Giant Step Arts continues its Modern Masters and New Horizons series with the second album as a leader by vibraphonist Chien Chien Lu. Built In System (Live from New York) features Lu‘s original music performed by her stellar band with trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, bassist Richie Goods and drummer Allan Mednard. The album is out October 6, 2023.
10 Emerging Jazz Artists To Watch in 2023” – Morgan Enos, Grammy.com
“A soulful modernist on the rise” – Dan Bilawsky, AllAboutJazz.com
Night Birds, available September 29, 2023 on Robalo Music, establishes Serpa and Matos’ gifts as a creative and an expansive duo in a program of contrasting beauty and darkness, with mesmerizing and textural pieces featuring Dov Manski, Sofia Jernberg, Okkyung Lee and João Pereira.
“The duo excels at combining pure sounds- vowels, strings, words, horn, keys, breath and creating soothing, inspiring musical sketches.” – Suzanne Lorge, New York City Jazz Record
“The chemistry and teamwork are close to perfect. Matos’ delicate, lyrical electric guitar, intricate and hypnotic, is the perfect foil for Serpa’s mostly wordless vocals, which are cool, calm and precise.” – Allen Morrison, DownBeat Magazine
release date: 29 September 2023 vie Punkt Editions
«Last Two Inches of Sky», released by Punkt Editions on 23 September, is an ambitious and engaging mixture of sonic painting and art-pop; a new high point in Eivind Aarset and JanBang’s collective output.
release date: 22 September 2023 on Jazzland Recordings
«Ritualised choral chants and skronky electric guitar add textures and lustre, subverting possible expectations of an album whose principal instrument is the humble accordion. It may be called Avant Folk but it’s so much more than that.» – Sid Smith, Prog Magazine
My Heart Speaks, the new album from Brazilian legend Ivan Lins, is out September 15, 2023 via Resonance Records.
The album features Lins – in intense performances of songs he hand-picked – with jazz vocal icons Dianne Reeves and Jane Monheit, rising star singer Tawanda and trumpet great Randy Brecker, along with the 91-member Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra. Lins’s core band on this album features pianist Josh Nelson, guitarist Leo Amuedo and bassist Carlitos Del Puerto.
“In my opinion,” says producer and Resonance founder George Klabin, Lins “is as great a composer of Brazilian music as Tom Jobim. The journey of creation of this masterpiece will remain with me as the most spiritual and loving experience I have had in the field of music production.”
Giant Step Arts launches its Modern Masters and New Horizons series with the first-ever live album as a leader from tenor saxophonist Mark Turner. Live at the Village Vanguard, out September 8, 2023, featured Turner with trumpeter Jason Palmer, bassist Joe Martin and drummer Jonathan Pinson.
“[Mark Turner is] a premier saxophonist, conceptual thinker and bandleader who plays a visionary role on today’s rapidly evolving, ever-expanding jazz scene.” – Ed Enright, DownBeat
“Light of tone and phenomenally agile, the sound of Mark Turner’s tenor saxophone is so beguiling that I’d happily listen to him playing from a book of exercises.” – Dave Gelly, The Guardian
Seven Shades of Violet (Rebiralost), due out September 8, 2023 via Ridgeway Records’ Rising Stars series, features bassist Jeff Denson and drummer Dillon Vado along with a vibrant host of guests
“I was captivated by Michael’s unique musical vision… His musical universe is rich and deep [and his] compositions are extremely detailed, with a great deal of complexity and depth.” – Jeff Denson, producer and founder, Ridgeway Records
The brilliant Grammy winning pianist and composer Kris Davis‘ Diatom Ribbons release the striking new double album Live at the Village Vanguard today, September 1, 2023 via Pyroclastic Records.
The album reunites Davis with her core collaborators from her widely heralded 2019 album Diatom Ribbons – drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, turntablist and electronic musician Val Jeanty and bassist Trevor Dunn – and adds a new voice to the mix with guitarist Julian Lage
“On Diatom Ribbons, [Kris Davis’] skills as a composer, band assembler, system builder and improviser — a musical auteur, basically — come fully into focus.” – Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times
“[Diatom Ribbons] is the most versatile and bracing jazz recording of 2019… [it] successfully combines thrilling vision and a hunger for repeat listenings.” – Will Layman, PopMatters
“Scintillating … mesmerizing… it comes when her ascension in the jazz ecosystem continues to soar.” – John Murph, DownBeat
“Diatom Ribbons is a multi-stylistic, super-eclectic extravaganza, embracing both grooves and free tempo… A cornucopia of delights.” – Andy Hamilton, The Wire
The virtuosic violinist Aline Homzy – hailed by Jean-Luc Ponty as “sensitive and musical…original” – introduces us to her dazzling musical world on her debut album Éclipse with her group Aline’s étoile magique, out today August 25, 2023 via Elastic Recordings.
The album features Homzy with vibraphonist Michael Davidson (Joe Chambers), guitarist Thom Gill (Knower), Dan Fortin (Bernice) on bass, and Marito Marques (Ivan Lins) on drums, with special guests João Frade on accordion and vocalist Felicity Williams. The 11-track recording was ten years in the making and is a debut that showcases Homzy’s brilliant musicianship and compositional point of view with impressive clarity and maturity.
“Homzy makes music that doesn’t push the boundaries of jazz as much as it blithely and cheerfully ignores them. Her compositions unfold with something like dream logic – they’re genuinely weird but always feel like they make sense while you’re listening…. This is an utterly unique album, and a great one.” – Rick Anderson, CD Hotlist.
“Aline Homzy’s virtuosic violin is dazzling… unique and completely entertaining… Her composition is bold and melodic; forceful and power driven.” – Dee Dee McNeil, Musical Memoirs.
“A spectacular debut.” – Jazz Quad
Saxophonist Miguel Zenón and pianist Luis Perdomo’s 2021 album El Arte Del Bolero was, as Morgan Enos wrote in JazzTimes, “Endlessly listenable, emotionally probing, and ECM-level atmospheric…a treasure box you’ll return to again and again.”
Now the two masters are back with the follow-up, simply titled El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 2, slated for digital release August 25, 2023 via Zenon’s Miel Music.
They celebrate the album with concerts:
– Tuesday, August 22 at An Die Musik in Baltimore / – Wednesday, August 23 Solar Myth in Philadelphia / – Thursday, August 24 at Joe’s Pub in NYC
“Endlessly listenable, emotionally probing, and ECM-level atmospheric, El Arte del Bolero is a treasure box you’ll return to again and again.” – Morgan Enos, JazzTimes
