"ArcoLuz", the first live album after six studio recordings on ENJA, powerfully captures the fire and emotionality of Renaud Garcia-Fons' vibrant concert performance. With the core trio of "Entremundo" including upcoming flamenco star-stringer "Kiko" Ruiz and drummer "Negrito" Trasante of Gipsy Kings-fame, Garcia-Fons delivers seven of his thrilling Spanish-influenced pieces, four of them being brand new. His trio's highly inspired, forceful and expressive performance, caught at Germany's Schloss Elmau in summer 2005, is not only presented on a first-class CD recording but can also be seen on a 85-minute DVD video disc directed by Nicolas Dattilesi. With subtitles in four languages and bonus tracks included, the DVD is further proof for Renaud Garcia-Fons' and his trio's extraordinary musicianship and deep-felt emotions. "He's in a position to unite nations of music lovers"

Guitarist-composer Antonio Forcione has a new album out this month entitled Sketches of Africa. It is his first for five years and reflects inspiration drawn from visits to Africa and collaborations with local musicians. In support of the album he has just completed a four night residency at the Pizza Express in Dean Street, and will also be back there, for a five-night residency from December 7th-11th. The live band features Forcione on nylon and steel string guitars, Adriano Adewale on percussion, Matheus Nova on acoustic bass guitar and Jenny Adejayan on cello. Nova plays world music with a healthy injection of funk, while Adewale produces a grooving mix of hand percussion thuds and rattles together with conventional drum and cymbal sounds.

Rokia Traore has changed direction once again, with dramatic results. In the five years since her last album, Bowmboi, she has toured the US celebrating the life of Billie Holiday, and written a new work - an African response to the life of Mozart - for the maverick director Peter Sellars. Now comes an intriguing, sophisticated and often intimate set that is quite unlike any of the other great music Mali has produced. Many of the songs are built around her subtle and bluesy electric-guitar work, but also make use of the classical western harp and African ngoni, though no longer the balafon. The result is an exquisitely recorded set that manages to sound contemporary but still distinctively African. It's remarkable mostly because of the quality and range of her singing, which can be quietly slinky and personal, rousing, as well as breathy.

Considered by many in the jazz world as the natural heir to the throne of the late great Jaco Pastorius, Cameroon-born bassist and vocalist Richard Bona is so well-known for his incredible work as a studio sideman (Joe Zawinal, Regina Carter, Bob James, etc) and two-year stint as musical director for Harry Belafonte that it's easy to overlook his prodigious solo output since the late '90s. Rather than release a safe greatest hits type collection, Decca had the capital idea to follow his Grammy nominated disc Tiki with a high energy, hour-plus live album that captures a batch of his most compelling, rhythmically overjoyed tracks in the habitat where they best come to life. The unique twist is that while Bona loves being on-stage, he's not a fan of making live recordings. So his deal was telling his board guy not to inform him of which performance he was recording to use for the album.

Beautiful collection of 13 tracks by Tunisian composer Anouar Brahem. The album spotlights Brahem's solo oud pieces, which range from the meditative ("Sadir") to the propulsive ("Ronda"). This solo work is nicely augmented by stellar contributions from violinist Bechir Selmi and percussionist Lassad Hosni; Selmi is featured on the transcendent "Barzakh," while Hosni figures prominently on "Souga" and "Bou Naouara." The three musicians come together for the joyous dance number "Parfum de Gitane." Throughout Barzakh, Brahem and the others forge an appealing mix of Middle Eastern sonorities and jazz phrasing, an intimate sound perfectly suited to the clean and spacious ECM recording style. This is a great title for fans of both international music and jazz.

“Songs of Freedom” is not my title. I borrowed it from Bob Marley, one of the world’s greatest musical figures. This album is a tribute to those musicians who established Pop Culture in the 70’s with their mythic songs. So mythic, that they now belong to everybody on the planet and so global that they are World Music i.e. “music the world listens to”. Yet Music is like a bird: once released, it flies to every sky. The Earth becomes rounder and rounder, inviting cultures to chat and soak up one another. Hence, the freedom to make these songs our own. Still lovingly playing these original melodies with the audacity of new arrangements which celebrate the reign of imagination and fantasy.

First released in 1961, Improvisations features some ahead-of-the-curve jazz-Indian fusion, thanks to Ravi Shankar's collaboration with bassist Gary Peacock and saxophonist Bud Shank. The album also includes Shankar's improvisations on the theme he wrote for the film "Pather Panchali," by Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, as well as the three-part "Raga Rageshri." A visionary recording…

Anyone who loves the crossover collaborations not remain insensitive to Havana Paris Dakar, wedding several cultures and rich musical colors of history. Beautiful World Village label reveals the union of a nomad of Senegalese music, Alune Wade, and a Cuban piano prodigy, Harold Lopez-Nussa time of an album. The duo portrayed the African musical landscape through covers of famous songs like Small Country, the success of Cesaria Evora, Sara Tavares, the standard of chaabi Yarahya, Aminata, salsa made in Dakar, or Independence Cha Cha, a tube of years of independence, composed by Joseph Kabasele.

The trio of Nor Dar comes from Armenia. Right from their first album "Opus of the Lizard" (winner of the Armenian Music Awards 1998) the group showed the desire to give a broader experimental spirit of the legacy of Komitas, the father of Armenian music. The success surely comes from the unquestionable ability of the group's members at the time of using traditional instruments. And combined with the classical education and the general preoccupation with jazz, it led to a more complex musical alloy, which is obviously intended to pass the traditional and classical music of their country to a wider audience, opening new avenues of evolution.

A breathtaking combination of musical traditions celebrated through the experimentation and rigor of a solid Jazz album. Nguyen Le has made career by reinventing "World Jazz" with an authenticity that celebrates the philosophy that music is truly universal - especially in an international context. And he can play! Thrown any musical style, Le carves a lyrical path that rock, Jazz, funk or fusion audiences can admire. Even a precursory spin of this record displays a colorful array of instrumentation, imaginative arrangements, colorful melodies and the kind of synergy and experimentation you might expect from a ambitious Jazz recording.

A supergroup of rock, pop, and world music heavyweights, SuperHeavy feature Rolling Stones icon Mick Jagger and neo-soulster Joss Stone along with guitarist/producer Dave Stewart, reggae artist Damian Marley, and Indian musician/composer A.R. Rahman. Formed around 2009 as a result of Stewart and Jagger's mutual love for Indian orchestral music as well as the music Stewart heard in his adopted home of St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, SuperHeavy began experimenting on tracks backed by Marley's touring rhythm section. In 2011, SuperHeavy released their debut self-titled album, featuring the reggae single "Miracle Worker" and the Rahman-composed cut "Satyameva Jayathe."

During the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912) a broad diffusion of Western music flowed into Japan, first in the form of military band music and. later, Protestant hymns. By 1900, recitals of piano, violin and song were quite popular. Composers like Prokofiev, and performers such as Heifetz, Kreisler and Segovia also encouraged this musical direction, which strongly followed German Romanticism and French Impressionism. The new Western repertoire found a place with the traditional Japanese music, hdgaku, and as the two traditions came in contact, a new and unique form of music emerged. One of the most fascinating developments in Japanese music was the introduction of new instruments in the south of Japan, and their metamorphosis as they migrated north via Kyoto and Tokyo. Several composers on this disc have focused on natural themes, with water being a favourite and obvious choice. The works have been chosen to give a sampling of the diversity of Japanese music, from the beautiful, traditional folk-songs to the complex and challenging multi-movement works, many of which evoke the traditional instruments, namely shakuhachi and koto.

South Korean singer Yeahwon Shin’s ECM debut, “Lua ya” is a gentle album of songs and lullabies, recorded in 2012 in the spacious acoustics of Mechanics Hall, near Boston. It’s a very intuitive set, shaped by “improvising, listening to our childhood memories and letting the music flow”, as Yeahwon says. Shin and pianist Aaron Parks played together just once before the present recording, finding “an instant improvisational connection” which is further explored here. Accordionist Rob Curto shares with Yeahwon an affinity for Brazilian music and has collaborated with her previously (in contexts including her Latin Grammy-nominated album “Yeahwon” on ArtistShare).