There were two discoveries with ‘Science Friction +size’: When a quartet discovered new possibilities with a trumpeter, and when Tim Berne scraped a shiny disc off the floor.

It’s amazing how the tight musical partnership of Natsuki Tamura and Satoko Fujii is able to embrace just one more musician and build a set of performances that fully represents the talents of all three. With drummer Ramon Lopez, ‘Mantle’ musical democracy at its finest.

A session from 35 years ago featuring contributions by three members of Toto belatedly started my musical journey with the great Chet Atkins.

‘Threads’ is the kind of opening statement that usually takes several tries to nail down, but the Caterpillar Quartet blends a variety of styles to make ostensibly jazz that’s often hard to neatly categorize when you dig deep into these songs.

Preston Frazier’s look back at the Best of 2020 in box sets, live projects and reissues includes Trevor Rabin, Prince, Ian Dury, Greg Lake and others.

Thankfully ESP-Disk made the call to get out to the world Owl Xounds Exploding Galaxy’s ‘The Coalescence,’ a valuable relic from an audacious NYC Downtown band that shouldn’t be forgotten.

‘Anemone’ by the Andrew Barker + Jon Irabagon Duo is sax-and-drums improvisation at its most impulsive and connective.

When Martin Barre remakes the familiar – or even the not-so-familiar – on ’50 Years of Jethro Tull,’ everything old becomes new again.

We already knew that Chris Potter is good, but know we now know that he’s good even he has to do everything by himself.

Giancarlo Romani’s ‘Naif’ has nine original compositions, and they create nine paintings of different emotions, life experiences and ideas.