With inspiration provided by myriad jazz masters and the Los Angeles musicians she surrounds herself with, vibist Lolly Allen creates a warm, swinging, and jubilant set of music on Coming Home. Opening with Horace Silver's "The Hippest Cat in Hollywood," she celebrates the LA jazz scene that developed out of the flourishing Central Ave clubs of the '50s. Surrounding herself with revered veterans of the scene, such as drummer Paul Kreibich and pianist Tom Owens, and young, vital members of the next generation, including pianist Josh Nelson and saxophonist Danny Janklow, Lolly delivers invigorated perspectives of the quintet group dynamic. Classics like Mario Bauza's "Mambo Inn" and Dizzy Gillespie's "Bebop" are paired with Allen's originals, "Little Hummingbird" and the title cut, in a seamless blend of supple ideas and renewed approaches to traditional repertoire.

Reel To Real returns with more top notch live archival music from Bob Mover and Walter Davis Jr. Recorded in Salerno, the recording beautifully captures the short-­lived duo association between two musical legends deserving greater attention.

Trio founded in 2014, Un Poco Loco keeps (re)visiting its personal history of jazz, a history maybe a bit crazy but mainly very liberated. After the eponym Un Poco Loco and Feelin’ Pretty, dedicated to the West Side Story of Leonard Bernstein, Fidel Fourneyron, Sébastien Beliah and Geoffroy Gesser have already asserted a strong musical identity, proving if need be that traditions are not less honored than freedom. The critics haven’t mistaken (with notably a victory at the prestigious contest Jazz Migration) ; the public even less. For this third record, the trio comes back with a new renowned repertory to reinvent, Charlie Parker’s!

Perhaps no other instrument in jazz boasts such a classic and beloved status as the Hammond B3 organ. On stage it sits like a majestic relic from jazz's distant past, a slightly odd Rube Goldberg machine whose spinning speakers produce a saturated, unmistakable sound imbuing every performance with it's own recognizable style. That style has set deep roots in American music including, of course, jazz and blues, but it has also provided undeniable contributions to pop, funk and soul. So it should really be no surprise that organist Pat Bianchi would choose a program of Stevie Wonder's music for his second Savant Records release.

The music you are going to listen to is in the image of Ugo Lemarchand. A tidal bore. It takes you from one end of the work to the other with mixed sensations of power and softness. Voluble, sincere and fair, between vibrant standards and personal compositions, the heart which speaks for Thalia, without being overwhelmed by emotion, Ce22, who reasons like an affirmation, the intriguing One Shot, the notebook describes a long journey including All the steps appear clearly to us from the first listen. As if the doubts of the man with the pen and the saxophone vanish as the notes become anchored. No doubt you will sometimes hear the colors of John Coltrane or Joe Henderson, his first inspirations.

Yotam Silberstein, one of the leading jazz guitarists of his generation, has gained acclaim for a sound rich in bebop and blues as well as musical folklore from South America, North Africa and the Middle East, giving his music an increasingly global thrust.

Following the success of “Groove du Jour”, crowned best album of the year 2019 by the French Academie du Jazz, Yes! Trio makes its return by releasing its third album “Spring Sings”. Bringing together drummer Ali Jackson, whose personal lineage is rooted in an African American family of jazz players from Detroit, spotted by Wynton Marsalis in his teen years; pianist Aaron Goldberg, the son of eminent Boston scientists who graduated from Harvard University; and double bassist Omer Avital, an Israeli musician with Yemenite and Moroccan roots expatriated to New York for his love of bebop, Yes! Trio brings together three musicians who were never expected to meet! United by thirty years of friendship and love of swing, enriched by their differences and their individual experiences, these three contemporary masters, solo leaders in their own right, are bond by a true group spirit which encourages interaction in music at its maximum intensity and subtlety.

This collection compiles, for the first time ever on a single set, all existing studio recordings of Chet Baker singing from 1953 (his earliest vocal recordings) until 1962.
The music on this CD puts Chet Baker on the scene not just as a brilliant trumpeter, but also as a talented singer. These songs were a revelation at the time and won Baker new fame and a new audience, which was less familiar with jazz than with pop music. The reasons are quite clear: Chet's voice is tender and beautiful, and at the same time his phrasing always swings and surprises. Among the contents of this set are the complete original albums Chet Baker Sings and Chet Baker Sings It Could Happen to You, plus all other existing studio vocal sides within that period.

Jazz trumpeter, composer and author Jeremy Pelt has certainly never shied away from themed albums so one might expect something cinematic from the enigmatically-titled 'Soundtrack'. However, as Pelt himself explains, "I've certainly done plenty of concept albums, but in this case there's nothing I'm on a soapbox about. It's been a tough time for all of us, so let's not worry about sending messages for a minute. Here we are, playing some songs and having some fun."

Brian Lynch’s first big band album connects the trumpeter’s lifelong passion for reading with his expansive vision as a composer/arranger. And while the dedications on The Omni-American Book Club: My Journey Through Literature In Music reveal Lynch’s deep interest in African-American literature and social justice, one need not be familiar with authors W.E.B. DuBois, Albert Murray, Ned Sublette, Naomi Klein, Masha Gessen, Isabel Wilkerson, Ralph Ellison, Chinua Achebe, Amiri Baraka and A.B. Spellman to fully enjoy this Afro-Caribbean-fueled, two-disc collection of strikingly fresh, intricately arranged original compositions.

Robert Glasper is a man of many talents. Certainly, he's both an inarguably accomplished jazz pianist and a first-rate composer. But what Glasper does best is pick drummers. With 2007's In My Element, he provided Damion Reid with a platform to record nothing less than the drum performance of the year. For this album, Glasper teams up with Chris Dave, and the results are astonishing. It's a concept album, sort of. The first half features the Trio (Glasper, Dave, and bassist Vicente Archer) on a handful of originals and a take on Thelonius Monk's "Think of One." Throughout, the piano and drums intertwine with a complex integrity that sounds deceptively effortless. Then comes the Experiment: Derrick Hodge replaces Archer with an electric bass; Casey Benjamin adds saxes and vocoder; Bilal and Mos Def drop in for vocal cameos. The Experiment's five tracks differ in texture and depth from the Trio's set, but the adventurousness of the performances and the gorgeous lyricism of Dave's drumming fuse the album's halves into a single musical statement that makes for the year's best jazz album so far.

The first French jazzman to embrace bebop with true enthusiasm was without a doubt alto saxophonist Hubert Fol (1925-1995). He took to the new style when he was barely 20 years old, the moment he heard Charlie Parker on record, and he immediately began practicing. His prowess grew rapidly, and soon he had an opportunity to prove himself.