The Swiss pianist and composer Luzia Von Wyl is one of those musicians who is eager to bring their projects to the stage themselves, and she leads her own ensemble, the Luzia Von Wyl Ensemble, all of whose compositions she writes herself. Along with jazz, her passion is contemporary music - and all the realms in between. Besides her own projects she regularly writes music for other musicians and ensembles as well. Luzia regularly gets invited to festivals in Switzerland and abroad: To the Swiss Days Dubai, the Lucerne Festival, the Schaffhauser Jazzfestival, the BeJazz Winterfestival and the Jazzwerkstatt Bern, just to name a few. Born in 1985, Luzia earned her baccalaureate degree in 2004 in Lucerne. She then went on to study piano and composition at the Bern University of the Arts, the Zurich University of the Arts, and the University of Music in Lucerne, completing her studies in 2011 with master's degrees in both piano and composition.

Frank Wingold describes his music as "entangled." Guitarist, composer and professor of jazz guitar in Osnabruck, Germany, he borrows the term from quantum mechanics. "On an artistic level it's a fascinating idea for musicians and artists," he explains. "Two or more particles can act on one another, apparently without communication and become an intertwined system." This principle runs through Frank Wingold's new album, in which he teams up with Robert Landfermann on bass and Jonas Burgwinkel on drums. The trio produces an energetic, lively polyphony in which the three instruments weave and interweave. "Each can be top, middle or bottom of the texture at the same time," says Frank. "It's always changing. That's an idea I like a lot." He is very concerned though not to make the descriptions too academic and off-putting. The listener is treated to an engrossing, highly original, multidimensional sound in this "parallel world of music." In this new album Frank Wingold together with Robert Landfermann and Jonas Burgwinkel bring together their eclectic influences and vast experience from tours, concerts and other musical formations. Their music is high density. The trio develops it's sound on different layers. The arrangements allow contrasting melodies to be played out at the same time. They are a masterpiece of composition and improvisation. Replete with textures and ornaments, the music tears apart the traditional allocation of instrumental roles. It amounts to a very personal, emotional expression of musical ideas.

This album is rooted in the personal. Mike Westbrook's enduring creative partnership with his wife, the singer, lyricist and painter Kate Westbrook is represented by two songs they wrote together. Starcross is a rail station nearby the Westbrook home in Devon, near Plymouth where his creative life began all those years ago. His title track is dedicated to the tenor saxophonist Lou Gare, whose death in 2017 was a particular wrench. Starcross Bridge is an intricately woven network of musical and personal references. Born in High Wycombe in 1936, Mike Westbrook grew up in Torquay and was educated at Kelly College, Tavistock. He formed his first band while studying painting in Plymouth in 1958, moving to London in the early 1960s. He has led and composed for a succession of groups, notably his 1960s Sextet and Concert Band, his Brass Band, formed in the mid 70s, the jazz rock group Solid Gold Cadillac and the Mike Westbrook Orchestra. He has toured extensively throughout Europe, and as far afield as Australia and the Far East, Canada and New York. He has directed performances of his work with big bands in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, France, Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland and Australia. He has broadcast on radio and TV in many countries, and made over 50 albums.

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Susheela Raman's voice, whether solo or in unearthly harmonies, performs it's unique magic drawing the musical world together. With it's bold meddling with tune and tempo, this fresh set of songs threatens not to work but achieves a compelling integrity. Susheela Raman's Ghost Gamelan is a rich new landscape unlike any of her previous work and quite unlike anything else. Born in London to South Indian parents, singer Susheela Raman, alongside producer/guitarist Sam Mills, has released a chain of adventurous albums and is known as an intense, captivating live performer. Spirited encounters with musicians from a wide range of backgrounds has been a hallmark of her work. Now a new ambitious collaboration with Indonesian musicians is bearing fruit. Raman has delivered this extraordinary album, the body of which was recorded in Solo, Indonesia in 2016. The album is a collaboration with Javanese contemporary gamelan composer Gondrong Guanarto and his team of virtuoso gamelan players. Gamelan, for non-initiates, is the music of Bali and Java, played mostly on tuned gongs, which has long inspired smart western music makers from Debussy, Messaien, Philip Glass and Steve Reich to Sonic Youth. Traces of it's shimmering, loopy DNA are over everything from modal jazz to electronic dance music.

Morten Haxholm is ready to release his sixth album. It is an album that once again sees him joining forces with US jazz stars Jonathan Kreisberg (guitar) and Ari Hoenig (trumpet), as he did on his first and second albums Equilibrium and Quintessence of Dust. This time he is also joined by Frederick Menzie (sax) and Nikolaj Hess. Morten Haxholm is an upcoming Danish bass player, but he has already established himself on the Danish and international jazz scene. He graduated in 2013 from the prestigious soloist education at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, and with four albums in his own name and several tours with his own bands in Denmark, he has emerged on the music scene as a new composer and bass player to be reckoned with.

Two years after the release of her latest album - the widely critically acclaimed Imprints - Karin Hammar now releases her new album Circles. Like last time, Hammar works with her group Karin Hammar Fab 4 to help her shape 8 new compositions and an interpretation of Nina Simone's "Four Women" into her own musical landscape. The new compositions draw inspiration from such diverse encounters and places: Brazil, Morrocco, her daughter Ella, fellow musician Hildegunn Öiseth, to name a few. The title track was written in a small compartment backstage at Malmö Arena in Sweden prior to a show with Swedish pop star Orup. The Karin Hammar Fab 4 line up includes some of Sweden's finest jazz players: Niklas Fernqvist on bass, Fredrik Rundqvist on drums and new member, guitarist, Andreas Hourdakis who brings a new form, shape, and level to the group's sound. Karin Hammar is widely seen as one of Sweden's foremost trombone players, with four studio albums as a solo artist and numerous collaborations under her belt since debuting in the nineties. She's been given numerous awards in Sweden, including a prize from the Alice Babs foundation.

Lars Jansson is a jazz pianist, composer, arranger and educator. He was born in 1951, and grew up in Örebro, Sweden, where he was bored by his lessons at the community music school. In his early teens, a relative lent him records with Miles Davis, Ben Webster, and Mose Allison, creating a solid foundation for his musical education. Jansson's career has been in full flourish since 1970, and he has for the main part been focusing on the trio format. Lars Jansson Trio has long been one of the most renowned jazz groups in his native Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia as well. In 1998, he was nominated for the Danish Jazzpar Prize and he became the first jazz professor in Aarhus, Denmark. He was honored in Denmark with a Grammy in 2001 for "Best International Album," with the album Hope. Lars Jansson Trio are now ready to release their new album Just This. Assisted by Thomas Fonnesbæk on bass and Paul Svanberg on drums, Jansson has created a body of work that deals with various themes of life, and pays tribute to some of Jansson's heroes. Fonnesbæk is a well-respected bassist in his own right, playing with the likes of Justin Kauflin and Alex Riel, and Svanberg, who is Jansson's son, is a widely used drummer on the Danish jazz scene. The album, 13 tracks in total, comes by as a beautiful and diverse collection of tunes that display the collective talents of three very gifted and experienced musicians.

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Kem, in ancient Epypt, means the color Black, like the limon of the Nile, the black earth, fertile. An extremely positive word for a color, often seen as negative, or evil . It is in that symbolic earth that (the mystery of) Kem grows new rhythmical aspects whose schemes, dances and improvisations take roots in the Yin and Yang complementarity of rhythmical pulses. For this journey, Stéphane Galland is surrounded by daring and talented young musicians: Sylvain Debaisieux, Bram De Looze, and Federico Stocchi, and one of the most prominent Carnatic Flute players in the world from South India, Ravi Kulur. The album also features Ibrahim Maalouf as a very special guest. With (the mystery of) Kem, Stéphane Galland visits the rhythmical roots where all the musical traditions that he has rubbed together and integrated into his own language converge and explores a specific space that allows the integration of all these concepts without a priori or stylistic limitation. Welcome to the black and mysterious earth of Kem.

"Kristin Korb is a jewel of jewels. The bassist and vocalist commands both of her instruments with panache, engaging them simultaneously with an ease comparable to breathing." (Tyran Grillo, All About Jazz) There are few bassists who can sing and there are even fewer who can do it well. Kristin Korb is one of those artists who make you forget that she is playing the bass when you hear her crystalline voice. Inspired by the days when music was romantic and made you want to dance, Kristin and her trio embody that spirit and carry their audiences along for the ride. Love eventually brought the American bassist and vocalist to Denmark in 2011. On her new release, Kristen Korb explores the Holiday season, performing traditional classics as well as twentieth century new classics

This quintet was gathered by John Heward to open the Guelph Jazz Festival in September 2014. The recording is from a concert given in Montreal several days before the festival opening. The music is free improvisation: no score, just a resolution to make music. It was a special occasion to have Heward and legendary bassist Barre Philips, both at the age of 80 at the time of the recording, at the core of the quintet. They are joined by a stellar group of long-time Heward collaborators: Lori Freedman, Joe McPhee and Dana Reason. The release of this record is sadly a memorial tribute to John Heward (1934–November 2018). Heward, from Montreal, was an internationally recognized percussionist in free jazz as well as a renowned painter and sculptor. He was an influential figure in the development of abstraction and improvisation in both visual art and music.

Born in 1989, Michel Meis belongs to the new generation of Luxembourgish Jazz musicians and regularly proves his versatility and openness through numerous projects. After years of style shaping and sound experiments, Meis' 4tet is about to make its mark on the European jazz scene with a sonic vocabulary that skillfully blends the traditional palette of drums, trombone, piano and double bass with the fresh approach and the broad musical background of open-minded and fearless musicians. The result is an exciting modern jazz where free and experimental improvisations meet well-crafted compositions. Where a rhythm, bursting with energy and vivacity, meets introverted and lyrical melodies. Where conventional jazz elements meet a clever and subtle use of jungle beats and electronic sound effects. Although a true powerhouse drummer, Michel Meis gives enough room for the other instruments to unfold, thus emphasizing the cohesiveness and harmony of the project.