Although Tim Hagans is rightly thought of as a veteran hard bop player, his adventurous spirit has led to him playing pretty freely on this CD. The programming is quite admirable, with three pianoless trios followed by four quartet numbers (that also include tenor saxophonist Bob Belden) alternating with separate trumpet-bass (“You…

The impressive trumpeter Tim Hagans holds his own with the tenor of Joe Lovano during a sextet session with guitarist John Abercrombie, keyboardist Marc Copland, bassist Scott Lee and drummerBill Stewart that features nine of his originals. The music is essentially advanced hard bop (Lovano and Abercrombie both sound somewhat inspired) and Hagans displays both an attractive tone…

Yeah, All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller is a tribute to the great stride pianist, but in Jason Moran‘s hands, it’s not what one would expect. This album isn’t full of stride piano, but it is full of Fats Waller‘s larger persona as a performer. Waller mixed jokes and comic routines, and did…

Drummer Otis Brown III is a well-known, in-demand sideman and the founding drummer in Joe Lovano‘s Us Five. The Thought of You, his debut as a leader, was co-produced with Derrick Hodge. Pianist Robert Glasper, saxophonist John Ellis, trumpeter Keyon Harrold, and bassist Ben Williams — the only one of these men who was not Brown‘s classmate at the New School for…

With the possible exception of Grover Washington‘s Feels So Good, no other album captured the spirit of jazz in 1975 like Bobby Hutcherson‘s Montara. Recorded in his hometown of L.A., Montara is the very sound of groove jazz coming out of fusion, and Latin jazz’s tough salsa rhythms coming home to roost in something more…

Natural Illusions is one of the rare Bobby Hutcherson dates that finds the vibraphonist flirting with the mainstream and fusion. Hutcherson leads a band that features Ron Carter and George Duvivieralternating on bass, guitarist Gene Bertoncini, pianist Hank Jones, drummer Jack DeJohnette and harpist Gene Bianco. The group plays a selection of standards (“The Folks Who Live on the Hill,” “Sophisticated Lady,”…

Annie Lennox‘s 2014 covers collection, Nostalgia, finds the former Eurythmics vocalist soulfully interpreting various pop, jazz, and R&B standards. In many ways, Nostalgia works as a companion piece to her similarly inventive 2010 album, the holiday-themed Christmas Cornucopia. As with that album, Lennox eschews predictability by picking an unexpected set of songs and producing them with detailed…

The intent behind Jamie Cullum‘s seventh album, Interlude — released in the U.K. in 2014, with a U.S. release in 2015 — is to strongly reconnect the singer/pianist with his jazz roots. Gone are the flirtations with electronics, along with original material: Cullum is playing live with a jazz orchestra, singing standards that are…

A follow-up to trumpeter Donald Byrd’s hit A New Perspective, this LP also features an eight-voice choir conducted by Coleridge Perkinson and arrangements by Duke Pearson and the leader. The vocalists have a larger role than in the earlier date and Byrd’s quintet (with tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine and pianist Herbie Hancock) is augmented by organist Freddie Roach, guitarist Grant Green and…

Robert Glasper’s Black Radio received justifiable critical acclaim for its seamless, accessible, groundbreaking blur of jazz, hip-hop, neo-soul, and rock, and achieved a level of marketplace success that even the artist couldn’t anticipate. By contrast, Black Radio Recovered: The Remix EP goes boldly into more exploratory terrain. Glasper isn’t…