Rez Abbasi and his potent Invocation band have demonstrated with ‘Unfiltered Universe’ that creativity and originality is more than just ideas and knowledge, it’s about vision.

Always putting spirituality above improvisation, Brian Blade and The Fellowship Band connects to listeners in a way uncommon for jazz musicians, and ‘Body And Shadow’ continues a remarkable consistency of mission and quality spanning two decades.

Marcus Randolph’s debut album ‘Transplant’ is heartfelt but also very loose, and it’s both of those qualities together make it a fun listen.

Tim Kuhl’s new single “The Neon Design” begins tamely and ends a little ferociously.

Jason Stein’s ‘Lucille!’ is another fun-filled jazz history lesson on the connection between Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman.

On ‘Live In Baltimore,’ drummer Jeff Cosgrove doesn’t disrupt Ivo Perelman’s and Matthew Shipp’s simpatico; he enhances it.

DuBois’s desire to blur the lines between creative jazz, chamber music and folk forms is a quest others before him have taken on, but the challenge of putting it all together both coherently and provocatively is where many have fallen short. Not so with ‘Autumn Wind,’ it excels at that.

‘I Called Him Morgan’ is a compelling, up-close documentary chronicling of the self-destructive lifestyle of jazz prodigy Lee Morgan.

For ‘Masonic Lawn,’ Hammond uses Resonator guitars to hold an extemporaneous musical dialogue with Bafus.

After the septet outing ‘Loafer’s Hollow’, Moppa Elliot makes “less is more” the mantra for the trio feature ‘Paint’. Which only goes to show that size really doesn’t matter with Mostly Other People Do The Killing; only gumption does.