John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner have forever been tied to the ECM roster as leaders and individualists, and initially it was hard to imagine their styles being compatible. As an amplified electric guitarist, Abercrombie's steely, sometime unearthly sound was an uneven puzzle piece alongside the graphic, stoic, classically oriented style of Towner. Yet on Sargasso Sea, there are several instances where they merge together as one, feeling their way through pure improvisations, angular and colorful motifs, or thematic nuances and a certain strata of consciousness that makes a world of common sense. There are selections where they both play acoustic guitars, but it is mostly Abercrombie's hopped up sound through an amp over Towner's bold and beautiful unplugged instrument, tossing in a piano overdubbed on two tracks…

34-year old guitarist, composer, and bandleader Jacob Young hails from Oslo, Norway, making him a natural for Manfred Eicher's ECM label. Young was educated at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York, where he studied under Jim Hall and privately with John Abercrombie. Young's warm, rounded tone indicates a debt to the former while his wide harmonic palette owes to the latter; but his extended melodic vocabulary, gorgeous phrasing, and notions of group interplay are his own. What is immediately startling about Evening Falls is its lyricism; it doesn't sound like a guitarist's date. Young's compositions reflect song, paying careful attention to nuance and dynamic. There is plenty of room for improvisation and group interplay - with veteran drummer Jon Christensen, trumpeter Mathias Eick, bass clarinettist and saxophonist Vidar Johansen, and bassist Mats Eilertsen - around melodic invention…

In the United States, Brazilian trombonist Raul De Souza is best known for his Capitol releases of the late '70s. But his first session as a leader actually came in 1964, when he recorded À Vontade Mesmo for the Brazilian market. The LP wasn't released in the U.S., and it wasn't until the '70s that De Souza provided any American releases. These 1964 performances are excellent. When De Souza (who is listed as Raulzinho) recorded this album, the bossa nova explosion was in full swing - and plenty of musicians (both Brazilian and American) were trying to cash in on bossa nova's popularity. But while À Vontade Mesmo is instrumental Brazilian jazz, the album isn't bossa nova - certainly not in the Stan Getz/Charlie Byrd sense. Bossa nova was a fusion of cool jazz and samba; À Vontade Mesmo, however, has more of a hard bop/samba outlook…

The MPS label scored a coup when they were able to set up a recording date with the Basie orchestra. It took place on October 20th, 1969 at Universal Studios in Chicago. As agreed upon, the band brought along standards from the Basie book, and the Count fulfilled MPS head Hans Georg Brunner-Schwers wish that Basie play longer piano passages than usual; normally Basie limited himself to a short riff here and there. The way Basie and his orchestra played reminded me of a top long distance runner, producer Sonny Lester commented in the liner notes to the album. He went on to say that the bands playing was, disciplined, clean, with such a feel for timing and teamwork that you had the feeling that every band member was guided by the same brain. The best-known names in that particular group were tenor saxophonist Eddie Lockjaw Davis and guitarist Freddie Green, a Basie mainstay over the decades.

This Horace Parlan session is a bit different from most of his albums for Steeplechase. First, he utilizes a drummerless trio with guitarist Doug Raney and bassist Wilbur Little. Second, it was recorded initially via direct-to-disc, which meant no editing was possible and an entire album side had to be recorded in one take without stopping. The short-lived revival of this process produced albums of exquisite sound, but they had to be limited edition due to the limited wear the few disc masters could endure in the manufacturing process. Fortunately, the masters were either in great condition or the session was also taped on reels as well, because the identical six songs (played in the same order) are heard in alternate versions on this expanded CD reissue…

Dean Martin finally got access to conductor/arranger Nelson Riddle for an album project, and the result was an easy swinging collection with appealing horn charts and a series of comfortable readings of recent and vintage standards. Especially notable were the two songs borrowed from My Fair Lady, "On the Street Where You Live" and "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," which Martin and Riddle re-imagined as straight-forward love songs; "You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You" (which Martin would try again in a more contemporary arrangement four years later for one of his biggest hits); and a solo version of "Just in Time," which the singer had recently done with Judy Holliday in the film version of the musical Bells Are Ringing. This Time I'm Swingin'! was a good, confident set by an artist who had figured out how to make competent albums without expending a lot of effort, which was a key to his charm.

Jazz vocalist Helen Humes’ second album on Contemporary Records, “Songs I Like to Sing!” was released in 1961 and is conducted by Marty Paich. Backed by musicians including Art Pepper (sax), Leroy Vinnegar (bass), Shelly Manne (drums), Barney Kessel (guitar) and Andre Previn (piano). This new edition features remastered hi-res audio from the original tapes.

Pianist François Couturier and violinist Dominique Pifarély, major figures in French improvisation, have played together in many projects over the last 30 years, including their duo, which made its recording debut for ECM with the remarkable Poros in 1997. Preludes and Songs, carries the story forward, with its programme including music by both players as well as pieces by Jacques Brel, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and J.J. Johnson. With sensibilities informed by jazz and contemporary composition, Couturier and Pifarély channel the wide-ranging repertoire into compelling, starkly expressive music. Preludes and Songs was recorded in the exceptional acoustics of Reitstadel Neumarkt, in October 2023, and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis' first forays into classical music in the 1980s were celebrated as some kind of unique breakthrough, but that overlooked the fact that Marsalis was classically trained at the Juilliard School, absorbed all kinds of traditions, and has always had aspirations in the classical sphere. Credit Marsalis with broad ambitions when he turns to classical composition, as in his Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio Blood on the Fields (1997), and again here with a Violin Concerto and Fiddle Dance Suite, written for violinist Nicola Benedetti. Both works are impressive, not least in their idiomatic writing for the violin; they flatter Benedetti considerably.

The Best Blue Note Album in the World Ever may boast a silly title, but it's hard to argue with what's on this double-disc sampler. Not all of the label's greatest artists are here, but everything is representative, showing how hard bop like John Coltrane's "Blue Train" and Lee Morgan's "The Sidewinder" coexisted with soul-jazz from Grant Green ("Born to Be Blue"), Jimmy Smith ("Back at the Chickenshack"), and Horace Silver ("Song for My Father"). It is true that US3's "Cantaloop" sounds distinctly out of place here and that the latter-day stuff, no matter how good it is, isn't quite as magical as the classic era, but there's no denying that The Best Blue Note Album in the World Ever provides a lot of bang for the buck. – Stephen Thomas Erlewine ~