For his last proper album, unsung guitar hero Sonny Sharrock fully opened up the spigot of his potential. ‘Ask The Ages’ is nothing short of a masterpiece.

With an imaginative mind and worldly experience, fresh and appealing ideas can still be mined within the realm of fusion jazz. Like, for instance, Michael Cain’s ‘Sola.’

With the release of their inspirational first album ‘Abundance’, the soul-funk-rock jam band the Nth Power has been a triumphant musical story so far.

The Will Mason’s Ensemble’s ‘Beams of the Huge Night’ is what the Sun Ra Arkestra might have sounded like had they gone in a rock direction.

The name has changed but the product is basically the same. They didn’t mess with a good thing, so there’s a lot to recommend about ‘Huntertones.’

When I think of the genius of the late, great Allen Toussaint, I think of the masterpiece he made with Lee Dorsey in 1970.

‘Waking Days’ is Jeff Crosby’s best thus far and one of the best singer-songwriter albums you’re likely to come across this year.

Mose Allison’s ‘American Legend, Live In California’ reminds us that we’re lucky to have him because he’s the first and the last of the line.

As a subversive within the musical realm, Aram Bajakian connected with a subversive director and like the film, effectively said much without any words at all.

For ‘Oscalypso’, Erik Friedlander makes the case for cello as a lead jazz instrument the same way his hero Oscar Pettiford once did.