On ‘Breaking the Shell,’ Bill Frisell, Andrew Cyrille & Kit Downes get to expand their home base of creatively improvised music using the stately yet otherworldly sounds of the pipe organ.

‘Live in Someplace Nice’ is a welcome addition to the thin catalog of the short-lived endlessly inventive duo of Tim Berne and Bill Frisell.

‘Old Main Chapel’ is a fitting epilogue in the rich, under-heralded output from the gently poignant brilliance of Ron Miles.

Lyle Mays’ “Eberhard” serves as a bittersweet coda from a largely unsung brilliant musician who left us – as we learn here – still at the height of his powers.

Ron Miles’ music is always both relaxed and cerebral, a rare combination of qualities that few can pull off so convincingly. But once again with ‘Rainbow Sign’ he does, and with the ample help of some very special friends.

Sublime simplicity comes from attention to detail, a Bill Frisell hallmark found all over ‘Valentine.’ It’s another fine entry point into his massive discography.

My exposure to ‘Live’ began as a simple exploration of jazz 25 years ago, but I became a Bill Frisell convert because of it.

Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan play with the intent to extract every honeyed drop from these rich melodies, a hallmark of both artists.

Here is S. Victor Aaron’s Best of 2018 list for modern and mainstream jazz releases.

The freewheeling ‘Lebroba’ is a solid entry in Andrew Cyrille’s lengthy catalog, and could be considered a solid entry in the catalogs of Wadada Leo Smith and Bill Frisell, too.