One of my favorite Rush songs is “The Trees.” I love that brief acoustic, Renaissance mannered intro with a full-bodied metal guitar suddenly bursting in

What if early Soft Machine had a serious blues bent and hired an ace guitarist? Slobber Pup. What if Last Exit had swapped Peter Brötzmann for Larry Young? Slobber Pup. What if the Band of Gypsies had been strictly an instrumental outlet for Jimi Hendrix’s burgeoning fusion leanings? Slobber Pup.

Ross Hammond made a record last year that I dug the hell out of. Adored is raw rock-jazz that I found very instinctual because everyone in his band are seasoned jazz cats who cross over to rock for fun.

A fourth LP is in the offing for that avant-Chicago/folk-Brazilian amalgam, the São Paulo Underground. Rob Mazurek (cornet, electronics), Guilherme Granado (keyboards, electronics) and Mauricio Takara (drums, percussion, cavaquinho, electronics) are back

Mike Dillon calls himself an “electronic vibraphonic go go funk punk rock jazz screaming being,” which is 100% accurate, and if that doesn’t get you interested in his music, then GTFO.

Alternately volcanic, fragile, and threatening, but always jagged, Black Host is as inscrutable an ensemble as there is, consisting of five well-established figures of advanced jazz.

The Bay Area guerrilla thrash-jazzers the Splatter Trio were only together for five or six years during the first half of the 90s, but they managed to leave a path of destruction in their wake.

Pat Metheny and John Zorn? What are both musicians famous for?

Forty years after first bursting into the avant-rock scene with his band Heldon, the music of guitarist/composer/philosopher Richard Pinhas remains as intriguing, mysterious and ahead of it time as it did then. And naturally, music that’s so far ahead can sound like something else altogether for the uninitiated.

Patrick Cress’ brainchild Mercury Falls is back again three years after they debuted with a project I previously opined that in their alchemy of jazz and alt-rock, “these guys figured it out right from the start.”