Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Award-winning vocalist Alexis Cole may be the most talented singer to ever hold a top-secret military clearance. In 2009, the same year she released her first albums, Ms. Cole went to basic training to prepare for her new job as a jazz singer for the U.S. Army. During her seven years in the Army’s Big Band, she transformed into an insightful interpreter of jazz. Since leaving the service in 2016 she has focused fully on her art, including gigs at celebrated venues like the Carlyle, Carnegie Hall, Birdland, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the Blue Note. On her new CD, “Sky Blossom,” Alexis performs swinging big band arrangements written by Scott Arcangel during her time as the vocalist for the West Point Band’s Jazz Knights.

     Composer, arranger and bass player Angel Roman is an innovative Latin jazz artist who prefers not to tread the well-worn path of past masters of the genre as he blends different Afro Latin rhythms, along with jazz, Brazilian, pop, fusion, neo-soul and funk. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Roman currently resides in Austin, and the current iteration of his band Mambo Blue consists of top talent from that area. On the new disc, “Festive Interplay,” Roman fully embraces his talents as an imaginative composer while presenting a program of Latin jazz that is at once very recognizable, but at the same time quite different and unexpected.

 Also this week, saxophonist Dino Govoni unveils his first recording in nearly a decade, “Hiding in Plain Sight”;

 “Moments Inside” is the 14^th album by bassist and composer Ben Allison, featuring a quartet including guitarists Chico Pinheiro and Steve Cardenas and drummer Allan Mednard;

    and the Italian-born, New York City-based guitarist Pasquale Grasso takes on the Ellington songbook with “Pasquale Plays Duke.”

     Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Nicholas Payton realizes a long-cherished dream to record with icons Ron Carter and George Coleman, abetted by his longtime-collaborator Karriem Riggins, on his new album, “Smoke Sessions.” For a young Nicholas Payton, Miles Davis’ 1966 quintet provided a template for what music could—and should—be. Now long established as one of the most renowned musicians and composers on the scene, Payton has convened two members of that quintet, bassist Ron Carter and, as a special guest on two tracks, saxophonist George Coleman, to craft some exemplary sounds of his own.

     Guitarist Randy Napoleon cut his teeth in the clubs of Detroit and throughout the Midwest in the mid-nineties, only realizing after his move to New York how much his musical identity and values were formed by that scene. His years touring and recording with Freddie Cole, Benny Green and the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra only solidified his own position in that rich legacy, and with “Rust Belt Roots,” anchors that position through this celebration of the musical voices who led his way. With two quartets of mentors and long-time colleagues, Napoleon brings together the spirit and tunes of a region, mostly focusing on the music of Wes Montgomery, Grant Green, and Kenny Burrell.

Also this week, guitarist Bruce Forman honors the late Barney Kessel and his Poll Winners trio with “Reunion,” featuring John Clayton and Jeff Hamilton;

vocalist and lyricist Kurt Elling teams up with guitarist Charlie Hunter for his latest project, “SuperBlue”;

       and bassist David Finck returns with an all-new collection of jazz tunes and original compositions on “BASSic Instinct.”