The righteous and bombastic nature of the great bassist/composer Charles Mingus made him a polarizing personality. His unique personality, combined with his groundbreaking music, were magnetic for open-minded listeners. Clarinetist Harry Skoler discovered Mingus and his music early in life. This discovery would change his entire trajectory as a person and musician, which Skoler celebrates on his new recording, Living In Sound: The Music of Charles Mingus. // The music that Harry Skoler, Walter Smith III, and their brilliant cast recorded on Living In Sound captures the many moods of the iconoclastic Charles Mingus. There are shades of tumult, harmonic depth, conceptual depth, and abandon. A perfect tribute to the legend to mark his centennial year.

The singular catalog of the great pianist/composer Carla Bley has been celebrated and performed for decades. She has not only performed her unique compositions in her own star-studded bands but has had them canonized by such legendary artists as Gary Burton and Paul Bley. Having had first-hand experience playing with Carla Bley in two groups, guitarist Steve Cardenas and his trio mates bassist Ben Allison and reed master Ted Nash, have created a brilliant recording of nine Bley pieces on their new album, Healing Power.

The New York-based tenor saxophonist and composer was born and raised in Texas and began performing professionally at age 16 with his father, Joe Killian, a jazz pianist and Hammond organist who worked in bands led by sax legends Sonny Stitt, Jimmy Ford, and Don Wilkerson. With a saxophone spirit reminiscent of Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb, and James Clay, the twenty-first-century Texas Tenor seeks to modernize this rich lineage by developing a highly personalized compositional approach coupled with a consistent group sound steeped in simpatico and interplay.

Everybody has literal and figurative homes. There are the physical places where heads are laid at night and then there are the feelings, people, activities, or spaces that provide a feeling of the comfort of home. Gregory Lewis has found a musical home delving into the Hammond organ and the music of the great composer/pianist Thelonious Monk, a practice that has allowed him opportunities to play with extraordinary musicians and visit amazing places, and his new recording Organ Monk Going Home brings all of these aspects to bear. // As Gregory Lewis did find out, it is possible to go home again. The organist took the inspiration gained from a trip to Africa, his ancestral home, to revisit relationships with longtime friends and collaborators, Kevin McNeal and Nasheet Waits, and to further his explorations of the music of Thelonious Monk on Organ Monk Going Home.

Composer and pianist �lvaro Torres has interest in dialogs and possibilities between jazz and free improvisation. His work has deep roots in western classical music, but always maintains a particular focus on building unique improvisational aesthetic. Born in Madrid in 1993, he graduated from Conservatori del Liceu in 2016. Since then he's been focused on performing and composing his own projects and also as a sideman, playing more than 150 concerts over the last two years. Collaborations with different groups have taken him to Spain, France, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Nepal, Colombia and United States.

When we come to live with dogs we don't think, at first, about the proto-dogs some tens of thousands of years ago who first wandered into a group of humans and was taken in. We don't think, at first, about the subsequent years of shaping and molding and breeding and refining and tailoring that has resulted in the specimen of dog who appears before us today. And we definitely don't think, at first, about how profound it will be for each of us that this creature has wandered into human life - into our life. By the time we start thinking about these things, we are well on our way to the inevitable: the end of the lives of this animal - this character - who has slipped into our lives, our minds, our hearts. To live with dogs is eminently familiar - even ordinary, at first glance. But glance more, look closely at that warm form in your room looking back at you, and you see how unordinary it is. This keen-nosed, preternaturally agile and responsive animal, whose ancestors lived in earthen dens, who coursed together to take down large prey, is in your home - and you have forged a bond with them. The bond exists beyond words, forged in touches and gestures and gaze. They've become the breath we expect in the room, the greeting we anticipate at the door, the responsiveness that we look for from the world. Then they are gone, one day. They exit your room with the same abruptness with which they entered. In their absence the room is chilly, the world is flat. The Normyn Suites is an elegy; to listen is to spend time in that space of loss, reckoning, questioning, and mourning. At the same time, though, with each note, each phrase, we are propelled back into life. To listen is to hear that heart beat again in your head; it is to fill that room with warmth and meaning. It is to remember their presence, the softness of their ears, the affection in a lick. You can feel their pools of eyes gazing at you. You know they are running across that field, just out of your view. They are just behind that door, in the other room, down the hall. You nearly hear the thump of their wagging tail on the floor. I used to think of the end of a dog's life only as absence. But it is also a presence, for they, irrevocably, change us. I am half me, half the dogs I've known. And I'd have it no other way. Normyn, a long-eared, short-legged spirit, is woven into Leonhart's music, and I now am pleased to say I know her, too." -Alexandra Horowitz (author of "Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know")

One of the most valuable gifts of travel is to gain the friendship of those you meet from other cultures. For a musician, this is fundamental in widening a net of collaborators and musical inspiration. The recent pandemic shut down the populace's normal travel patterns, disrupting these exchanges. On his new recording, Way Back, guitarist Davy Mooney celebrates the return of international travel and his renewed musical partnership with his collaborators in Brazil. Jazz is a language that is spoken all over the world. Speaking it is a way for Davy Mooney to find a connection in other places and with other people. Traveling back to his second home in Brazil, Mooney has recorded a fantastic album of unique original music on Way Back.

The idea that the creation of an infinite number of melodies is attainable from just 12 tones has always fascinated me. Additionally, I find it intriguing that folk music, the traditional music of the people in a country or region, is strikingly analogous in it's raw melodic content despite developing in relative isolation to one another over hundreds of years. As I composed the music for this album, I had the idea of folk melodies in mind: minimal but not minimalistic - simple but not simplistic - miniature melodic moments; specifically crafted for skilled improvisers to instantly absorb and interpret. Apart from the composed melodic content, this music was fully improvised without frameworks or forms. // The melodies set the tone for group improvisation. "Heaven Above" is the only exception, in which the improvisations occur within a circular form over a predetermined harmonic sequence and tempo. // John, Michael and I have been playing together for several decades resulting in a deep, nearly telepathic, musical connection.

Developing a program of solo piano music is the ultimate challenge for any improvising pianist. Lucian Ban's mesmerizing new recording of solo piano improvisations, Ways of Disappearing, represents a daring addition to the genre and is a powerful and uncompromising statement for his first unaccompanied solo album.

The life of a professional musician typically requires stretching beyond a single genre to insure a healthy career. Pianist David Cook is a jazz pianist and composer of the highest order. He also wears another hat as a musical director in the realms of pop, folk, and blues. Returning to jazz and his incredible quintet is as much a pleasure for him as for his listeners, as heard on his new recording, Loyal Returns. Originally from Ohio, Cook settled in New York City in 1999. His career in music has required him to split his time between his own jazz related projects and being a musical director for big name acts like Taylor Swift and Shayna Steele. Even with all these divergent tasks, Cook remains true to first love: jazz. The rewards of coming home to his own sound world and musical friends is reason enough for David Cook to feel content. His new recording, Loyal Returns, is a whole-hearted tribute to the comradery of music making.

The music of Brazilian guitarist and composer Baden Powell has enchanted listeners for decades. His ability to combine elements of jazz, classical, and Brazilian folkloric music into his own singular genre that was spoken only on his nylon string, acoustic guitar has maintained his quiet legend status throughout the world. // Born in France, but raised in Brazil, bassist/composer Gui Duvignau was drawn to the music of Baden Powell through his Brazilian guitarist friends, who all considered Powell a fundamental figure in the worlds of Brazilian music and acoustic guitar. During his own guitar study, Duvignau asked friends for pointers and they continually referred him to Powell's techniques. Further exploration of Powell's repertoire led the bassist to the revelations provided by the fantastic music of the guitarist. // Years of studying and performing the music of Baden Powell led Duvignau to the idea of developing a recording celebrating the great guitarist. Duvignau's new recording, Baden, uses Powell's beloved songs as a foundation for explorative interpretations and improvisations from Duvignau's fantastic ensemble, along with two highly esteemed guests, Ron Carter and Bill Frisell. // As a well-studied musician, Duvignau was astounded by Powell's classical-honed technique and ability to communicate across genres. The guitarist's music was a breath of fresh air and there was a sense of the spiritual in everything that Powell played, including the many interpretations he made of religious music of Brazil's African-derived religions, like Candombl� and Umbanda. The guitarist was unique as he looked more toward the influences of samba rather than the bossa nova style that was popular at the time. // Duvignau felt that the best way to pay tribute to Powell was to play his music as openly as possible; not try to make a recording that was a Brazilian jazz record. Thus, Duvignau pointed this out to the musicians that he wanted to play with as he knew they could take the music anywhere. He welcomed back two mentors and friends who had appeared on his previous recording, 3, 5, 8, woodwind master Billy Drewes and drummer Jeff Hirshfield. Duvignau also recruited fellow Berklee alum, pianist Lawrence Fields, a great bandmate and consummate professional. // To make the project even more special, Duvignau invited his mentor Ron Carter to participate on a track. The bassist also recruited the great guitarist Bill Frisell to add his brilliant tones to a number of the pieces.

Losing a parent can remind the bereaved of the moments lost and the chapters that remained unfinished in their relationships. Saxophonist and composer Carlos Averhoff, Jr. Knows these feelings all too well. When his father, legendary Cuban saxophonist Carlos Averhoff, passed away, the younger Averhoff had just begun an album that would represent their first collaborative work. Though his father left too soon to complete it, Averhoff, Jr.'s album Together serves as a perfect tribute to his father's career and their mutual respect for each other.

DON't LET GO is a Chamber Music America new jazz works commission (funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation). Structured as a song-cycle, it explores the nuances and complexities of "hope" in the context of current social, political, and environmental realities.

A sixty-year career as a successful professional musician requires flexibility and perseverance. Woodwind master Bill Easley has been able to achieve this feat by being a fantastic musician and putting himself into promising musical situations. He believes the key to his success has been his attraction to diversity in both music and life. On his new recording, Diversitonic, Easley aims to make a personal statement utilizing musical influences that have impacted his life and career.

The practice of pairing music with poetry has a long history. Setting verse to music has become a way to amplify the emotional impact of the writers' words. Argentinean percussionist and composer Minino Garay created a recording, Speaking Tango, that uses poetry to find the essence of the Argentinean tango in contemporary music, something that has been attempted in the genre at least since poet Horacio Ferrer collaborated with Astor Piazzolla.