These ain’t traditional Christmas carols, but Mars Williams has started a new tradition in line with a year that has broken all semblance of normalcy.

In thirty-five short minutes, Jaimie Branch said a lot about what she’s offering to the realm of outward-bound jazz. If ‘Fly or Die’ is only her Chapter One, I can hardly wait to hear the rest of this book.

<<< Part Two, Mainstream and Modern Jazz ||| Part 4, Fusion Jazz >>> In continuing with a long-held tradition, I’ve parsed out the jazz that goes avant-garde from the more conventional stuff. You May Also Like: S. Victor Aaron’s Best of 2015 (Part 4 of 4, Fusion Jazz): John McLaughlin,Read More

Josh Berman follows up a debut album that brilliantly collided the very old with the very new, mainly by expanding the harmonic range of his band. Old Idea, which cleverly retrofitted trad jazz with a healthy dose of Bill Dixon, announced to the world that Chicago is big enough forRead More