Vijay Iyer, Steve Lehman and Tyshawn Sorey come back from seventeen years off to execute with a vengeance on Fieldplay’s ‘Thereupon.’

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

By not limiting himself within a narrow concept and exploiting a multiple of possibilities presented by the larger sextet, Vijay Iyer’s variety of tactics benefit ‘Far From Over,’ making this an insightful window into his wide-ranging capabilities.

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

S. Victor Aaron picks the best of 2014’s modern and mainstream jazz albums, including Keith Jarrett, Brian Blade, Fred Hersch and others.

The future of jazz looks blindingly bright.

‘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.

<<< Part Two, Mainstream and Modern Jazz ||| Part 4, Fusion Jazz >>> In continuing with a long-held tradition, I’ve parsed out the jazz that goes avant-garde from the more conventional stuff. You May Also Like: Jimmy Haslip, jazz bassist: The Albums That Shaped My Career

If you happened to peruse the Half-Year List of Top Albums for 2012 for Modern and Mainstream Jazz before this list and you’ve been keeping up with the latest jazz releases, you might have wondered, “Where’s that new Matthew Shipp?” You May Also Like: No related posts.