Colin Edwin, Jon Durant and Inna Kovtun offer a perfectly hybridized version of music from a great culture while providing help to preserve that culture.

With ‘Fractal Sextet,’ guitarist/composer Stephan Thelen doesn’t necessarily introduce new ideas, but he takes good ideas he already developed and puts them into a new framework. That makes the music that resulted from this sound just as fresh.

On Burnt Belief’s ‘Mutual Isolation,’ the music takes another step forward in the band’s progression with a relative ‘back to basics’ approach. That’s all due to the limitless creativity and musicianship of Colin Edwin and Jon Durant.

There is a display of chops going on with Burnt Belief’s “Ghosts Aquatic.” It’s all there in the guise of subtle sublimity.

S. Victor Aaron picks the best of 2014’s fusion jazz, including Nels Cline Singers, Jaco Pastorius, Elizabeth Shepherd and others.