On its debut CD, KNEE DEEP IN THE NORTH SEA, Mercury Prize-nominated combo the Portico Quartet delivers an unusually meditative brand of world music-influenced jazz that matches a minimalist classical music vibe with a pop/jam band-informed compositional sense. Centered on repeated figures played on the hang (a type of steel drum) and soprano saxophonist Jack Wylie’s Wayne Shorter-esque improvisational explorations, Portico Quartet’s music should appeal to fans of Weather Report and the Dave Matthews Band alike.

Regarded as one of Aretha’s best albums off Atlantic Records, Let Me In Your Life reached #1 on Billboard’s Top R&B charts. Teaming up with legendary Atlantic producer Jerry Wexler, the queen of soul delivered her trademark vocal chops. The recording would yield three highly successful singles, “Until You Come Back To Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do),” “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing” and “I’m In Love.” The track, “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing” would win Aretha a GRAMMY® for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.

In 2011, bassist Charlie Haden and pianist Carla Bley led an iteration of the Liberation Music Orchestra in a live concert at the Jazz Middelheim Festival in Antwerp, Belgium. It was partially intended as a warm-up for a forthcoming Liberation Music Orchestra album, a process that had been in the works since 2007. Sadly, Haden died from post-polio syndrome in 2014 before any new LMO tracks could be recorded. Thankfully, Haden, along with his wife, Ruth Cameron Haden, and Bley had discussed his desires for how to finish the album prior to his passing. Furthermore, the 2011 performance, which included two new arrangements earmarked for the planned album, had been recorded for Belgian public radio. All this meant that an album was possible, and in 2015 Bley convened the LMO in a studio to record the new material. Per Haden's request, longtime friend and esteemed bassist Steve Swallow was brought in to play his parts.

Marquise Knox recently released his third album, Here I Am, once again recorded at the legendary Blue Heaven Studios in Salina, Kansas. It features Marquise and his band, with a little help from Wayne Sharp of Michael Burk’s band sitting in on B-3 and piano. Nine originals, and three reverent covers of Marquise’s favorite Muddy Waters tunes.

Manuel Rocheman has always distinguished by an obvious virtuosity and a sense of harmony that make him a refined pianist particularly at ease in the trio. Between 1990 and 2000, the old (unique) student of Martial Solal has signed many albums, all just in trio, with different rhythm sections. One of the most notable presented with bassist George Mraz and drummer Al Foster. Rocheman seems particularly at ease in this configuration where precise speech of his ideas and his scrupulous attention to harmonic pathways, may deploy the urge … To Misterio, the conversation did this time with Mathias Allamane on bass and Matthew Chazarenc on drums, both partners totally in tune with what the jazz virtuosity always justified.