No artist is pushing harder to expand jazz’s frontiers than Makaya McCraven, and ‘In These Times’ opens up further possibilities of how the music form can progress upward.

Cobbling together something new from things old is not a Jeff Parker invention. But his unique take on this approach makes ‘Suite For Max Brown’ so much more accessible.

There’s a record for every corner of fusion, from minimalism to funk-jazz to jam band, on S. Victor Aaron’s final Best of 2018 list.

Makaya McCraven’s ‘Universal Beings’ is a handmade mishmash of sounds that isn’t alien, but is never completely familiar, either.