At 82, after nearly seven decades on stages around the world, more than 75 albums, collaborations with jazz royalty and the rare distinction of becoming one of Jamaica’s greatest cultural ambassadors, Monty Alexander has earned every accolade attached to the phrase “living legend.” Yet spend even a few minutes talking with the Grammy-nominated pianist and it quickly becomes clear that he has little interest in celebrating milestones. Instead, he tells stories—about sneaking a

There’s is something exhilarating about hearing a jazz trio discover just how far three musicians can stretch the boundaries of a conversation. On Trio Nuevo, Vol. 3, pianist and composer Dave Bass, bassist Tyler Miles and drummer Steve Helfand move with such instinctive chemistry that even the album’s most stylistically disparate pieces seem to belong to the same adventurous universe. Bass has assembled another wonderfully eclectic repertoire, but what makes this third insta

Jazz has always possessed a remarkable ability to absorb the many musical voices that define America, transforming familiar melodies into something newly expressive without erasing their history. That expansive spirit animates Of the People, an ambitious and beautifully realized collection from the Visions Jazz Ensemble, trumpeter Sam Butler and tenor saxophonist Garrett Fasig, featuring vocalist April Varner. Spanning spirituals, folk songs, country classics, patriotic stand

New Orleans jazz was never meant to sit still. Its magic lives in the push and pull between instruments, the sly musical asides, the sudden bursts of collective energy and the sense that the entire band is having a conversation at once. That spirit comes alive on Down in Honky Tonk Town, the debut by the nine-piece Burgamy-Hancock New Originators, where a deep affection for early Crescent City jazz meets the spontaneity of musicians who clearly enjoy listening and responding

Jazz history is filled with familiar names and celebrated recordings, but some of its most rewarding discoveries live just outside the spotlight. Jimbo Ross has made a specialty of finding those pieces and giving them a new life, and on Beyond the Groove, his third jazz project, he approaches the canon with the restless curiosity of an artist who hears possibility in every phrase. Armed with his five-string electric viola and joined by the longtime ensemble he has developed r

While some jazz albums simply seem destined to ease into the room, Consternation kicks open the door, looks around, and immediately starts rearranging the furniture. The second release from Chicago’s Event Horizon Jazz Quartet is a spirited, stylistically adventurous collection of 13 originals by co-leaders Jim Kaczmarek and Scott Mertens, balancing hard-swinging momentum with atmospheric balladry and enough rhythmic detours to keep the listener guessing – and fully on board

Jazz at its most compelling can sound less like a performance than a private conversation—two musicians finishing each other’s thoughts without ever needing to speak. That intuitive connection is at the heart of Between Friends, the second duo collaboration between Los Angeles pianist Jeff Colella and veteran bassist Putter Smith, a beautifully understated collection that balances classic jazz repertoire with original compositions and leaves ample room for both musicians to e

What if the most profound wisdom in the world arrived without words? That seems to be the question at the heart of Deuter’s What the Elephant Told, an immersive ambient journey inspired by the elephants of Kenya’s Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. The trust is one of Africa’s longstanding wildlife-conservation organizations; its Orphans’ Project rescues, rehabilitates and reintegrates orphaned elephants and other wildlife, and its broader work extends into habitat protection and cons

There are some regrets that refuse to stay buried, rising instead like a late-night confession beneath an open expanse. On “Heartache Sky,” Anitra Carr turns that ache into a slow-burning country-blues meditation, singing to a lost love, the moon and the stars with equal measures of remorse, tenderness and hard-earned honesty. Co-produced and co-written with the extraordinarily imaginative multi-instrumentalist and “sound painter” David Vito Gregoli, the first single and ti

Sylvia Brooks has an uncanny gift for pausing over the seemingly ordinary and discovering something deeper, more meaningful and extraordinary. A museum exhibition, a child dancing onstage, a television drama or a hymn she hears in an unexpected place can suddenly open a powerful conduit for her creativity. Often, she doesn’t immediately understand why a particular moment has touched her. She simply knows that it has, and that feeling becomes a mysterious impulse she needs to

David Arkenstone turns a character theme into something far more universal on “Carry Us Through,” transforming the delicate instrumental “Through the Darkness (Lavender’s Theme)” from his Dungeon Masters Official Soundtrack into a stirring orchestral ballad about friendship, perseverance and the people who help us keep moving when the road gets difficult. Featuring Nashville singer-songwriter Mokita and the Budapest Scoring Orchestra, it has the sweep of a fantasy adventure b

A fantasy adventure can begin with a brass fanfare, a pounding heartbeat, the distant sound of footsteps—or something much quieter: a flute hovering over a few shimmering notes while the listener wonders what might be waiting just beyond the next door. On Dungeon Masters, David Arkenstone understands and embraces all of these possibilities. Across 47 tracks, he creates an expansive sonic realm where heroic orchestral grandeur, Celtic folk intimacy, shadowy electronics, tribal