Illegal Crowns’ new album ‘Unclosing’ is maximal jazz from a band full of advanced composers and prodigious improvisers.

On her latest excursion as a leader, ‘The Glass Hours,’ elite bassist Linda May Han Oh does everything to burnish her reputation as a complete artist.

The Guido Spannocchi Quartet’s ‘Live at Porgy & Bess Vienna’ brings forth the full impact of performance and reciprocity between musicians.

‘Catching Ghosts’ with Majid Bekkas and Hamid Drake is a fine keepsake from Peter Brötzmann’s recent comeback, capturing an old soul taking chances with a fire still in his young heart.

By expanding his band into an orchestra for ‘The Other One,’ Henry Threadgill demonstrated that his deviceful musical ideas are not only scalable, but eminently enduring.

Rickie Lee Jones, Alexis Evans, Shawn Maxwell and others are part of the latest edition of Five for the Road, an occasional look at music that’s been in my car lately.

Richard Davies’ thoughtful and engaging ‘Cosmic Odyssey’ is an example of why we should follow our dreams – literally.

If Kate Gentile is capable of a major statement like ‘b i o m e i.i,’ there’s nothing she’s incapable of.

‘Pipe Dream’ is challenging but satisfying chamber jazz from a quartet that instinctually knows each other, with Lina Allemano relentlessly pushing forward.

‘Blue Room: The 1979 Vara Studio Sessions in Holland’ captures the trumpet icon Chet Baker playing in peak form in this long-lost treasure now finally released by Zev Feldman’s Jazz Detective label.