Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Time was when a jazz trio without a piano or guitar was a rare occurrence. But once Sonny Rollins went chordless at the Vanguard the die was cast and it became an important subset in the list of saxophone-fronted jazz groups. For the last three years, tenor saxophonist Nicole Glover has embraced this format with her regular band featuring colleagues Daniel Duke (bass) and Nic Cacioppo (drums). For her first album with the group, “Strange Lands,” she has attracted the attention of keyboard great George Cables, who appears on four tracks of the recording.

     “Open World” stands as NYC saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown’s most daring project yet: a globe-trotting big band album where no two musicians recorded their parts at the same time. The musicians that make up The Global Big Band represent twenty-three countries captured across thirty separate remote sessions. The disc’s featured soloists include Aturo Sandoval, Melissa Aldana, Randy Brecker, Lionel Loueke, Miguel Zenon, Etienne Charles and Bria Skonberg.

Also this week, “Comes Love: Lost Session 1960” is a previously unreleased recording by vocalist Sheila Jordan which would have been the first album released under her name, preceding “Portrait of Sheila” by two years;

arranger and bandleader Mercer Hassy delivers the second release from his Sapporo, Japan, based orchestra, “Don’t Stop the Carnival”;

     and 20-year-old keyboardist Matthew Whitaker’s third album, “Connections,” serves as a bold declaration of his maturity as a player, composer and bandleader.

     Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Pianist/composer and 2021 Guggenheim Fellow Helen Sung celebrates the work of influential women composers on her latest album, “Quartet+,” crafting new arrangements of tunes by Geri Allen, Carla Bley, Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland and Toshiko Akiyoshi while carrying the tradition forward with her own stunning new works. The album pairs Ms. Sung’s quartet with the strings of the Grammy Award-winning Harlem Quartet in an inventive meld of jazz and classical influences.

Hailed by Downbeat as “a new and important compositional voice,” pianist Victor Gould has earned acclaim as a leader with his three inaugural recordings that established him not only as a fine pianist but a composer of depth and substance, adeptly orchestrating for ensembles with horns and strings in varied compositions. On his fourth outing, “In Our Time,” Gould turns his focus largely to the venerable piano trio format, with bassist Tamir Shmerling and drummer Anwar Marshall. Tenor sax master and fellow Monk Institute alumnus Dayna Stephens also guests on several tunes.

Also this week, pianist Eliane Elias is in duet settings with legendary pianists Chick Corea and Chucho Valdes on “Mirror Mirror”;

the Dave Zinno Unisphere, having bided their time over the last 18 month writing and practicing until the jazz scene reopened, took advantage and managed to piece together the brilliant and beautiful new album, “Fetish”;

      and the Jeff Lorber Fusion, with special guests Bob Mintzer, Hubert Laws, Robben Ford and Paul Jackson, Jr., unveil “Space-Time.”