Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
“Ruta de la Clave,” the highly anticipated debut album from Juno-winning Cuban-Canadian percussionist, composer, producer and bandleader Joaquin Nunez, is the result of five years of creative exploration. Produced in collaboration with acclaimed New York-based Cuban pianist and jazz innovator Dayramir Gonzalez, the album offers a rich sonic journey tracing the evolution of Cuban music through its heartbeat: the clave. The disc charts the rhythmic and cultural trajectory of this essential Afro-Cuban pattern from its early expressions in the contradanza of the 1800s, through genres such as danzon, changui, son, and rumba, and into their present-day forms.

Kandace Springs’ latest project, recorded in collaboration with the Academia de Musica de Espinho’s Orquesta Classica de Espinho, is a heartfelt and sonically gorgeous tribute to one of her favorite artists, Billie Holiday, and her last great album, “Lady in Satin.” That album, comprising 12 songs from the Great American Songbook, was recorded in 1958 with a full orchestra arranged and conducted by Ray Ellis. Kandace and the Acadaemia spared no effort in re-creating and reimagining the sound and feel of the original recording, and the resulting creation has a romantic lushness that is rarely heard in music today.

Also this week, the Virginia-based collective Butcher Brown’s new album, “Letters from the Atlantic,” offers a seamless blend of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, soul and bossa nova; trombonist Altin Sencalar leads a stellar lineup through a dynamic collection of original compositions and reimagined classics on “Unleashed”; and saxophonist Mike Zilber and drummer Mike Clark utilize their understanding and mastery of the jazz canon and popular songs on their new recording, “Standard Deviations.”