The Bluiett Baritone Saxophone Group strikes again. Four baritone saxes make for quite a wall of low-register sound, and every quartet member but Bluiett – Patience Higgins, James Carter, and Alex Harding – doubles on bass clarinet. In Carter's case, make that contra-bass clarinet, an instrument that can cause the room to shake. Since the horns have the bass function covered, all that's needed are drums; hence the presence of trapsman Lee Person and percussionist Kahil El'Zabar.

Smooth Jazz Vagina is the first and last album by Abraxasaxophonic. It was the not-so-secret identity of saxophonist Arrington De Dionyso of Old Time Relijun, where he plays distorted sax over a very loud smooth jazz radio station. Songs #1-2 are the original release, songs #3-7 are bonus tracks. This was released on the N.G.W.T.T. ("Nothing Gets Worse Than This") label.

In Memoriam. Sad news as Geri Allen has passed away. RIP Geri Allen. Trio 3 played five evenings together with pianist Geri Allen in the New York jazz club Birdland, paying homage to the jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams. They presented fresh and individualistic interpretations of some of the most beautiful pieces of the "First Lady of Jazz". Intakt has recorded these evenings.

Starlings is the 2006 CD by drummer Billy Martin. Primarily known as one-third of the jazz group Medeski, Martin & Wood, Starlings is an improvisational/avant-garde album similar to what he has done with MMW between songs in a live setting. This was released by Tzadik as part of the label's Composer Series.

Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds is Nicole Mitchell's second album for Chicago-based FPE Records. Recorded in May of 2015 at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, it features her longtime collaborators Renée Baker (violin), Tomeka Reid (cello, banjo), Alex Wing (electric guitar, oud) and Jovia Armstrong (percussion), along with new members Tatsu Aoki (bass, shamisen, taiko) and Kojiro Umezaki (shakuhachi). Also in the mix is Chicago artist, scholar and poet avery r young, who brings the her lyrics to life with visceral humanity. Composer and flutist Nicole Mitchell, once hailed by Chicago Reader music critic Peter Margasak as the greatest living flutist in jazz, continues the work begun when jazz visionary Sun Ra and his Arkestra first touched down on Planet Earth and told humanity that space (outer and inner) is indeed the place.

Methodical design, rough-and-tumble play, and thoughtful exchange are often viewed as mutually exclusive concepts in jazz. Saxophonist Michaël Attias' Nerve Dance, however, obliterates that line of thinking and any potential obstacles that could separate those realms. This is a work that's cultured, contumacious, and conversational in nature. It's principled art unbound.

Every album by John Zorn's Masada seems better than the last, and this one is no exception. By the time of this recording the group was a tightly cohesive unit, performing at an extremely high and satisfying level, with Zorn and Dave Douglas playing comfortably at a blistering pace. The songs are tinged with hints of Eastern European harmony, but the heat generated, while perhaps related to the raucous dancing at a Jewish wedding, is firmly rooted in the ways of avant-garde jazz. Zorn takes some of his best solos on disc, sounding like silly putty on speed, while the more proper Douglas lags only slightly behind. With a recording time nearing 80 minutes, and substantial contributions from the entire quartet, the recording marks not so much a milestone in the life of the group as a symbol of its ability to constantly expand upon itself and draw on its not inconsequential roots, proving again that you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy Jewish-tinged culture.

Maybe Monday is a United States experimental electroacoustic improvisation music ensemble comprising guitarist Fred Frith, koto player Miya Masaoka and saxophonist Larry Ochs. The trio was formed in San Francisco in March 1997 when they performed in a concert at the Great American Music Hall. They have since toured the United States, Canada and Europe, and released three albums between 1999 and 2008. Their music has been described as a "delicate mesh of electric and acoustic, ethnic and urban, tradition and experiment".

The ensemble of the Instant Composers Pool, or ICP, improvises for 45 years now on the highest level. "These guys can swing like madmen and then all of a sudden play the most sensitive ballads" according to trumpetplayer Dave Douglas.This is really an improvisational monster with ten heads!

These 12 full-length CDs document the Vandermark 5 playing at Alchemia, a major nightclub in Kraków, Poland, for a period of five evenings in March 2005. Over the course of well more than 12 hours of music, the quintet solidifies its reputation as one of the most innovative and exciting jazz groups of its time, as magic fills the air every night. It is difficult to imagine a more compelling set of modern jazz. The invigorated Polish audience welcomed the group enthusiastically, and the musicians responded with thrilling performances that summarize the state of the band, which was in peak form, and suggest the directions in which jazz is heading as a creative force…

Resonance Records goes out of its way again to unearth yet another significant chapter in jazz history, and once again, it's one that relatively few fans have ever heard. This performance of Jaco Pastorius' Word of Mouth Big Band was captured during George Wein's Kool Jazz Festival at Avery Fisher Hall. It was broadcast on NPR's Jazz Alive program, but this double disc contains the entire performance, with more than 40 minutes of additional music.

Fred Frith is a world renowned improvisor, composer and multi-instrumentalist wh ohas positioned himself on the contemporary music scene between rock and jazz, improvisation and composition. Experimental saxophonist and bass clarinetist Hans Koch has a similarly superb reputation. In the past few years Hans has dedicated himself to the quieter side of improvisation. Both musicians have extended the possibilities of their instruments and stepped into new territories.

What is the use of limiting one's imagination to what one already knows? This question, posed by the character incarnated by Robin Mercier, is central to the artistic approach of Valentin Ceccaldi and the Grand Orchester du Tricot. Atomic Sputnik is like a kid's dream put into music, a dreamlike journey in which one follows, in parallel, the odyssey in the space of a child and the spatial fantasy of an adult having visibly refused the constraints of the world. Quite a bit of narration strictly speaking, but the interventions of Robin Mercier and André Robillard suggest this duality within this ambitious fresco where clash the naive melodies and the contemporary bursts.

In 1995 most folks were still equating Matthew Shipp with Cecil Taylor because of his occasionally percussive method of improvisation, but Shipp was already in the studio proving them wrong. This solo recording from that period of 14 short- and medium-length pieces (the longest piece here, "Flow of Meaning," is only seven minutes and 14 seconds) shows a very introspective composer and improviser exploring textural as well as tonal worlds, and employing this complex yet haunting, beautiful harmonic framework into play in a sequence of tunes that explicate his methodology better than even the Hat album by The Law of Music.

Cellist Tristan Honsinger started improvising in Montreal more than forty years ago, prior to his decisive move to Europe (where he joined ICP Orchestra)where he’s been at the centre of improvised music activity ever since. So this group represents an oblique sort of homecoming, as well as an introduction to some of this city’s finest players today. Their rapport is obvious, the results a satisfying mixture of musical empathy and creative conflict. Tristan plays with characteristic daring from his reserves of readymade tune fragments and shards of poetry and into the protean unknown that is the foundation for the best group improvising. Josh Zubot and Nicolas Caloia don’t merely follow him there, but provoke him – and each other – in ways that are, by turns, subtle, assertive, and irreverent. A superb encounter.