Punkadelick’s ‘Inflorescence’ is one of Mike Dillon’s most balls-out records, thanks to the backing of seasoned, genre-free vets Brian Haas and Nikki Glaspie.

With ‘Letters to George’ by his exciting new combo GEORGE, John Hollenbeck once again takes a somewhat odd assortment of musicians and shaped them into the something truly fresh and compelling.

No artist is pushing harder to expand jazz’s frontiers than Makaya McCraven, and ‘In These Times’ opens up further possibilities of how the music form can progress upward.

Mia Garcia and Hailey Niswanger of OHMA made a pure chilled vibe record with ‘Between All Things,’ arguably the best such record of 2022.

Getting it right instead of getting it sooner paid off handsomely for Trevor Dunn and his Trio-Convulsant on ‘Séances.’

The post-rock gem ‘Everywhen We Go’ by Mike Baggetta, mike watt and Jim Keltner is stimulating because everyone brings their considerable talents to bear on these songs.

Even now, no one else in jazz compares to Moppa Elliot’s returning Mostly Other People Do the Killing. Audacity with the chops to make it work remains the basic recipe.

Dan Weiss’ innate understanding of tradition picked up from key influences made it possible to move forward in the salient, discriminating way that he did for ‘Dedication.’

Some might quibble over whether this is contemporary, smooth or crossover jazz. It’s actually a hybrid from Everette Harp, Jeff Lorber and Paul Jackson Jr.

Ivo Perelman and Joe Morris are hardly the first saxophone-guitar duo, but they take that combination to its highest possible level with ‘Elliptic Time.’