - Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Malachi Favors, and Famoudou Don Moye - to the total realm of African diasporic music: what they have long-termed Great Black Music - Ancient to the Future. Also important are the group's disparate musical and artistic personalities, comprised of jazz, advanced compositional techniques, theatrical performance, poetry, Pan-African percussion, all tied together with improvisational flair and the exploration of pure sound.

The Susceptible Now is the new release from drummer and 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winner Tyshawn Sorey that covers a surprising set of some of his favorite music. Featuring his trio of Aaron Diehl on piano and Harish Raghavan on bass, the album follows on the heels of his masterful release Continuing, which was voted #4 release of 2023 by the Francis Davis Poll of over 150 jazz critics, and was hailed by The Guardian as "5-Stars: simmering with reinventions of old magic... One of the year's special sets." The new release continues to expand on Sorey's ongoing partnership with Diehl, now their fourth album together. The trio presents the McCoy Tyner classic "Peresina" from his album Expansions; "A Chair in the Sky" from the Joni Mitchell album Mingus; "Bealtine" from Brad Mehldau; and "Your Good Lies," a contemporary soul song from the group Vividry. Predictably, Sorey completely deconstructs these compositions, extracting and shuffling sections of the original recordings while arranging them into elaborate forms that morph constantly and unpredictably. The program is played without breaks, magnifying it's focused intensity while creating a prodigious sense of scale more akin to a tone poem than a piano trio performance. It's yet another manifestation of Sorey's profound musical wizardry.

Unclassified Affections is the entrancing new release from drummer and composer Dan Weiss that features the convergence of some of the most intriguing musicians on the scene: Peter Evans on trumpet, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, and Miles Okazaki on guitar. The new compositions, which were written by Weiss specifically for these musicians, range from deep, meditative moments to intense, high-energy peaks, while every track unveils a new layer of exploration. Brennan's sonorous mallet work contrasts with Evans' sharp, inventive trumpet lines, while Okazaki's guitar weaves intricate webs of harmony and dissonance, all underpinned by Weiss' hypnotic rhythms. The Layers of rhythmic and contrapuntal interaction flow effortlessly, framed by a ghostly silence, with plenty of room given to improvisation. Together, they weave a profound, mysterious spell that is shrouded with concealed meaning. It's another transcendent project from a truly unclassifiable artist. MUSICIANS Peter Evans - Trumpet Patricia Brennan - Vibraphone Miles Okazaki - Guitar Dan Weiss - Drums

Unclassified Affections is the entrancing new release from drummer and composer Dan Weiss that features the convergence of some of the most intriguing musicians on the scene: Peter Evans on trumpet, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, and Miles Okazaki on guitar. The new compositions, which were written by Weiss specifically for these musicians, range from deep, meditative moments to intense, high-energy peaks, while every track unveils a new layer of exploration. Brennan's sonorous mallet work contrasts with Evans' sharp, inventive trumpet lines, while Okazaki's guitar weaves intricate webs of harmony and dissonance, all underpinned by Weiss' hypnotic rhythms. The Layers of rhythmic and contrapuntal interaction flow effortlessly, framed by a ghostly silence, with plenty of room given to improvisation. Together, they weave a profound, mysterious spell that is shrouded with concealed meaning. It's another transcendent project from a truly unclassifiable artist. Peter Evans - Trumpet Patricia Brennan - Vibraphone Miles Okazaki - Guitar Dan Weiss - Drums

Listen Ship is the latest masterpiece in the ever-expanding sound world of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill, whom The New York Review of Books recently described as "one of American music's great Romantics and a lifelong seeker of the sublime." The new work is a suite for six acoustic guitars - including individual stylists such as Bill Frisell, Miles Okazaki and Brandon Ross - and two pianos that utilize Threadgill's unique intervallic syntax to illuminate his idiosyncratic vision. The eight string instruments revel in the music's painstaking detail with intricate gestures that miraculously entwine to form a grand statement. The meticulous orchestration highlights all of the usual characteristics of Threadgill's music: unusual forms, unexpected timbres, and slippery counterpoint and rhythms, all shaped by the composer's conducting into a singular experience.

Listen Ship is the latest masterpiece in the ever-expanding sound world of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill, whom The New York Review of Books recently described as "one of American music's great Romantics and a lifelong seeker of the sublime." The new work is a suite for six acoustic guitars - including individual stylists such as Bill Frisell, Miles Okazaki and Brandon Ross - and two pianos that utilize Threadgill's unique intervallic syntax to illuminate his idiosyncratic vision. The eight string instruments revel in the music's painstaking detail with intricate gestures that miraculously entwine to form a grand statement. The meticulous orchestration highlights all of the usual characteristics of Threadgill's music: unusual forms, unexpected timbres, and slippery counterpoint and rhythms, all shaped by the composer's conducting into a singular experience.

Boomtown is guitarist/composer Miles Okazaki's latest work for large ensemble. It follows on his Miniature America from 2024, which was described by Ethan Iverson as "meticulously assembled, absolutely a blast to listen to, and informed by a generous - even carefree - spirit." The idea for the new album came to Okazaki on a drive across Wyoming. Unlike much of his recent work with his band Trickster, which are often precise mechanical devices driven by intricate rhythms, Boomtown is filled with grand gestures - a journey that swings from desolate, pastoral beauty and tumultuous ruin that befit a western landscape. The music tells the story of an imaginary boomtown: the exhilaration of hopes and dreams, and it's collapse into destructive lawlessness and abandonment. To help conjure that duality of sublime and ominous, Okazaki assembled a collection of ten musicians: saxophonists Caroline Davis, Jon Irabagon, and Anna Webber, trombonists Jacob Garchik and Kalia Vandever, bassists Chris Tordini and Hannah Marks, pianist Matt Mitchell, drummer Dan Weiss and Okazaki on guitars. Together, they make music that is by turns filled with profound beauty and menacing dread.

Unknown Rivers is bassist Luke Stewart's debut for Pi Recordings. An omnipresent and galvanizing force on the music scene, Stewart is a leader or co-leader of such bands as Irreversible Entanglements, Exposure Quintet, Blacks' Myths, Heart of the Ghost, and Remembrance Quintet. He is also among the most in-demand collaborators, having performed with the likes of David Murray, Nicole Mitchell, Moor Mother, Jaimie Branch, Nate Wooley, Ken Vandermark and countless others. Stewart is also a curator and presenter of multiple concert series in New York and Washington, D.C., a writer, activist, producer and D.J. Featuring his long-running Silt Trio, with Brian Settles on tenor sax, and drummers Trae Crudup on four studio tracks and Chad Taylor on three live ones, Unknown Rivers sees the band pushing towards greater emphasis on rhythmic acuity, highlighting the different approaches to the music of the two drummers. Settles - a stalwart of the fertile Washington DC jazz scene - plays with a quiet intensity, possessing a sound that reminds of players from a distant past set against a modernist's vocabulary. Stewart is the master of a deep, wide groove that cushions and propels, making every musical situation he finds himself in sound good. The Quietus has called the band "gripping... relies on subtlety and insinuation to register it's uncanny power." The Silt Trio is that magical juxtaposition of playing with raw spontaneity while maintaining the music's intent and purpose.

Electrical Field of Love is the brilliant new release from Harriet Tubman - the long-running trio of guitarist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer JT Lewis, joined here by the fervent voice and imagination of Grammy-nominee Georgia Anne Muldrow. Described as "black music at it's best" by NPR, Tubman has been a band that creates it's unique sound world through it's exploration of all tributaries of what the Art Ensemble of Chicago called "Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future." Jazz, funk, psychedelia, doom metal, soul, dub, and electronics are just some of what the group amalgamates through their creative process into it's own mystic brew. Into this vortex enters Muldrow, whose shared devotion to exploring black music in all of it's multivariate forms melds seamlessly into the Tubman aesthetic. She moves freely within the music, with her voice by turns incantatory, declarative, and spectral. Moments of raw propulsion resolve to space and rare beauty. Throughout, the emphasis is on listening - musicians responding in real time, shaping form through insight rather than formula, moving with the force of electric Miles, the ooze of the heaviest Funkadelic, and the sharpened edge of the Black Rock aesthetic. Through collective creativity, the convergence of these kindred spirits results in music that feels both deeply grounded and yet, inspiringly exploratory.

Electrical Field of Love is the brilliant new release from Harriet Tubman - the long-running trio of guitarist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer JT Lewis, joined here by the fervent voice and imagination of Grammy-nominee Georgia Anne Muldrow. Described as "black music at it's best" by NPR, Tubman has been a band that creates it's unique sound world through it's exploration of all tributaries of what the Art Ensemble of Chicago called "Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future." Jazz, funk, psychedelia, doom metal, soul, dub, and electronics are just some of what the group amalgamates through their creative process into it's own mystic brew. Into this vortex enters Muldrow, whose shared devotion to exploring black music in all of it's multivariate forms melds seamlessly into the Tubman aesthetic. She moves freely within the music, with her voice by turns incantatory, declarative, and spectral. Moments of raw propulsion resolve to space and rare beauty. Throughout, the emphasis is on listening - musicians responding in real time, shaping form through insight rather than formula, moving with the force of electric Miles, the ooze of the heaviest Funkadelic, and the sharpened edge of the Black Rock aesthetic. Through collective creativity, the convergence of these kindred spirits results in music that feels both deeply grounded and yet, inspiringly exploratory.

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."

Natural Selection is the highly-anticipated follow-up to drummer/composer Dan Weiss's 2018 release Starebaby, an unconventional compounding of doom metal, electronic music, and improvisation into a dark and mystic brew. That album was named to many best-of 2018 lists, including Rolling Stone, which described it as "an album that creates it's own sonic cinematic reality," while NPR called it "Astonishing... A true convergence of heavy trudge and spontaneous combustion." As with Starebaby, the new album is deeply inspired by the 2017 return of David Lynch's television show Twin Peaks, whose dreamlike, foreboding feel pervades much of this music. The entire group - comprised of a dream-team of musicians who share a love for heavy metal and whose playing is unbound by genre - returns from the first album: Ben Monder (who plays on David Bowie's Blackstar) on guitar, Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, Melvins, Secret Chiefs 3) on bass, and the twin-keyboard/piano/electronics attack of the exceptionally creative Matt Mitchell and Craig Taborn. The recording of Natural Selection came fast at the end of a run of performances for the band, which helped further cement the group's unique sound. It's staggering to contemplate the wide-ranging ability of these musicians: from bone-crunching power to pensive reflection; exacting hits to improvised texture; faith to the compositions and manic improvisation, all played with imagination and conviction.

Last Desert is guitarist Liberty Ellman's follow up to his critically-acclaimed Radiate (Pi 2015), which the Wall Street Journal described as "bristling with energy and innovation" and Downbeat praised as "unique, indelible and fully human." Named #1 Rising Star Guitarist in the 2016 Downbeat Critics Poll, Ellman is perhaps best known as a trusted associate of jazz legend Henry Threadgill, with whom he has played for almost 20 years, including on the Pulitzer Prize-winning release In for a Penny, In for a Pound. His unorthodox playing style is also key to collaborations with the likes of Myra Melford, Joe Lovano, and JD Allen. Pianist and MacArthur Fellow Vijay Iyer calls him "my favorite living guitarist." Ellman's new work is inspired by a foot race that takes place in Antarctica, the final leg in a series of ultramarathons called Four Deserts that take place in some of the harshest environments on earth. Last Desert celebrates the juxtaposition of the austere beauty of the landscape with the grueling nature of the event, and the clarity of focus that the competition requires. His compositions employ a complex melodic weave, but are always lyrical and percolate with groove. Ellman is rejoined by all the musicians from Radiate: Steve Lehman on alto sax, Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet, Jose Davila on tuba, Stephan Crump on bass and Damion Reid on drums. Together, they conjure Ellman's panoramic musical vista to brilliant effect.

Dirt... and More Dirt is the latest from Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and multi-reedist Henry Threadgill, a living legend whom the New York Times calls a "composer and bandleader of intense, unyielding originality." Featuring a brand new ensemble, 14 or 15 Kestra: Agg, the new release continues Threadgill's groundbreaking work in utilizing "a serial intervallic language" in improvisation, a system he has honed over the last 16-years with his long-running band Zooid. Inspired by the conceptual art installation "The New York Earth Room" by Walter de Maria at The Dia Art Foundation, "Dirt"finds Threadgill expanding his compositional palette to include brass instruments and the harmonic possibilities provided by two pianos. The larger instrumental forces deployed here allows for a much wider range of color, texture, and polyphonic density. Released in conjunction with "Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus" which features his Ensemble Double Up, these two recordings represent the crowning achievements in Threadgill's still-flourishing half-century long career. At the age of 73, he continues to challenge himself to create music that is pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

Classical Music

2018 release. Trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson's 3 Times Round is his first release since the widely-lauded Moving Still, which was named one of the top albums of 2016 by the New York Times and the best release of the year by PopMatters, who called it "clean and cool while still ripping with adventure." Among the most admired young musicians on the scene, Finlayson is the first-call of innovative musicians seeking a trumpeter who is able to negotiate the most complex musical material yet still bring his own sense of individuality and verve. These includes a stunning list of cutting-edge artist such as Henry Threadgill, Muhal Richard Abrams, Steve Lehman, Mary Halvorson and, of course, Steve Coleman, with whom Finlayson has played with for the last 18 years. Finlayson is joined on 3 Times Round by the alto and tenor saxophones of Steve Lehman and Brian Settles, which he intertwines with his own horn with fluidity and grace. The inventive pieces leave plenty of room to showcase each musician's distinctive improvisational personalities, yet still convey an overarching sense of narrative mystery. It's another purposeful step forward for a young artist on the rise.

Phalanx Ambassadors is the latest release from pianist/keyboardist/composer Matt Mitchell, whom PopMatters calls "the most complete and well-integrated improvising pianist of the last 15 years." They also called his prior release, A Pouting Grimace, "brilliant and varied... animated by breathtaking compositional imagination and startling arrangements." His bold new release features works that burst forth with intricate detail, featuring precise execution of complex polyrhythms and irrational meters, adventurous harmonic exploration and otherworldly melodies. While rigorously structured, the music leaves ample room for varied layers of improvisation. The eponymously-named band - with Mitchell on piano and keyboards, Miles Okazaki on guitars, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone and marimba, Kim Cass on bass, and Kate Gentile on drums, along with producer David Torn - immerse themselves completely in Mitchell's idiosyncratic sound world, creating music that eludes genre boundaries and comparisons.

The Sky Below is guitarist Miles Okazaki's sequel to his critically-acclaimed Trickster (Pi 2017), which the New York Times labeled "tenacious futurism" and Pitchfork called "obviously complex, the work of virtuosi." The album received critics' picks in both Downbeat and JazzTimes, acclaimed as "an intellectually hefty album that feels weightless" and "a real breakthrough." The Sky Below continues the story of Trickster, this time following the classical arc of an oceanic voyage, where the character travels across a boundary ("Rise and Shine"), enters the unknown ("Dog Star"), visits magical islands ("Anthemoessa" and "Seven Sisters"), is caught in a storm ("Monstropolous"), abandoned ("The Castaway"), and finds a way home ("The Lighthouse"). For these songs, Okazaki took each of the compositions from Trickster, reduced them to their basic components, and rewrote new compositions from this genetic material to maintain their symbolic and sonic continuity. The Trickster band is comprised of Okazaki on guitar, Anthony Tidd on electric bass, Sean Rickman on drums, with the addition of Matt Mitchell on piano. A first-call musician on the cutting edge of jazz, Mitchell also prominently features Okazaki on his latest release, Phalanx Ambassadors (Pi 2019). The team of Tidd and Rickman, whom Okazaki first played with as the rhythm section of saxophonist Steve Coleman's Five Elements, form a seamless rhythmic foundation for the band. Together, they demonstrate the ability that they have honed for decades of negotiating abstract musical information while maintaining an unstoppable rhythmic drive. With it's narrative structure and Okazaki's judicious use of studio effects, The Sky Below evokes the fathomless depths of the sea, both familiar and strange.

2019 release. Hailed by The New York Times as "a state-of-the-art musical thinker" and "a quietly dazzling saxophonist," Steve Lehman has built a career creating innovative, uncompromising music that packs a visceral wallop. His signature alto sound - searing with emotional intensity and crystal clear articulation - has been featured in high-profile partnerships with Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran, and Bennie Maupin. At just 40-years-old, he has achieved wide critical acclaim - various albums have landed the #1 album of the year slots in the New York Times and the NPR Critics Poll - with groundbreaking projects that have run the gamut from melding jazz with Senegalese hip-hop to French spectral music. With his latest album, The People I Love, Lehman revisits his jazz roots, reflecting his mentorship with Jackie McLean, a giant of this music. The album features his long-running trio with drummer Damion Reid (Robert Glasper Trio) and bassist Matt Brewer (SF Jazz, Gonzalo Rubalcaba). Together, the group make their mark on Lehman's compositions and arrangements that, while seemingly impossibly complex, are executed with effortless grace and with emphasis on emotional intensity. The album is a modern day referendum on the possibilities for the alto saxophone quartet tradition for 2019 and beyond.

Facets�is saxophonist/composer�Hafez Modirzadeh's latest radical entreaty against the cultural hegemony of the Western notion of equal temperament and his argument that musicians should be free to explore a variety of tonal possibilities, even on piano. His 2012 release�Post-Chromodal Out!�was the first documentation of this concept, where the piano was tuned to a variety of temperaments. Performed with pianist�Vijay Iyer, The New York Times called that album "Dauntless... There's heady discipline at work here, along with the stirrings of a hard-fought individualism." With his new release, Modirzadeh has distilled the idea to a single re-tuning, which is performed in duets with three towering musicians in contemporary improvised music:�Kris Davis,�Tyshawn Sorey�and�Craig Taborn, each interrogating the piano's new possibilities with imagination and ingenuity. Modirzadeh himself utilizes alternate fingerings and embouchure adjustments on his instrument to achieve intervals between major and minor, and the pieces sway with an elasticity reminiscent of Persian poetic meter. With eight keys re-tuned and the remainder left in equal temperament, the music explores the coexistence of familiar with unfamiliar, and in the process, discovers new logic and mysterious beauty with

Saxophonist/flutist Anna Webber has been an active performer and bandleader on the New York scene for the last decade, playing with the likes of John Hollenbeck, Dave Douglas, Matt Mitchell, and Jen Shyu. Her own projects, which are clear expressions of her knotty compositional sense, have been hailed by The New York Times as "bracing, argumentative and engineered to show the range of the group members: fulminous, intense collective improvisation; rapid, chromatic steeplechases; research into long tones and textures." Her new release, Clockwise, is an homage to some of her favorite 20th Century composers as seen through the lens of their works for percussion. For the project, Webber researched and analyzed various percussion compositions by Iannis Xenakis, Morton Feldman, Edgard Var�se, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Milton Babbitt, and John Cage, isolating particular moments that could be extracted and developed into new works. The music explores notions of density and indeterminacy, using timbre as an organizing principal, continuing Webber's ongoing exploration of the interstice between creative improvisation and tightly-prescribed compositions.

Idiom by composer/saxophonist/ flutist Anna Webber is the follow-up to her critically-acclaimed release Clockwise, which the Wall Street Journal called "visionary and captivating" and NPR described as "heady music [that] appeal to the rest of the body." Idiom is a series of six pieces, each of which is based on a specific woodwind extended technique - a broad term meaning any non-traditional way of producing sound on an instrument, including the use of multiphonics, alternate fingerings, key clicks, overblown notes, and the like - that she has taken from her own improvisational language. The works are the upshot of her belief that jazz composers/performers are in a privileged position to create the perfect vehicles for themselves as improvisers. As a frequent user of extended techniques in her own playing, Webber set out to create a continuum between her compositional and improvisatory vocabulary, orchestrating these effects across the ensemble, and applying them to different instruments. They are also used to generate chords and scales and, overall, gave license to utilize other naturally occurring sounds, opening up whole new worlds of mysterious sonic combinations and orchestrations. "Idiom II" from this book of compositions appeared on Clockwise, while the new project - spread out over two volumes - comprises the other five "Idiom" pieces. The first four of these feature her Simple Trio - Webber with drummer John Hollenbeck and pianist Matt Mitchell - which has been her primary working group for the past eight years. The hour-long "Idiom VI" is performed by a twelve-piece ensemble that brings together a mix of musicians equally split between improvisors and new music specialists. With Idiom, Webber has created a singular sonic world, a bold magnum opus that paves a new path for the amalgamation of cutting-edge composition and improvisation.

2019 release. The Adornment of Time is a monumental meeting between drummer Tyshawn Sorey and pianist Marilyn Crispell, two titans of contemporary music. Recorded live at The Kitchen in New York City, the performance is the apotheosis of fully-improvised music, a dialogue between two artists who are masters at bringing compositional form to their improvisations. Sorey, a 2017 MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, has been named by The New Yorker as "among the most formidable denizens of the in-between zone... An extraordinary talent who can see across the entire musical landscape," and by The Wall Street Journal as "a composer of radical and seemingly boundless ideas." Crispell, whose playing has been described by The New York Times like "monitoring an active volcano," is perhaps best known for her association with Anthony Braxton in his classic quartet of the 1980s and 1990s, but also for her many projects as a leader and highly-regarded releases on the ECM label. Comprised of a single, uninterrupted movement, the performance is by turns placid and tumultuous; quietly contemplative until exploding in intensity. Their performance together is an act of collaborative spontaneous composition of the highest order.

OPHIUCHUS BUTTERFLY