Ponguru (sonorous, resonant, deeptoned, gruff) is a unique New Zealand recorded work conceived, composed and performed by ngā taonga pūoro artist Al Fraser and double-bassist Phil Boniface. ​ Phil Boniface and Al Fraser began performing together in 1998 while studying jazz performance at Massey University Conservatorium of Music, now the New Zealand School of Music. Al’s journey with ngā taonga pūoro began in 1999 and he is now one of the leading performers of Māori musical instruments. Phil’s direction as jazz double-bassist and composer lead him abroad. For more than a decade he was based in Canada where he played with many of the finest jazz musicians on the West Coast. With Ponguru, Phil and Al bring together the low voice of the double-bass and the many voices of ngā taonga pūoro in an exploration of timbre, space, melody and dialogue. ​

Sony Classical announces the release of „Thank You For Your Service“ (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) with music by Grammy® Winner and Oscar® nominated composer Thomas Newman (Bridges of Spies, Skyfall, American Beauty, Finding Nemo, The Shawshank Redemption). DreamWorks Pictures’ Thank You for Your Service follows a group of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq who struggle to integrate back into family and civilian life, while living with the memory of a war that threatens to destroy them long after they’ve left the battlefield.

The ‘Morenn’ project is the result of the meeting between Xavier Boderiou, Sylvain Barou and Jacques Pellen around the classical music of the Great Highland Bagpipes. This kind of music is usually played solo. The challenge was to mix bagpipes (Xavier Boderiou), flute (Sylvain Barou) and guitars (Jacques Pellen). his unique project combines these three instruments with a hint of experimental music around a centennial repertoire. The result is surprising, nebulous, vague…Morenn.

Founded in Benin in 1968 by bandleader Mélomé Clément, the band were hugely popular across West Africa throughout the 1970s recording hundreds of tracks and over 50 albums and playing alongside the likes of Fela Kuti during the decade.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY AWESOME MIX VOL. 1 is the collection of songs featured in the film. Music plays a major role in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY as the 1970s songs featured in the film are part of the storyline in a unique way. Explaining how the songs come to play in the story, director James Gunn says, 'One of the main story points in the movie is that Quill has this compilation tape (Awesome Mix #1) that he got from his mother before she died that she made for him. It was of songs that she loved, all songs from the 1970s, and that's the only thing he has left of his mother and that's the only thing he has left of his home on Earth. He uses that as a connection to his past and to the sadness that he feels of having left all that and lost all that.'

The Questions includes interpretations of songs by some of music’s most influential composers including Bob Dylan and Leonard Bernstein. Also included are arrangements of instrumental compositions with Elling’s original lyrics – A Secret in Three Views (adapted from Jaco Pastorius’ Three Views of a Secret), Carla Bley’s Endless Lawns (originally titled Lawns), and Joey Calderazzo’s The Enchantress (originally called The Lonely Swan). The album rounds off with Hoagy Carmichael’s classic Skylark.

“Funkbook a la Turc” project has a musical approach that aims to use Turkish themes and melodies along with the jazz harmonies and the improvisations over the forms of the tunes in the jazz funk style. After the early periods of jazz, especially during the Swing period and later, jazz musicians took popular tunes into their repertoire to play them with their own interpretation. They arranged, reharmonized and improvised over these tunes. Honeysuckle Rose, I Got Rhythm, Bye Bye Blackbird in the Swing era, All The Things You Are, My Old Flame in the Be-bop era, My Foolish Heart, My Funny Valentine in the Cool era and following periods are a few examples of popular tunes that the jazz musicians picked up from the popular music realm. These made part of the whole repertoire called Jazz Standards.

On the eve of the of the 30th anniversary of San Jose Jazz’s annual Summer Fest in 2019, the SJZ Collective, featuring the cream of Silicon Valley jazz musicians, is set to release its debut EP, SJZ Collective Reimagines Monk, on December 14. The EP is a collection of new arrangements of four Thelonious Monk compositions, featuring drummer Wally Schnalle, trumpeter/flugelhorn player John L. Worley, Jr., organist Brian Ho, guitarist Hristo Vitchev, saxophonist Oscar Pangilinan and bassist Saúl Sierra – each an acclaimed bandleader in their own right. The project debuted at the San Jose Jazz Winter Fest 2018, celebrating Monk’s centennial.

Overtones is the debut release from Nett Duo, a new acoustic bass and guitar duo formed by legendary jazz bass virtuoso Charnett Moffett with guitarist Jana Herzen, Motéma Music's founder and President. Out digitally on December 28, this all-original free-form program takes the listener on a highly sensitive improvisational journey with jazz, folk, and classical overtones. Conceived by Moffett as a stress-busting antidote to anxiety, and the hustle and bustle of our times, this is music that relaxes the mind, brings a smile and leads the listener within. A perfect program to re-center for the New Year, Overtones faithfully captures the vibrational nuances of Moffett and Herzen's distinctive string instruments and reveals their considerable musical empathy.