The tenth album from this Toronto based groove duo, Four80East. With an eclectic mix of neo-jazz, Gonna Be Alright serves up a infectious mix of soul, funk and jazz groovers to follow-up their 2022 release Straight Round. Four80East is a Toronto-based electro-jazz duo that’s all about the groove. Drawing from their diverse musical influences, Rob DeBoer and Tony Grace have created a signature sound that combines electronic production with live instrumentation. Four80East has been a mainstay on the contemporary jazz scene for over 20 years.

Unless you frequent Los Angeles clubs like The Baked Potato and La Ve Lee, chances are you haven't heard of keyboardist David Garfield. But you've heard him. Appearing on over a hundred albums, Garfield has worked with artists like trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and guitarist Larry Carlton. He's a co-founder of Los Lobotomys and Karizma, two fusion-based jam bands that have included drummers like Vinnie Colaiuta and Simon Phillips, as well as guitarists Steve Lukather and the perennially-underrated Michael Landau. No recording dates are listed on The State of Things, but Garfield's clearly been working on it for years, given that a third of the tracks feature Carlos Vega—a versatile drummer who appeared on literally hundreds of albums before passing away tragically in 1998. This fusion-centric effort features many of LA's best session players, but in many ways it's as much Landau's disc as it is Garfield's. He pays tribute to Jimi Hendrix on a version of "If Six Was Nine that—as blasphemous as this may sound—might actually be an improvement on the original. While his tone says rock, his lines say jazz as he demonstrates complete facility navigating changes on the swinging version of Miles Davis' "Milestones and a more delicate mainstream take on John Coltrane's "Naima. He exhibits his more textural side on "Me and kicks things into extreme high gear on the greasy funk of "Five Storks and the more overtly rocking "Black Cadillac.

Galliard were in on the ground floor of the British progressive rock movement, releasing their debut album, Strange Pleasure, in 1969 and mixing jazz, rock, folk, and psychedelic influences. The following year, New Dawn pretty much picked up where its predecessor left off, with one key exception. The band had initially featured two wind players, Dave Caswell and John Smith; though Smith was absent from New Dawn, a whole brace of additional horn players had been brought in to augment the sound. This was during the period when the likes of Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears (and their British equivalents) were starting out, and brass-rock was all the rage. That's not to suggest that Galliard were trying to ride the brass-rock gravy train – their work is too skilled and varied for that – but simply that they were right in time for the Zeitgeist.

‘The Irish Revolution’ is the latest album from renowned Irish composer and founding member of Clannad, Pól Brennan.

This charming collection of duets features the bass of Rob Wasserman in a variety of different roles, from supportive to lead to orchestral. With the exception of Stephane Grappelli's violin, Lou Reed's guitar and Rickie Lee Jones' guitar and bells/percussion, every sound on this album is bass and voice, demonstrating that these two musical forces can be everything by themselves.

Galliard is a sextet formed in the summer of 68, and developed a psychedelic type of brass rock, fronted by twin wind players Caswell and Smith and singer Geoff Brown. They recorded two albums on the Deram Nova label (the subsidiary prog label of Decca records) around the turn of the 70's decade, when brass rock was the rage. Their first album Strange Pleasure By Galliard, released in 69, was quite eclectic, ranging from Medieval to Flamenco/Spanish music. For their second album New Dawn, wind player John Smith was gone, but the group adjoined a mega brass section of four player, plus keyboardist Morton.

In 1971, the Jazz Crusaders reinvented themselves for the first time. First they dropped the word "jazz" from their moniker, and secondly they wholeheartedly embraced electric bass and guitars in their mix. Their new "debut" is a wonder of jazz-funk as a natural evolution out of hard bop and soul-jazz. While the wonderful horn interplay between saxophonist Wilton Felder and trombonist Wayne Henderson is still everywhere evident, the badass, beat-driven rhythm section has Joe Sample playing funky Rhodes piano against Chuck Rainey's basslines and an orgy of guitars – led by Larry Carlton's brilliant lead work. These are all anchored by Stix Hooper's never out-of-the-pocket, popping kit work. Certainly other acts had used the same instrumentation, but the sheer sophistication in the Crusaders compositions and charts combined with their dedication to grooved-out accessibility – and Stewart Levine's magnificent production – made them a singular entity even in the up-and-coming jazz-rock fusion scene.

'Charm' is the debut release from Naya Baaz - a groundbreaking new collaboration between two extraordinary musicians, both of whom have achieved a rare level of mastery in demanding musical traditions from opposite sides of the globe. Recent Guggenheim Fellow, Rez Abbasi moved from Karachi to California as a child and has built up a formidable reputation as a guitarist who combines his love of Jazz (evidenced on his last major release, ‘Django-Shift’) with an international array of influences from South Asia and beyond: Josh Feinberg is one of a handful of Western musicians to excel at the challenging legacy of the Hindustani sitar, specializing in the Maihar Gharana style from North India, and also a jazz bass player who studied with Paul Bley and Dave Holland. ‘Josh earnestly understands jazz harmony and chromaticism as well as Indian musical traditions’ says Rez ‘That’s a very rare combination’. Completing the endlessly flexible line-up are Jennifer Vincent’s bespoke five-string cello, opening up possibilities to add both basslines and melodies, and Satoshi Takeishi’s specially augmented drumset.

The music of Norwegian trumpeter/Nu Jazz progenitor, Nils Petter Molvaer, has always been cinematic. Call it music for a non-existent movie or a film of the mind, Molvaer's albums, beginning with the groundbreaking Khmer (ECM, 1997), have always been about aural landscapes evocative of highly personal imagery and plenty of club-ready grooves. Even in performance, the lighting provided by Tord "Prince of Darkness" Knudsen is intended to provoke the imagination rather than focus attention on the musicians. It's no surprise, then, that Molvaer has been recruited to provide music for film. His score for the 2005 French film Edy already saw limited release on Molvaer's Sula imprint the same year. Re-Vision culls four pieces from Edy and, by combining them with music from two other films—the 2007 German film Hoppet and 1999 Norwegian documentary Frozen Heart—and one non-soundtrack piece, fashions a continuous 46-minute suite that stands independently as yet another highly visual piece, incorporating Molvaer's ever-expanding frames of reference. Re-Vision is also Molvaer's first release in years to not primarily feature members of his touring band, but guitarist Eivind Aarset remains a fundamental part of its overall soundscape.

Japan has produced some exceptionally talented jazz drummers and among them is Tatsuya Nakamura, who joins the BBE Music J Jazz Masterclass Series with his album ‘Locus’ from 1984, a session covering several bases, from heavy percussive samba to meditative avant-ambient. This is the album’s first ever reissue, although a track from ‘Locus’, ‘1⁄4 Samba’, was included on J Jazz vol. 3.

At the 1978 Montreux Jazz Festival, a variety of artists (including keyboardist Warren Bernhardt, tenor-saxophonist Michael Brecker, guitarists Steve Khan and Larry Coryell, trumpeter Randy Brecker and vibraphonist Mike Mainieri) recorded a dozen funky selections which were originally released on two Arista LPs. Michael Brecker in particular is in good form. The results are not essential but offer listeners a time capsule of where R&B-oriented fusion was in 1978.

At the 1978 Montreux Jazz Festival, a variety of artists (including keyboardist Warren Bernhardt, tenor-saxophonist Michael Brecker, guitarists Steve Khan and Larry Coryell, trumpeter Randy Brecker and vibraphonist Mike Mainieri) recorded a dozen funky selections which were originally released on two Arista LPs. Michael Brecker in particular is in good form. The results are not essential but offer listeners a time capsule of where R&B-oriented fusion was in 1978.

Being in a room with Sinikka Langeland is like being charmed into a northern forest under a night sky,” wrote Fiona Talkington in Songlines. “Her presence and her voice are magical, but when she plays her kantele you can almost feel nature itself quivering with joy.”

Experience illuminates the path to clarity, and nowhere is this more evident than in No Goodbyes by guitarist John Stein. As his 18th recording and 13th for the renowned Whaling City Sound label, Stein, along with his exceptional trio partners Ed Lucie on bass guitar and Mike Connors on drums, showcases a transcendent musical experience. Building upon their previous collaboration on 2021’s Serendipity, the trio creates an enchanting collection of interactive, conversational, and expressive melodies.