Emile Parisien this year received the prestigious French jazz award Victoires du Jazz as "musician of the year" and in 2012 won the Prix Django Reinhardt . Such accolades are evidence of a supreme talent, now given an international platform by ACT. The saxophonist has appeared on ACT once before, in the Duo Series alongside Vincent Peirani, but his Quartet is a different beast altogether, honed over the course of three albums into a tightly cohesive unit which enables the musicians to tackle the abstract time signatures and swift changes with consummate ease.

This is an interesting title in the wake of the notion that Stefano Battaglia composed most of these pieces and has performed them on earlier recordings – both solo and with various groups – and that Tony Oxley is such a renowned improviser…

The Art Ensemble of Chicago with Fontella Bass was recorded in a Paris studio in 1970. The band had been gigging regularly in the city and this session offered an intimate view of the live material including 'How Strange' which appeared later on Live in Paris. 'How Strange' is part of a suite with 'Ole Jed,' comprising nearly 22 minutes. Bass, an R&B and gospel singer by trade and Lester Bowie's wife at the time, adds a wonderful theatrical and sonic dimension to the Art Ensemble's creative juggernaut. 'How Strange' begins with an African chant by Joseph Jarman and Bass. As the instruments enter in earnest, one can hear traces of 'Round Midnight' waft through the background and then the musical reality play is off an running…

Recorded in a church in 1973, this is one of the great lost albums of '70s free jazz. The label "free," though, is something of a misnomer. There's structure here, just not a classical, rigid, "now it's your turn" thing that binds so much of jazz. Here the structure is supplied by mutual respect and the kind of telepathy that only comes from long sessions and careful study of the rules before you break them. Sure, this stuff is loose, but it stomps, it sways, and, good Lord, it swings. Just the thing to get us into church. As an added note, Charles "Bobo" Shaw is, as always, a revelation.

Stay on it! This is the future! This is the spectral dreaming, the reshaped soundwaves of post-Katrina, post-Osage Avenue, post-Obamacare that we borrow from to do this work, so stay on it.

Pepl’s playing, as restless as it is welcoming, is difficult to pin down. This makes it all the more fascinating. He is the bloodstream of a vast organic landscape, where feelings of fracture share the roads with heavy travelers.

Trumpeter Paul Smoker leads his quartet through six standards in characteristic deconstructive fashion, crushing and compressing harmonies while reinventing the entire nature of the song. You would hardly recognize "You Better Go Now" or "Speak Low" under Smoker's scalpel, but the results are exquisite, if not classic…

The new installment in the ongoing series of New York centered recordings, this time with the stellar roster of Chris Speed, Herb Robertson, John Hébert and Tom Rainey, “Plain” is the new brilliant opus in Simon Nabatov’s singular and rich career. With a background in classical piano, with the immediately recognizable Russian feeling, Nabatov gives here plenty of room to his many musical interests, including his passion for the music of Herbie Nichols, heard in the last track “House Party Starting”. As the pieces go by, you feel the presence of history, the history of jazz and the history of classical music, combined with elements of other musical languages, but mixed and blended in such a way that it is impossible to figure out what comes from where.