With the inspired assortment of musicians backing bandleader Mike Rivard, Club d’Elf’s ‘You Never Know’ sounds like the go-to world fusion album of 2022.

Giorgi Mikadze tells a lot about himself on his first record as a leader. He is telling us he’s proud of where he’s from and quite honestly, he’s got plenty to be proud of.

Here’s the part of the annual Best of 2017 lists that’s the most fun to pull together.

Philipp Gerschlauer and David Fiuczynski getting together for ‘Mikrojazz: Neue Expressionistische Musik’ took microtonal music to new places, and there’s never a dull moment.

Once you accept the weird, wonderful microtonal world of David Fiuczynski, the universe gets much, much bigger. And better, too.

There are more than a few jazz fusion bassists out there with outstanding dexterity, who’ve mastered every Jaco Pastorius lick and made some fusion record full of endlessly serpentine melodies. You May Also Like: The Chick Corea + Steve Gadd Band – Chinese Butterfly (2018) Fernando Perdomo, Phil Keaggy, TonyRead More

Steve Jenkins may be a bassist, but he’s seemed to have learned a lot from guitarists with which he’s worked, like, say, Vernon Reid and David Fiuczynski, in how to craft music around his chosen instrument and his style of playing it. You May Also Like: Invisible Bird [Scott Amendola,Read More

Amazon.com Widgets When discussing the release his last album Samdhi, saxophone extraordinaire Rudresh Mahanthappa described his music as “a place where Western elements and Indian elements can mingle very easily and very freely and results in something that, hopefully, hadn’t been heard before.” You May Also Like: Rudresh Mahanthappa –Read More

<<< Part Three, Whack Jazz In the final piece of these exhaustive, four-part salutes to the top releases of 2012, the fusion jazz records are surveyed. You May Also Like: Jeff Lorber: The Albums That Shaped My Career Jeff Lorber Fusion – ‘The Drop’ (2023) Jeff Lorber Fusion – ImpactRead More