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Rising star pianist/composer Noah Haidu’s resplendently expressive “Standards” CD celebrates the 40^th anniversary of the release that launched Keith Jarrett’s great Standards Trio. With bassists Buster Williams and Peter Washington, drummer Lewis Nash and guest saxophonist Steve Wilson, Haidu felt drawn to the format used by Jarrett, DeJohnette and Peacock for their Standards Trio. When Nash joined Haidu and Williams during their 2021 tour, the connection was electric. “When Buster, Lewis and I played for the first time,” says Haidu, “we played a lot of standards and I could feel that there was something special happening that I wanted to document.”

Veteran saxophonist Greg Abate has garnered much critical acclaim from reviewers, radio and the jazz fan, most recently placing #2 on last year’s Downbeat Reader’s Poll. His longtime friendship with bassist Paul Del Nero started back in 1977 in the jazz fusion group Channel One. By the mid ‘80s they were traveling with the Artie Shaw Orchestra before branching out on separate career paths. Over the years they’ve continued their friendship and played together as their schedules permitted in the Rhode Island area. In 2021 they began talking about doing a recording that was well overdue. The resulting disc, “Reunion,” is their first since 1994.

                                        
Also this week, Nova-Scotia based trumpeter Paul Tynan and Bay Area baritone saxophonist Aaron Lington continue their 16 year partnership with “Bicoastal Collective: Chapter Six”;

the Bill O’Connell Quartet with special guest Randy Brecker were recorded in performance in New York for the new release, “Live in Montauk”;

and Idle Hands, the curated collective sextet that includes Donny McCaslin, Behn Gillece, Will Bernard , Art Hirahara, Boris Kozlov and EJ Strickland, unveil their second project, “Get a Grip.”

Chicago guitarist George Freeman has been a part of jazz for nearly a century. Brother of Von and uncle of Chico Freeman, he’s worked with the greats, such as Charlie Parker and Ben Webster. Appearing on his new recording, “The Good Life,” is legendary organist Joey DeFrancesco, going into the studio just a couple of months before his untimely passing. Joey had admired Freeman’s work since he heard him on a Jimmy McGriff album so it’s quite touching that the two were able to collaborate. Also featured on four tracks is bass phenomenon Christian McBride.

There’s an argument to be made that Haitian-American guitarist-composer Frantz Casseus was one of the most overlooked figures in modern classical music. By fusing the European classical tradition with Haitian folk elements, the “father of Haitian classical guitar” developed a distinctive vocabulary on his instrument that was at once full of contrapuntal complexity and teeming with driving rhythm. Those qualities caught the ear of Chicago-based Fareed Haque, a modern guitar virtuoso who has tirelessly explored the realms of jazz, funk, fusion, Latin, world music and classical over the past four decades. He presents the music of the great classical guitarist on his new recording, “Casseus!: The Music of Frantz Casseus Re-imagined.”

Also this week, “Up High, Down Low” is trombonist Alan Ferber’s fifth studio album for his ongoing nonet of 20 years; the Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra delves into music from the Gennett Studios, the setting for some of the most famous early jazz records by Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke and Jelly Roll Morton, with “The Gennett Suite”; and Catalan-American guitarist/composer Oscar Penas returns to his jazz roots on “Chicken or Pasta,” with special guests Mike Stern and Greg Leisz.