Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony is an album by Yusef Lateef, released through the record label Rhino Atlantic in 1987. The album, which Billboard described as "an atmospheric four-movement classical/jazz composition", was produced by Lateef, recorded, mixed and mastered by Norman Blain, and remastered by Dennis King. Lateef provided all instrumentation that appears on the album. In 1988, Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony earned Lateef the Grammy Award for Best New Age Album despite having no prior association with the genre.

The Bird Of A Thousand Voices by Tigran Hamasyan is a mesmerizing musical journey that showcases the artist's virtuosity and creativity. Released by Believe Digital Gmbh, this album features a fusion of jazz, folk, and classical influences, creating a unique and captivating listening experience.

Nonesuch Records releases pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan’s StandArt—his first album of American standards—on April 29, 2022. StandArt includes songs from the 1920s through the 1950s, by Richard Rodgers, Charlie Parker, Jerome Kern, David Raksin, and others; it also includes a piece Hamasyan improvised with his bandmates—bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Justin Brown—and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, who is featured on two of the album’s tracks. Other special guests include saxophonist and label-mate Joshua Redman on Charlie Parker’s “Big Foot,” as well as saxophonist Mark Turner on Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s “All the Things You Are.” Produced by Hamasyan and recorded last spring in Los Angeles, StandArt is Hamasyan’s first release of American music, having previously only released original compositions and traditional Armenian music.

With Uma Elmo, his fifth album as a leader for ECM, Danish guitarist Jakob Bro presents a new trio featuring Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen and Spanish drummer Jorge Rossy. Astonishingly, given the trio’s musical synergy, the first time these three musicians ever performed together was for the album’s sessions at the Swiss Radio studio in Lugano, with ECM founder Manfred Eicher producing. Uma Elmo reaffirms the observation about Bro’s work by London Jazz News that “there is no hurry to this music, but there is great depth.” Among the album’s highlights is opener “Reconstructing a Dream,” a darkly lyrical reverie.

Quietly stunning jazz with ambient electronic elements. According to the liner notes, every noise on the album was originally produced by either piano or trumpet – from there, they're either left as-is or filtered through a sampler or any number of effects.

”The Timeless Nowhere” consists of 42 tracks distributed across 2 cds. ”Towards Language - Live at Punkt” has previously only been available for streaming and downloads, while the second cd consists of brand new material as well as previously unreleased selections from the past 10 years. That said, while showing many facets of an artist on a seemingly unstoppable quest for for discovery and exploration, there´s also a remarkable unity to these tracks, possibly due to longtime collaborator Jan Bang who features across the board in various roles. ”The Timeless Nowhere” fits well into a lineage of albums like ”Chiaroscuro”, ”Places of Worship” and ”Towards Language”, and serves as a great introduction into Arve´s musical universe, at the same time being an indispensable treasure trove for fans and followers.

SBB is one of the most important Polish bands of the seventies. This band, rightfully listed in the eclectic progressive genre, mainly plays a hybrid of symphonic prog, space/atmospheric prog and fusion.

This third and final Pacific Jazz volume of the Chet Baker Quartet in concert continues with more music from the August 1954 date at the Tiffany Club in Los Angeles (some of which was heard on Vol. 2 in this CD series). Baker is in great form on trumpet throughout this performance, accompanied by pianist Russ Freeman, bassist Carson Smith, and drummer Bob Neel. The group is well-rehearsed and in top form, beginning with a turbocharged run through Charlie Parker's "My Little Suede Shoes." There are some songs previously covered in different versions on the earlier volumes ("Line for Lyons," "My Old Flame," "Carson City Stage," as well as Freeman's "The Wind" and "Russ Job"), but these versions not only measure up to the earlier ones but in several cases improve upon them. Freeman's inventive bop solos are another highlight of this release, especially in up-tempo tracks such as "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart"…

After the heavily distorted bass and doomsday church organ of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's debut album, the exhilarating prog rock of epic proportions on Tarkus, and the violent removal of the sacred aura of classical tunes on Pictures at an Exhibition, Trilogy, ELP's fourth album, features the trio settling down in more crowd-pleasing pastures. Actually, the group was gaining in maturity what they lost in raw energy. Every track on this album has been carefully thought, arranged, and performed to perfection, a process that also included some form of sterilization. Greg Lake's acoustic ballad "From the Beginning" put the group on the charts for a second time. The adaptation of Aaron Copland's "Hoedown" also yielded a crowd-pleaser. Prog rock fans had to satisfy themselves with the three-part "The Endless Enigma" and "Trilogy," both very strong but paced compositions…

Steve Miller has never been averse to taking a stroll through his back pages. The first time he dug into his archive was with 1994's box set - simply titled Steve Miller Band - but the 2019 set Welcome to the Vault is something else entirely: a deep dive into the rarest corners of Miller's catalog. This doesn't mean that The Vault consists entirely of unreleased material. Over the course of the set's three discs, several well-worn standards are hauled out in their original hit single versions, including "Living in the USA," "The Joker," "Fly Like an Eagle," "Take the Money and Run," and "Abracadabra." These tracks are used as guideposts, providing context for the alternate versions and deep cuts surrounding them…

Swedish band Änglagård is part of a whole breed of young progressive rockers who have cut their teeth on King Crimson's Red. Like the other Crimson Swedes, Anekdoten, Änglagård crams angular hooks and start/stop tempos into every moment they can spare. Writing lengthy symphonic pieces, the band sound like many big '70s acts but always play with a very tough sound. Meaty bass and scorched guitar tones duel it out with organ, mellotron, and hyperactive drumming, while folky Swedish singing and flute occasionally break the tension.

Grizzled bluesman Steven Gene Wold's rags-to-riches life story will surely one day end up being adapted for one of those life-affirming musical biopics that so often sweep the boards come awards season. The man now known best as Seasick Steve left home to escape from his abusive stepfather as a young teen, lived as a hobo across Tennessee and Mississippi for the better part of nearly two decades, and was on the fringes of the same scene as Janis Joplin and Joni Mitchell while performing as a session musician in the '60s, before eventually receiving an unlikely commercial breakthrough at the grand old age of 65. It's this eventful back-story that makes the 21 primitive blues offerings on Walkin' Man: The Best of Seasick Steve, his first full-length compilation, so compelling. Indeed, as his whiskey-soaked tones gruffly work their way through songs with such brilliantly old-fashioned titles as "I Started Out with Nothin'…