The production quality of the average ECM release would sound great coming from a TDK cassette – on pristine vinyl it sounds as incredible as it does on CD, and in nice, full-size jackets to boot.

The combo of performing expertise and melodic feel might well break the brain of a well-rounded picker, but just as easily speaks to the heart of the non-musician.

Bassist/composer William Parker has music oozing from his soul at all times.

While never shy when it comes to spontaneity, Guidi finds a new kick coming from guest James Brandon Lewis.

The Los Angeleno may draw from tradition, but he doesn’t stick to it – instead he gives his wry tunes an arty spin that far more Sparks than Badfinger, more Bowie than Beatles.

London blends his usual swinging take on Jewish folk melodies with impressions from adventure jazz figures.

With such a solid band with whom to collaborate, Escreet can’t help but bring his triple-A game.

Recorded in Munich in 2004, September Night documents an especially fruitful show.

Nearly fifty years after their supposed heyday, the Hollywood Stars still have plenty left in the tank.

Saxophonist Oded Tzur has gone from strength to strength ever since he moved from studying Indian classical music in Rotterdam to playing jazz in New York.

New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz, too, charts a new path for Shipp, bassist Michael Bisio, and drummer Newman Taylor Baker, as the lines between free improvisation and compositional craft blur.

Saxophonist Ivo Perelman and pianist Matthew Shipp have been making records together for a good quarter of a century. So when it comes time to add to their catalog of duo albums, they fall into it like a long-married couple into their warm, soft bed.

Once freed from his role as the Keith Richards of scuzz rock, Rowland S. Howard was determined to forge a path with his own vision at the forefront.

Recorded live at SMOKE Jazz Club in 2023, Reverence stays the course of McPherson’s career, featuring performances that reveal his fealty to the old school bop sound.

Plenty of guitar bands these days attempt to revive the spirit of the nineties, when six-string noise ran strong and melodies were plentiful. To these ears, however, it seems like that kind of sonic maelstrom is best swirled by those who were there the first time around.

Orchestras fulfills a long-held dream on the part of Frisell.

Stripping her sound down from a quintet to a trio, the Madrid-born/NYC-based composer presents Perpetual Void, the next step in her creative arc.

For Silent, Listening, he goes it alone, planting his own entry in ECM’s long line of classic solo piano records.

Though they were brought together in part due to a shared love of Sun Ships, saxophonist Brent Bagwell and drummer Seth Nanaa adopt the band structure of Interstellar Space, cutting out any middle men that might provide things like chords and a bottom.

The blend of two masterful jazz musicians with a pair of post rock heroes plays to the strengths of both.

Is there another songwriter as prolific as Thomas Anderson?

For her seventh album, saxophonist Melissa Aldana returned to the source of her passion for jazz: the late, great Wayne Shorter.

Time passes, the world turns, and, without fail, songwriter Matthew Edwards (The Music Lovers, the Unfortunates, the Hairdressers) re-emerges from his normal life with new music.

Backed by a strong band, Stephens is almost impossibly solid throughout, his smooth, soulful tone a perfect fit for whatever approach a tune takes.

Though he made his bones as a go-to hired gun in the Australian jazz scene, bassist Sam Anning also spend three years backing up beloved Gunditjamara/Bundjalung singer, songwriter, and Aboriginal activist Archie Roach.

Created during the same sessions as last year’s epic album The Hypnogogue, The Church’s latest LP Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars serves as Book 2 in the saga begun by its predecessor.

The tracks come soaked in electronica touches formerly used as texture, and it’s not the synthwaves from the seventies and eighties, either.

The Argentine saxophonist and composer indeed stays the course set by her 2022 debut Jump, with another set of chordless jazz.

Zombi has always had its feet in two camps: electronic soundtrack music a la Tangerine Dream, Goblin, and, especially, John Carpenter; and seventies progressive rock/fusion, like Camel, FM, and Return to Forever.

Concerned by the state of the world, the saxist brought together old and new tunes, with an ear toward inspiring melodies and arrangements.

The rhythm duo fits right into Perelman’s free improv vision, following him anywhere he chooses to roam.

With a rhythm section from Chile and a pianist from Spain, the beats here don’t reflect the danceable end of Latin America. Instead the trio draws on the Chilean chacarera and the Galician xota to find cultural beats that intersect and evolve.

Elegy For Thelonious is a tribute both to its subject and its creator.

Lage and producer Joe Henry plot a divergent course for the music, worrying less about genre than about melody and how best for the players to bring it to life.

Guitarist/composer Doug MacDonald has somehow never been a household name in the jazz world.

Trumpeter Riley Mulherkar usually plies his trade with the all-acoustic, rhythm-less brass band the Westerlies. For Riley, however, he’s chosen a different route: blending standards and originals with modern production approaches.

One of 2024’s most magnificently, passionately musical releases.

Given access to a makeshift studio in the barracks of an abandoned army base, eclectic experimental composer (and New Amsterdam co-founder) William Brittelle created Alive in the Electric Snow Dream, a hypersonic trip through a fractured but fascinating musical mind.

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Seth Applebaum has fingers in many pies: old fashioned analog instrumentation, up-to-the-minute digital and sampling technology, cross-genre arrangements, an interest in American space history, and an unfettered imagination.

Thirty-four years later, the Jack Rubies – consisting entirely of its original lineup – returns with the difficult third album.

Gilded Sorrow, the sixth Obsessed album, bears all the hallmarks of the stoner doom pioneer.

As he approaches his eightieth year on the planet, John Surman chooses not to look back, but to move ever forward.

On his new album nublues, vibraphonist Joel Ross sets expectations early.

Unlike snooty major labels and high-powered management firms, indie label Drunk Dial encourages its artists to write and record while wasted.

Now based in Milano, Italy, Dave Curran’s joined up with a pair of likeminded natives to form Baratro, an ugly power trio now bearing its first album.

On their latest album Chimera, guitarist Sergio Rios, keyboardist Dan Hastie, bassist Dale Jennings, and drummer Sam Halterman lay it down with the assurance of musicians for whom this music is a part of their very bones.

Surrounding himself with horns, strings, bass, electronics, and vocals, Smith conjures a strange and seductive spell.

Recorded in Paris in 2017, the record follows Perelman’s usual MO: gather his pals in the studio and record whatever happens.

The Interrogator sounds like manna from heaven for a certain type of rock & roll fan – specifically those that prefer their riffs ‘n’ grooves to be accompanied by a barrage of smart, pointed, funny lyrics.

After improvising a set together at ECM’s fiftieth anniversary concert in 2019, the duo decided to continue their working relationship, culminating in Touch of Time – their first album together.