Ross Boissoneau digs into new seasonal sounds from Gregory Porter, Samara Joy, John Paul McGee, Kings Return and others.

Sometimes you want jazz that makes you think and other times you just want that jazz to party and get down. The Nils Landgren Funk Unit takes care of the latter end of the spectrum with their recent release ‘Funk Is My Religion.’

‘Unstatic’ remains very much in keeping with the style of French rock-jazz drumming extraordinaire Manu Katché, a style that continues to discreetly evolve and stay very much engaging.

Here’s a review of Joe Sample’s last album completed before his September 2014 death, the big band encounter ‘Children of the Sun.’