On Rosa Passos’ new live recording, Samba Sem Você (Storyville), the celebrated Brazilian singer/guitarist maneuvers the rhythmic currents and fast-paced melodies artfully, her longtime trio synchronized to her pace. By the time she recorded this album—the second set from a gig at Copenhagen Jazzhouse in the summer of 2001—the Bahian artist was two decades out from her debut, Recriação, the record that launched her reputation as one of the foremost interpreters of the Bossa Songbook.

In 2021, saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin was in a car accident that left her with multiple fractures, including a broken jaw. In working through an extensive recovery, Benjamin found the source material for her newest release, Phoenix (Whirlwind). On the album, Benjamin successfully pits resilience against adversity.

A tenured professor at Austria’s KUG, DeRose continues to head the University’s vocal jazz program almost 17 years on, and Graz is her permanent home. From this perch at the center of European culture, she’s crafted eight albums and solidified her global reputation as a top-tier jazz musician.

As its title suggests, Marcus Strickland’s latest release, The Universe’s Wildest Dream, shoulders some weighty themes. The album’s eight compositions, all by the award-winning woodwinds player, take on, in turn, climate change, racism, Earthly existence, other-worldly existence, enlightenment, and the power of music to heal. The medium for these pertinent messages is Black world music—the galvanizing beats and sounds gifted by the African diaspora.

In the mid-1940s, musical polymath Billy Eckstine starred in Rhythm in a Riff, an on-screen musical about a determined, up-and-coming bandleader. Astor Pictures distributed the film, produced for a Black audience, with an all-Black cast. Films like this—important documentation of early jazz—are out there, but they’re hard to find. Most of them have been lost.

In 2018 pianist Fred Hersch invited bassist/singer esperanza spalding to perform with him at the Village Vanguard as part of his annual birthday gig there. Hersch had the foresight to record these stunning sets, and on Jan. 9, Palmetto Records releases Alive at the Village Vanguard, eight tracks that capture the peak moments of the duo’s improvisations during that run.

Much has changed since Harmony, Bill Frisell’s long-awaited debut as a leader on Blue Note in 2019. Not just in the world at large, but in the celebrated guitarist/composer’s interior space. With Four, the third Blue Note release under his own name, Frisell honors several close friends who recently passed. From this place of loss springs a serene work inspired by these deep, lasting bonds.

Despite their resolute popularity, holiday songs—nearly always vocals—don’t fit neatly into any genre. Such stubborn resistance to niche makes tracking the commercial success of any one holiday release tricky and subject to the limitations of the metrics used: Just how do you measure popularity?

Christian McBride never strays too far from his bass, not even when he’s offstage.  Not when he’s producing an international jazz festival, or running an intensive workshop, or broadcasting a radio show. His bass informs just about every aspect of his professional life.  

Singer/songwriter Claudia Acuña had thought about doing a duets album for a long time. The emotional exposure of the pared-down structure intrigued her. The concept behind the musical content excited her. And the first steps toward booking the sessions made her nervous.

Singer-guitarist Allan Harris is one of those performing artists who’s everywhere but flies just beneath the radar. He has about 15 albums to his credit, most of them released through his own label, Love Productions Records. He’s shared the stage with a slew of celebrities like Tony Bennett, Abbey Lincoln, Al Jarreau, Cassandra Wilson, and Wynton Marsalis. He’s fronted formidable ensembles like The Metropole Orchestra, The Berlin Jazz Orchestra, and the JALC Orchestra. And this month he’ll be the fifth male singer ever to compete in the Sarah Vaughan Competition, now in its eleventh edition.

Leader Joshua Redman excels at configuring star-filled constellations. Among the shiniest was his 1994 quartet with pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Brian Blade—though at the time they initially recorded, only Redman was firmly fixed in the public eye. By the time Redman reconvened the group to record 2020’s Round Again for Nonesuch, however, this had changed: All four players had emerged as formidable leaders in their own right. With Long Gone, his fourth Nonesuch release, Redman again taps into the extraordinary synergism this ensemble first manifested almost three decades ago.

On October 1, 1972, four singers—Tim Hauser, Laurel Massé, Janis Siegel and Alan Paul—stepped out officially as The Manhattan Transfer. Their idea was to apply close jazz harmonies to a genre-agnostic repertoire; just about anything could work, as long as it swung. What followed was 29 albums, double-digit Grammy wins and nominations and countless tours, film scores, television shows and big-name collaborations. This month they depart on their final world tour, a five-month journey to introduce their newest album, Fifty .

During the pandemic, Lizz Wright finally had the time to delve more deeply into her love of the culinary arts. With her performing on pause, cooking was another kind of voice for the successful singer-songwriter. And the fulfillment she felt working as a ground-to-table chef at the South Side café that she runs with her wife, arts administrator Monica Haslip, surprised her. Many of the locals knew nothing about her global celebrity as a jazz singer; instead, Wright’s easy relationships with her patrons arose simply from sharing time and space with one other.

This month Samara Joy makes her Verve Records debut with Linger Awhile, joining the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Shirley Horn, and Abbey Lincoln on the label’s distinguished roster of singers. Verve represents other great jazz vocalists, too—Diana Krall, Harry Connick Jr., Seth MacFarlane, Jon Batiste. But as a singer, Samara keeps to tradition more than these popular Verve voices do, favoring fluid scats and subtle phrasings that belie her 22 years.

Bandleader Shabaka Hutching departs from the usual with Afrikan Culture, his solo debut on Impulse! Records. Not that the Barbadian-British tenor player traffics much in the usual.

Bandleader/singer Paul Jost was the last musician to perform at 55 Bar, the beloved West Village jazz haunt that closed in May after more than 100 years of tunes, pints and applause. Three months on, the closure still hurts. Is there a word for mourning the loss of a place?

On the surface of things, it seems counterintuitive that Downbeat critics would name the same musician both Jazz Artist of the Year and Beyond Artist of the Year. Until you learn that the musician in question is Jon Batiste, and suddenly the double billing makes sense.

Last year, Cellar Music Group formed a partnership with the SmallsLIVE Foundation, thus aligning their shared mission of bringing quality jazz to the world. These organizations arose out of two stalwart jazz clubs: Vancouver’s Cellar Jazz Club and NYC’s Smalls/Mezzrow, respectively.

At the core of Origin—Joey Alexander’s Mack Ave debut and his first all-originals album—lies a quadrangle of compositions inspired by the changing seasons.