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.

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.

Dave Douglas never stops looking for new ways of getting his message out, and ‘Marching Music’ is music with a purpose that also widens Douglas’ already expansive palette.

‘Natural Selection’ is an advancement of bold, rock-oriented ideas drummer Dan Weiss first put forward a couple of years ago and justifies his decision to keep going down this path.

Mat Walerian’s latest Okuden project is his most ambitious yet and when you understand the sweeping, cutting-edge careers of his sidemen, you see an artist whose ambitions matches theirs.

The wicked brews that Crazy Doberman concocts are crazy good; ”Illusory Expansion’ is hard to define but very easy to like.

A meeting of artists who do not impose any rules on themselves is bound to produce music that dares to be dazzling in ways not previously heard, and that’s just what ‘Dust of Light/Ears Drawing Sounds’ by Ivo Perelman and Pascal Marzan delivers.

The real attraction of ‘Hope’ by Ross Hammond and Jay Nair is that it’s not wholly Indian music but rather a direct, innate merging of East and West with a freedom to let the music flow out on its own terms.

A global pandemic hasn’t quelled the creative fire of Ikue Mori, Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura, and their long-distance collaboration ‘Prickly Pear Cactus’ doesn’t sound at all like musicians trying to just ‘make do.’