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.

Michael Hedges did nothing less than bring the acoustic guitar into the New Age realm and completely conquer it within the space of this record.

With fearless players like Jon Irabagon and Joe Fonda at his side, that old school guy Barry Altschul remains on the edge of jazz as much as he ever was.

A masterful meeting of free, kindred souls, White Out + Nels Cline’s ‘Accidental Sky’ was created spontaneously to capture moments impossible to contemplate.