Luo Ning was born in a family of music in China and grew up in the multiracial province Xinjiang with much ethnic customs. In the year when Luo Ning was 4 years old, his father discovered Luo Ning’s talents in music and become the piano abecedarian of Luo Ning. That is how Luo Ning started his journey of music.

Michael Arbenz has played countless concerts and tours throughout Europe, North America, South America and Asia. He is also a founding member of the Swiss trio VEIN and has worked with Greg Osby, Glenn Ferris, Dave Liebman, Marc Johnson, Wolfgang Puschnig and Andy Sheppard, among others.

Born in Missouri, pianist and composer Steve Million has made his home in Chicago since 1988, spearheading a multitude of projects including the sextet BakerzMillion, a two piano Thelonious Monk tribute, and Jazz Words, a showcase for his lyrics and arrangements with singer Sarah Marie Young. Perfectly Spaced is the latest vessel for Million’s prolific creativity and introduces a top-flight quartet with old friends Eric Hochberg (bass) and Bob Rummage (drums) alongside violin virtuoso Mark Feldman, a more recent addition to the Chicago scene.

Modern and progressive - the two composers and founders of the Munich Lab Band Felix Ecke and Vincent Eberle know how to make tradition sound anew. With great self-confidence, they mix jazz with elements of classical music and thereby manage to give the protagonists the freedom to develop musically on stage. Sometimes pompous and overwhelming, then again gentle, intimate and inviting to dream - hardly a facet of the music remains untouched in the band's repertoire.

Opsahl is an award winning clarinetist and composer whose last album Kyrkja - with Oddrun Lilja and Ellen Brekken - received international acclaim and was hot-listed by Europe Jazz Network as one of the best jazz albums of 2022. Carl Petter Opsahl is one of the most original and prolific clarinet players coming from Norway. Equally at home in jazz and traditional Norwegian folk music, his art is a unique blend of tradition and innovation, flowing from deep spiritual sources. He has collaborated and recorded with artists such as Wendell Brunious, Tord Gustavsen Jon Christensen, Henry Kaiser, David Lindley, Anders Rogg, Zotora, Jokke & Valentinerne, Åsmund Reistad and Jo Asgeir Lie.

Toronto indie rockers Jane's Party have announced a new EP, previewed today by a cover of Steely Dan's iconic "Dirty Work." The Best of Wild in the Woods Vol. 1 arrives November 6, following the band's recent single "Ships on an Ocean." Having previously only been a live performance series uploaded to the band's YouTube channel starting in the summer of 2021, select highlights from Wild in the Woods will soon be available on your streaming platform of choice.

The Blue Hour is Jack Ramsey’s first solo album, recorded on September 15th and 16th, 2022, at Sage Arts Recording Studio in Arlington, WA. For the recording, Ramsey performed six hours of improvised piano music over the course of two days, resulting in 78 short pieces. The 19 tracks in The Blue Hour were selected from these 78 improvised pieces, and arranged into four “suites:” Evening, Night, Dream, and The Blue Hour - an exploration of the transformative journey of one day into the next, and the eerie and ephemeral beauty found in night and dream.

Last Bolero In Berkeley is a most interesting mid-period LP from Cal Tjader. Released in 1973 on the Fantasy label, it’s a meandering and more spaced-out jazz record than what we’re used to. This is best exemplified by the spacious minimalism of Gary McFarland’s opening track appropriately called Gary’s Theme which gradually builds into an edgy chilled epic.

This is the album that launched Flora Purim's solo career with great promise following her magnificent stint with Chick Corea's first incarnation of Return to Forever. Most of the tracks on this album sound like they would have fit very nicely onto one of RTF's first two LPs, with bandmate Stanley Clarke not only lending support on electric and acoustic bass, but also contributing original compositions and arrangements to the mix. The rest of the supporting cast is not too shabby either, including sax and flute man Joe Henderson, keyboard whiz kid George Duke, guitarist David Amaro, and Purim's other half, percussion legend Airto Moreira.

Although Lalo Schifrin is justifiably praised for his soundtrack work, many jazz purists turn up their noses at his jazz dates, such as his '60s work with Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery. The things that make Schifrin an anathema to the diehards the huge orchestras, the pop and soul riffs, the general air of over the top theatricality are all over 1977's Free Ride, his reunion date with Dizzy Gillespie. (Schifrin had been Gillespie's arranger in the late '50s.) In fact, Free Ride is so painfully dated that it's transformed into cockeyed cool, just the sort of record ironic hipsters should listen to while they're reading the novelizations of '70s cop shows that they bought for a bundle off of eBay.

Expected, this meeting, this dialogue between two important jazz personalities: the double bassist and composer Pierre Boussaguet and the pianist Giovanni Mirabassi, reveals an album full of charm, freshness and life.

Dan Pitt it a guitarist, composer and improviser based in Toronto with focus in improvised music ranging from a multitude of genres such as jazz, folk, rock, pop and contemporary music.

Logan Kane, one of jazz’s most sought-after young bassists and a prominent figure in LA’s thriving creative music scene, is proud to present Floor Plans, his first recording at the helm of an acoustic jazz quintet. Kane’s first full-length, NOPE,SCIENCE (2020), showcased his adventurous writing for nonet, while Planet Mirrors (2021) was electronic, catchy, riotously inventive, with Kane playing all instruments and singing (in the company of several guests). On Floor Plans, Kane is heard mainly on upright bass, the instrument he plays extensively as a sideman with the likes of Steve Lehman, Ari Hoenig, Becca Stevens, Justin Brown, Edward Simon and Joel Ross, to name a few. The music is imposingly dense and ambitious, with rhythmic precision and soaringly complex melodic arcs, every moment of it fired by the extraordinary players in Kane’s band.

Charu Suri is a highly distinguished pianist/composer AND award-winning journalist who is originally from South India. Charu’s latest release is titled ‘RAGS & RAGAS’ and she is literally revolutionizing music. This quite possibly could be the very first album to combine Indian ragas and New Orleans-style jazz. Charu is no stranger to thinking outside the box when it comes to writing original compositions. Charu Suri is a true trailblazer when it comes to composing music as she crosses musical boundaries and bends the musical spectrum on ‘RAGS & RAGAS’!

Raised in the dirt-road town of Wellington, Alabama, Aretta Woodruff found her voice in the Hopewell Baptist church choir at five years old and has not stopped singing since. A force to be reckoned with, she brings her indefatigable spirit and powerhouse vocals to every performance. Aretta's talent and commitment to her art have propelled her into fame within the Birmingham Blues and R&B music scene. Aretta opened for The Queen of the Blues, Denise LaSalle on so many occasions that the two became close family friends.