Currently celebrating an empowering decade as a multi-faceted, wildly creative force in contemporary instrumental music, multiple Global Music and Zone Music Reporter (ZMR) award winner Todd Mosby is a modern master of conceptual albums. From his Will Ackerman and Tom Eaton produced new age oriented “elements” trilogy (starting with Eagle Mountain  in 2016) through the Jeff Weber-helmed Land of Enchantment  (2023), which captured the magic, strength and beauty of New Mexico a

Anyone who heard veteran country great Michael Peterson’s lush, soul-stirring re-imagining of the Hollies’ 1969 classic “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” would have felt it – that it would hit the perfect chord at the right time, offering transcendent hope via a reminder that despite our differences, we are all human and should be loving and compassionate and discover a sense of brotherhood. When I wrote that Peterson “brings his passionate vocal flair to an epic, soaring and

From the time Willa Bassen wrote her first song at 14 and set the course for her life gigging at 17, life’s been a crazy-cool but mostly creatively fulfilling whirlwind for the multi-talented force of musical nature who’s found great success over the years as a composer, songwriter, vocalist, pianist/keyboardist, engineer, producer and studio owner. As co-owner and operator of Studio 900, a beautiful 24-track recording facility located off Union Square in NYC, she hosted sess

When Carl Clements isn’t teaching saxophone and improvisation at Amherst College, the multi-talented artist is traveling the world – U.S. Europe, Asia, Middle East, South and Southeast Asia – soaking up global cultures and sharing his gifts on tenor and soprano sax and exotic flutes, including the bansuri, an ancient side-blown bamboo flute originating from the Indian subcontinent, with roots tracing back over 2,000 years to Indian and Nepali folk tradition. This exotic wind

Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2022, the Van Gelder Studio is the most iconic recording studio in jazz history, giving rise to the “Van Gelder Sound” characterized by warmth, clarity and intimacy that defined the catalogs of Blue Note, Prestige and Impulse! while hosting legendary sessions for John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and countless other legends. While achieving a longtime dream, Dave Stryker’s first immersion into this sacred space, the

Kosovo born vocalist and songwriter Maja Jaku has made exquisitely intimate and charmingly swinging jazzy waves in her native Europe for years, touring with her trio, performing with the Austrian fusion band Attack, performing in musicals and releasing four acclaimed albums. On her intriguingly titled debut American collection Blessed and Bewitched , she shares those magnificent, deeply lived vocal passions and cool soulful strutting with U.S. audience for the first time, art

In addition to establishing himself as one of Southern California’s most versatile and prolific jazz composers and guitarists, Doug MacDonald uses his multi-faceted discography to serve as something of a regional tour guide over the past decade. While his 2021 album Live in Hawaii was the Philly native’s nod to growing up in the Aloha State, he’s otherwise been strumming, swinging, bopping and booming in locales familiar to SoCal jazz fans – including The Coachella Valley Tr

Fans of the dynamic, jazz/soul driven vocal interpreter Michael Moody’s unique phrasing, arrangements and tender intimacy have been waiting seven years – which seems much longer, due to the pandemic – for The Ecstasy of Love , his brilliant, emotionally compelling follow-up to his second standards album It Never Entered My Mind . While his first two projects had traditional jazz lineups featuring piano and drums, the key to the even more intense, vulnerably intimate romance a

Since unleashing his pent up musical passion on his brilliant Brazilian samba/Afro-Cuban jazz debut album Latin Jazz Sessions in 2024, there’s been no stopping composer, arranger and producer Ron Reider, a successful physical scientist who made music on the side whenever he had the chance, waiting for the right opportunity to record with the perfect dream teams of jazz musicians to help him realize his unique, stylistically varied visions. One his third album Compositions in

With their masterful first dual ambient-tribal trance album Activation , veteran instrumental artists, visionary sonic imagineers and innovators Byron Metcalf and Billy Denk invite us to experience something deeply personal and visceral yet transcendent and soul-transformative, creating expansive, richly immersive musical landscapes to facilitate foundational, enduring connections to our authentic inner selves, sparking dreams and imagination that help us explore our inner wo

It’s the best-case scenario every artist dreams of – the opportunity to dedicate themselves to a long-term creative project without a strict deadline, navigating melodic, rhythmic and harmonic challenges and emerging, as the Darren Litzie does with a transcendent album like On My Own Time . With a set of stylish, hipster originals and uniquely haunting, atmospheric, expansively arranged re-imaginings of “Moonlight in Vermont” and “Time of the Season,” the brilliant multi-tale

The opening line of Grammy nominated composer/arranger Dave Slonaker’s liner notes for Shifty Paradigms , his melodically and harmonically imaginative, rhythmically intense and stylistically diverse third album, says it all about his lifelong devotion to the realm: “Since my middle school days, the sound of big band has intrigued me." One of Hollywood’s most in demand arrangers and orchestrators for more than 30 years, his diversity is rooted in complementary passions for Jaz