Jean Luc Ponty’s long-awaited comeback album ‘Life Enigma’ was issued two decades ago, reestablishing him as the world’s finest electric violinist.

Lyle Mays’ “Eberhard” serves as a bittersweet coda from a largely unsung brilliant musician who left us – as we learn here – still at the height of his powers.

‘Mortality’ is the music of Tapio Ylinen, the Finnish singer-songwriter, performed by a stellar cast of jazz musicians from Finland.

Even the most forward-thinking musicians dig simply constructed chorales. Ben Goldberg is another one who does, but for ‘Everything Happens To Be.,’ he also digs deeper.

When you listen to any of the dozens of records that Perelman and Matthew Shipp have made over the years, you can understand why this communion deserves a box set kind of celebration. And ‘Procedural Language’ is yet another reason to celebrate.

While America and the rest of the world tries to regain its footing, Dan Rosenboom, Billy Mohler and Anthony Fung have already made a full recovery music-wise. ‘Refraction’ is the sweet sound of renewal.

Matt Mitchell and Kate Gentile’s “for teens,” “spinal thought” and “peripheral drome” are spare conceptions with rich detail filled in on the fly from the assembled collection of improvisation masters.

Smooth jazz is usually dismissed as soporific melodies played by an anonymous instrumentalist with programmed rhythms. None of this is that.

Approaching his 70th birthday, trumpet maestro Natsuki Tamura made the very personal ‘Koki Solo’ with a youthful frivolity that belies his age and signals that he remains in his peak period.

Guitarist extraordinaire Julian Lage’s ‘Squint’ is the record of an established veteran composing, playing and leading on a high plane.