With ‘Letters to George’ by his exciting new combo GEORGE, John Hollenbeck once again takes a somewhat odd assortment of musicians and shaped them into the something truly fresh and compelling.

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.

On ‘Juba Lee,’ Avram Fefer’s Quartet picks right up where 2019’s ‘Testament’ left off, resulting in another excellent entry from the underrated saxophonist, composer and leader.

Mia Garcia and Hailey Niswanger of OHMA made a pure chilled vibe record with ‘Between All Things,’ arguably the best such record of 2022.

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.

Getting it right instead of getting it sooner paid off handsomely for Trevor Dunn and his Trio-Convulsant on ‘Séances.’

The post-rock gem ‘Everywhen We Go’ by Mike Baggetta, mike watt and Jim Keltner is stimulating because everyone brings their considerable talents to bear on these songs.

He departed much too early, but fortunately Donny Hathaway left us with several memorable songs – including this one.

Even now, no one else in jazz compares to Moppa Elliot’s returning Mostly Other People Do the Killing. Audacity with the chops to make it work remains the basic recipe.

Dan Weiss’ innate understanding of tradition picked up from key influences made it possible to move forward in the salient, discriminating way that he did for ‘Dedication.’