DePaul University Jazz Ensemble (2011 Iowa City Jazz Festival) Directed by Bob Lark, the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble is considered one of the finest collegiate jazz bands in the country. They have appeared at the International Association for Jazz Education Conference, the Duke Ellington International Conference, the National Association of Music Merchants Conference, the Jazz Party at Sea aboard the S.S. Norwegian Sun, twice aboard the Queen Elizabeth II ocean liner for their Annual Floating Jazz Festival, and a concert tour of Italy.

An annual recording project by the Jazz Ensemble featuring student, faculty, and commissioned works occurs each spring. These recordings have produced a number of awards from the Jazz Educator’s Journal, DownBeat and JazzTimes magazines. The Jazz Ensemble has recorded a number of CD’s with legendary jazz artists, including Phil Woods, Clark Terry, Bob Brookmeyer, Jim McNeely, Tom Harrell, Louie Bellson, Frank Wess, and Bobby Shew.

Jazz Times called it right when the magazine declared Hammond B-3 master Tony Monaco “smokes,” wielding his instrument with “exuberance, skillful dynamics and galvanic solo construction…Monaco has plenty of soul.” Downbeat magazine agreed, saying that Monaco’s music “burns with intensity and passion.” Now, the Columbus, Ohio-based organ virtuoso releases his most personal collection of grooves yet with the double-disc set, “Celebration.” One of the CDs is a ‘best of’ compilation from previous releases. The other features an hour-plus set of Monaco originals. Monaco’s tunes are steeped in the classic B-3 verities that he learned first- hand from mentor Jimmy Smith, even as he pushes forward with his own technical flair and musical fire. Singer/saxophonist Curtis Stigers’ new CD — “Let’s Go Out Tonight” — is a departure from his previous projects, sidestepping the Great American Songbook completely. Rather, it includes a vibrant cross-section of pop, folk, country and soul tunes from songwriters ranging from Bob Dylan, Eddie Floyd and Richard Thompson to Jeff Tweedy, Steve Earle and Clyde Otis. Stigers describes the new project as, “probably the most autobiographical album I’ve ever made. It hits so many places I’ve been and things I’ve gone through and am currently going through. They’re songs I’ve had in my back pocket for years and have always wanted to record.”

Curtis Mayfield ranks among the most important and influential artists of the past century, the definition of soul both as the leader of the Impressions and as a solo artist. Jazz musicians have long found much in his words and melodies to inspire new interpretations. “Impressions of Curtis Mayfield” is a new collection of a dozen re-imaginings of some of the late soul man’s most potent compositions, recorded by a collective of jazz aces calling themselves the Jazz Soul Seven: Terry Lyne Carrington on drums, Russ Ferrante on piano, Phil Upchurch on guitar, Wallace Roney on trumpet, Ernie Watts on sax, Robert Hurst on bass and the late Master Henry Gibson on percussion. Even without vocals, these new takes on the Mayfield canon express vividly the beauty and honesty inherent in his work.

The past decade has represented particularly extraordinary artistic growth for vibraphonist Joe Locke. Beginning in 2001 and his collaboration with pianist Geoffrey Keezer, and moving forward with projects under his own leadership, his deep understanding of the jazz tradition, married with a profound modernism, has established him as one of the most imaginative, lyrical and emotionally arresting leader/composer in today’s jazz scene. “Signing” is his newest project with Keezer and finds the group, with bassist Mike Pope and drummer Terreon Gully, more mature, both individually and collectively, without losing any of the incendiary chemistry that defined its debut.

Drummer Billy Hart’s rich history includes stints with Wes Montgomery, Jimmy Smith, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and many others. The quartet heard on his new CD — “All Our Reasons” — was formed in 2003, and was originally billed as the Ethan Iverson/Mark Turner Quartet. When Hart asked if it could be his band for a gig in his hometown of Monclair, New Jersey, the other members unanimously voted to give it to him permanently. As the Billy Hart Quartet, the four musicians, including bassist Ben Street, have continued to play a number of dates each year, often at New York’s Village Vanguard. In 2005, the group recorded a well-received debut album. Since then, as Iverson notes, the music has become more free and spacious.

Saxophonist Yosvany Terry burst onto the jazz and contemporary music scene in New York in 1999, where he “helped to redefine Latin jazz as a complex new idiom,” according to the New York Times. Born in Cuba, the musician/composer/educator incorporates American jazz traditions with his own Afro-Cuban roots to produce performances and compositions that flow from the rhythmic and hard-driving avant-garde to sweet-sounding lyricism. His resume includes work with Eddie Palmieri, Roy Hargrove, Chucho Valdes, Paquito D’Rivera” — Dave Douglas and Joe Lovano. On his second disc as a leader — “Today’s Opinion, he makes a persuasive case for what jazz should be. With his stellar longtime musical partners and special guest pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Terry proposes a sonic world of Afro-Cuban polyrhythms and sophisticated contemporary angles.

“The pianist Brad Mehldau has led this iteration of his pace-setting trio-with the bassist Larry Grenadier and the drummer Jeff Ballard– since 2005, and it has evolved into a graceful powerhouse, equally savvy about groove and harmony.” – New York Times. “Ode” — the trio’s first studio release in seven years — “is a collection of originals I wrote specifically for my trio with Larry and Jeff,” explains Mehldau. Most of the songs, he continues, “are tributes to someone else, and I began to think of them as odes, or poems that might be sung; in our case here it’s the singing only without all those pesky words.” Subjects include the late saxophonist Michael Brecker, a character from the film “Easy Rider,” and the guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel.

Charlie Parker proclaimed: “If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.” Saxophonist Wayne Escoffery — a veteran of New York’s brightest bands, including the Mingus Big Band and Tom Harrell’s, and a protégé of Jackie McLean — has lived it. His new disc — “The Only Son of One” — is an inspired and impassioned recording that chronicles a turbulent but ultimately triumphant tale of his life which began in North London, where he was born to a loving mother and her abusive Jamaican husband, who forced her to emigrate to the United States when Escoffery was eight years old. It was here in the U.S. where Escoffery navigated America’s murky waters of fatherlessness, race and identity. He enrolled and excelled at McLean’s prestigious Hartt School of Music, the New England Conservatory of Music and the Thelonius Monk Institute. He created a new name for himself while wrestling with the emotional minefields left by his absent father. This new disc reflects his emotional journey.

With a lot of sleuthing and a team of experts on the case, long-lost tapes of Wes Montgomery have been discovered and restored. “Echoes of Indiana Avenue” is the first full album of previously unheard Montgomery music in over 25 years. The tapes are the earliest known recordings of the guitarist as a leader, pre-dating his auspicious 1959 debut on Riverside. The disc showcases Montgomery in performance from 1957-1958 at nightclubs in his hometown of Indianapolis as well as rare studio recordings. Joined by such Naptown colleagues as keyboardist Melvin Rhyne and his brothers Monk and Buddy on bass and piano, Wes swings with blistering abandon on a program of burners and ballads.

On the Vanguard with Esperanza and Vijay

It hasn’t taken Esperanza Spalding long to emerge as one of the brightest lights in the musical world, with a unique and style-spanning presence deeply rooted in jazz yet destined to make her mark far beyond the jazz realm. Just last year she became the first jazz musician to receive the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Her new CD — “Radio Music Society” — is a companion of sorts to her last release, “Chamber Music Society.” As the bassist and singer explains, “Originally I thought it would be fun to release a double album. One disc with an intimate, subtle exploration of chamber works and a second one in which jazz musicians explore song forms and melodies that are formatted more along the lines of what we would categorize at ‘pop songs.'” The music on the new disc is realized by many of the brilliant musicians who are part of Esperanza’s ever-expanding universe, including Jack DeJohnette, Joe Lovano, Terri Lyne Carrington, Lionel Loueke and Billy Hart.

Pianist/composer Vijay Iyer’s career has moved on an ever-accelerating arc over the past decade-and-a-half, with the Indian-American artist earning a slew of international honors for his intrepid, multi-hued vision of 21st-century music. The latest chapter of this compelling story in contemporary jazz comes with the Vijay Iyer Trio’s “Accelerando” — a CD driven by the visceral, universal, intoxicating experience of rhythm. He and his band mates-bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore-light up material that ranges from a brace of bold Iyer originals and pieces by great composers like Ellington, Herbie Nichols and Henry Threadgill to surprising interpretations of vintage and recent pop and funk tunes by Michael Jackson, Heatwave and Flying Lotus.

A groundbreaking exhibition, “Teenie Harris, Photographer: an American Story” opened at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh in October. It celebrates this artist/photographer whose work is considered one of the most complete portraits of the 20th Century African American experience. “Hill District Beat” is an enhanced CD featuring over 100 of Harris’ most iconic images of luminaries of his day synced to an original soundtrack performed by the MCG Jazz All Stars. This collection of musicians associated with the MCG Jazz family includes pianist David Budway, bassist Dwayne Dolphin, drummer Roger Humphries and trumpeter Tom Williams.

For the last fifteen years or so, Kathy Kosins has become famous as one of the most successful jazz singers of the contemporary era. Since 2010, she has adapted to the changing needs of the music industry by releasing a regular series of digital singles. So, when she announces a new album, it’s abundantly clear that this won’t be just an arbitrary assemblage of random tunes, but a very special collection of specific songs connected to each other. The new CD, her fifth, is titled “To the Ladies of Cool” and the songs all derive from the repertoire of four canonical female singers of the 1950s: Anita O’Day, June Christy, Chris Connor, and Julie London. Kosins has sifted through an enormous selection of songs and found the ones that match her voice and style, creating a ‘toast’ to four artists who continue to inspire her.