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.

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.

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.’

Preston Frazier’s Best of 2020 Jazz list includes Wayne Escoffery, Gary Husband and Markus Reuter, Nick Finzer and Wolfgang Muthspiel, among others.

Individually and collectively, Tim Berne’s Hardcell trio was amazing and the live souvenir ‘The Cosmos’ confirms that.

‘Streets of Philadelphia’ might ostensibly be about a certain American city, but it speaks more to the boundless talent and imagination of outsider guitarist and composer Nick Millevoi.

Robin Trower, Andrew Green and Brian Charette are part of the latest edition of Five for the Road, an occasional look at music that’s been in my car lately.

Laila Biali joins Ross Boissoneau to discuss career-impacting albums by Joni Mitchell, Bjork and Norma Winstone.

If there was going to be anyone who could figure out how to make a tenor saxophone work with an oud and Persian percussion, that would be Ivo Perelman, with Gordon Grdina and Hamin Honari likewise finding the right roles for their respective instruments alongside a sax for the trio improv date ‘The Purity of Desire.’

Alex Wintz joined Preston Frazier to discuss his new trio album, what Idris Muhammad’s death meant to him and how the pandemic has impacted his plans.