Finnish pianist Aki Rissanen releases ‘Trio Live’, a live recording as inventive and uplifting as you’ll hear on the European scene today.

While the 1960 live album Ella in Berlin: Mack The Knife will always be the peak of Ella Fitzgerald's solo recording career, this exciting discovery is yet another example of her voice and interpretative drive being pushed to new heights by her audience.

With Release, the highly acclaimed Lisbeth Quartett presents a greatly anticipated album on Intakt Records. After twelve years and five albums, Charlotte Greve, who has just been awarded the German Jazz Prize for “Artist of the Year”, has relied on her intuitive sensibilities to create the new music for Release. The result is an album marked by sensitive interplay – a collection of stunningly subtle and melodically pronounced songs that are both gentle and powerfully fluid. Even if the musicians are across the world in Berlin or New York City, all traveling and working on their respective projects, they seem to meld and blend with ease because of their history together and their knowledge of each other’s instrumental styles. “They have all cultivated the ability to play their instruments gently and cleanly aligning with the style of even sounds and tone they have refined throughout their journeys together. Twelve years is a long time and the span of thousands of moments that they have shared having brought them to where they are today, working as a unit, creating new music in this post-modern era and continuing their legacy as a leading band in the international jazz landscape”, writes Jordannah Elizabeth in the liner notes.

Recorded whilst the band were on tour in 2021, this new live EP features select cuts from the original Grammy-nominated SuperBlue album and demonstrates Kurt’s band really hitting their stride.

For the past several years, former Yellowjackets bassist and prolific producer Jimmy Haslip has enjoyed an ongoing working relationship with the Bremen, Germany-based jazz fusion keyboardist and composer Michael Schmidt (aka MSM Schmidt). While Haslip played on Schmidt’s 2007 album Transit and 2009’s Destination, he ended up co-producing 2012’s Evolution, 2015’s Utopia and 2017’s Life. They take their chemistry to new heights on ARCeology: The Music of MSM Schmidt. This dynamic offering finds Haslip and members of his ARC Trio (keyboardist Scott Kinsey and Hungarian drummer Gergö Borlai) joining forces with the GRAMMY Award-winning John Daversa Big Band on greatly expanded versions of previously recorded Schmidt material, along with two brand new pieces composed by Kinsey and Schmidt. The result is a powerhouse collection of polished, swaggering big band fusion along the lines of the Jaco Pastorius Big Band or The Brecker Brothers’ 2003 collaboration with the WDR Big Band Köln on Some Skunk Funk.

Thelonia, his most intimate work to date. "I had already made the decision for a solo album quite a while before the pandemic," Sebastian Sternal immediately clears up a possible misunderstanding. The fact that the multi-award-winning (WDR Jazz Prize, New German Jazz Prize, etc.) pianist and composer is now presenting his first solo work after almost 20 years of professional career may come as a surprise to some After all, with his large-format Symphonic Society on two albums (both received Jazz Echos, Vol. 2 also the annual prize of the German Record Critics), he has extremely successfully dissolved genre boundaries, among other things, through the combination of jazz octet and string quartet. Sternal then shone in a dynamic trio with the American star bassist Larry Grenadier and Jonas Burgwinkel - for the album Home he received his third Echo in 2018

ChimyTina, the viral vocal-bass duo known for their innovative arrangements of jazz classics, remarkable interplay and creative DIY-approach return with their new full length album Constellations. Made up of New York-based vocalist Martina DaSilva (The Ladybugs) and much sought-after bassist Dan “Chimy” Chmielinski, ChimyTina first captured international attention in 2014 with the release of eye-catching duo performance videos, racking up thousands of views on social media. In 2019, the duo released their critically acclaimed debut A Very ChimyTina Christmas, which was praised by Rolling Stone and the New York Times for their “flexible chops and a gut-level creative connection”.

Flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny celebrates the beauty, terrain, and expansiveness of his adopted home in the Pacific Northwest. With ongoing decades of touring, Matheny recorded his 12th album with a trio of longtime Seattle collaborators - pianist Bill Anschell, bassist Phil Sparks, and drummer Mark Ivester - with saxophonist Charles McNeal joining them from Las Vegas. Performing several inspired classics such as Tadd Dameron's "On a Misty Night," Coltrane's "After the Rain," and Jimmy Webb's "Wichita Lineman" adds depth and clarity to Matheny's six original compositions and "Humble Origins" by Bill Anschell. "Perfect Peaches," a lyrical bossa, "Dark Eyes," a seductive noir ballad, "Evergreen Girl," a soul-jazz shuffle, "Bourdain," a memorial elegy for a great man, "The Lonesome Road," a weary traveler's lament, and "Cascadia," the evocative title track, combine to create an emotionally expressive set that will be familiar to Matheny's many followers across the country.

Dream Dancing documents the trio’s effortless rapport as they explore well-loved standards and a moving Bertoncini original, “For Chet” (an homage to the guitarist’s one-time employer, Chet Baker).
It was Sturm who facilitated the first meeting of Stylianou and Bertoncini, in roughly 2008. “When I first met Gene we played ‘My One and Only Love,’ it was the very next thing after ‘hello,’” the singer recalls. “That moment changed my life. I didn’t yet know about Gene accompanying my vocal heroes like Nancy Wilson, or recording with Wayne Shorter, or playing with Benny Goodman. I just knew I was in the middle of something special. I knew that day I had found a generous master to learn from, a kindred spirit in melody, someone I now call family.”

Heart In Hand, the first collaboration by American multi-instrumentalists Kenny Wollesen and Ned Ferm on Stunt Records, is a deep and soulful journey into genre-bending musical territory through folk-inspired compositions and inventive interludes. Wollesen is heard on drums, percussion, hand-claps, piano and electric vibraphone, while Ferm appears on tenor saxophone, clarintet, flute, violin, percussion, background vocals and Fender Rhodes - in layered arrangements exploring extreme dynamic peaks and valleys as well as nuanced soundscapes and sub-genres that pay tribute to folk and Americana music, paired with a pleasant psychedelic curiosity.

Miss Ella Fitzgerald & Mr Gordon Jenkins Invite You to Listen and Relax is a collection of material recorded by Ella Fitzgerald between 1949 and 1954, all tracks were arranged by Gordon Jenkins. All tracks were previously only available on 78rpm singles. The album was compiled and released by Decca in 1955.

This double recital, recorded on 9 November 1969 at the Berlin Philharmonic, takes place at a very special time in Sarah Vaughan's life. To everyone's astonishment, the small, awkward 45-year-old gave one of the most masterful stage performances of her career that could be captured on tape. In almost two hours she silenced all misgivings by proving how her approach to music remained eminently topical.