Michael Bisio and Timothy Hill recently got together to make a delightful, instinctive record that neither could have made with anyone else.

Hal Galper’s ‘Ivory Forest Redux’ easily justifies the decision to polish up these recordings and take them back out of obscurity. Artists well-known and should be better-known all shine on it.

With ‘Aperture,’ Michael Orenstein enters the realm of jazz recording artists as a fully formed talent, one with a fresh, contemporary extension of the piano greats who’ve come before him.

‘Cascadia’ confirms Dmitri Matheny’s rightful place as the heir to the flugelhorn giant and his old mentor, the late great Art Farmer.

The international element is strong on ‘Spirit’ like a lot of jazz albums these days but Zem Audu is long beyond that concept of throwing together different ingredients and has mastered making his stew simmer with sophistication.

They say the third time is the charm, and pianist/composer Florian Hoefner’s third album ‘Luminosity’ has charm, freshness, dynamism and more.

Anthony Branker plays no instruments on his latest record Uppity. Actually, he’s never performed on any of his six releases, so I can’t discuss what a great instrumentalist or vocalist he is. You May Also Like: When Miles Davis Finally Looked Back on ‘Miles and Quincy: Live at Montreux’ RickieRead More

The red headed trumpeter from Chicago, Brad Goode, is a fine technician who mastered the bop language thanks to stints with such heavy hitters as Red Rodney, Dizzy Gillespie, Eddie Harris, Ira Sullivan, Frank Morgan, Curtis Fuller, Jack DeJohnette, and Rosemary Clooney. You May Also Like: Brad Cheeseman – FigurantsRead More