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…

Recorded in 1964 immediately after leaving the Miles Davis Quintet, Sam Rivers’ Fuchsia Swing Song is one of the more auspicious debuts the label released in the mid-’60s. Rivers was a seasoned session player (his excellent work on Larry Young’s Into Somethin’ is a case in point) and a…

Madlib received a rare opportunity with unfettered access to the storied Blue Note archives and permission to use them as he wished for a remix/interpretation album released on Blue Note itself. The result, Shades of Blue, is really more of a Yesterdays New Quintet album, but Madlib’s name is…

Joe Lovano’s third album featuring his Us Five quintet, 2012’s Cross Culture, furthers the adventurous collective aesthetic the saxophonist developed on 2009’s Folk Art and 2011’s Bird Songs. Once again working with drummers Francisco Mela and Otis Brown III, pianist James Weidman, and bassist Esperanza Spalding, Lovano also employs…

During Neville’s five decade recording career, he has displayed a chameleon-like ability to perform, collaborate and contribute to a wide range of genres. From the funky soul and R&B cuts with the Neville Brothers to a triple platinum, Grammy winning duet with Linda Ronstadt in 1989, “Don’t Know Much”…

José James has already established himself as a trailblazer for his intoxicating blend of jazz, hip-hop, R&B and electronica from his previous three albums. His 2008 debut The Dreamer and its 2010 follow-up, BlackMagic – both produced by the world-renowned DJ Gilles Peterson – transformed the Minneapolis-born, New York-based…

Happy Frame of Mind finds Horace Parlan breaking away from the soul-inflected hard bop that had become his trademark, moving his music into more adventurous, post-bop territory. Aided by a first-rate quintet — trumpeter Johnny Coles, tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin, guitarist Grant Green, bassist Butch Warren, drummer Billy Higgins…