‘Natural Selection’ is an advancement of bold, rock-oriented ideas drummer Dan Weiss first put forward a couple of years ago and justifies his decision to keep going down this path.

Liberty Ellman’s new PI Recordings release ‘Last Desert’ is some cerebral jazz, yet avoids the clutter of some music that often falls into that category.

Even if the music isn’t so simple, the intricacy on Matt Mitchell’s ‘Phalanx Ambassadors’ makes it so absorbing.

Miles Okazaki constructs songs that go against convention, telling a different, engaging musical story with each piece.

Even with standard formats, Steve Lehman is dragging jazz into the future kicking and screaming. Tough love never sounded that good.

Liberty Ellman takes time off from doing great things for other jazz musicians to do a pretty great thing under his own name.

Working in mysterious ways with his Zooid quintet, Henry Threadgill offers another installment of ingenuity on ‘In For a Penny, In For a Pound.’

‘Mise En Abîme’ would be a stunning achievement for just about anybody else; for Steve Lehman, it’s just his still-evolving musical personality racing out beyond jazz’s frontiers and daring anyone to try and catch up.

Fourteen (March 25, 2014, Pi Recordings) isn’t Dan Weiss’s fourteenth record (it’s his fifth), nor is it the number of tracks on the album, nor does it pertain to the year it’s out (as in “’14”). You May Also Like: Dan Weiss Starebaby – ‘Natural Selection’ (2020) Dan Weiss TrioRead More

(The song in video above is from ElSaffar’s Inana release, not Alchemy.) They say that the cradle of civilization lies in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now modern-day Iraq. You May Also Like: Why Stanton Moore’s ‘Groove Alchemy’ Was His Best TrioRead More