May 7, 2026:
These last two weeks brought an extraordinary wave of new albums into the catalog. We finally caught up with a strong batch from Intakt, including the James Brandon Lewis Quartet's Abstraction Is Deliverance, where Lewis continues to channel the spiritual force and commanding authority that inevitably recalls John Coltrane while remaining unmistakably his own voice. Equally compelling is the latest Sylvie Courvoisier Trio release with Drew Gress and Kenny Wollesen, balancing rhythmic agility, sharp interplay, and Courvoisier's restless harmonic imagination. Alto saxophonist Angelika Niescier also returns with a powerhouse ensemble featuring Chicago stalwarts Dave Rempis, Jason Adasiewicz, Nicole Mitchell, and the formidable rhythm section of Mike Reed and Luke Stewart. And then there's the wonderfully eccentric trio of Luciano Biondini, Lucas Niggli, and Michel Godard, whose inventive reinterpretation of Radiohead's "Knives Out" completely won me over.
 Biondini, Luciano / Lucas Niggli / Michel Godard: Fables of Time (Intakt)
Accordionist Luciano Biondini, tubist and serpent player Michel Godard, and percussionist Lucas Niggli weave composition and free improv into a richly expressive dialogue drawing on Mediterranean lyricism, early music, and contemporary jazz, where original pieces, Radiohead and Monteverdi reinterpretations, and spontaneous interplay unfold with poetic depth, wit, and an ever-shifting sense of narrative.
 Courvoisier, Sylvie Trio (w/ Gress / Wollesen): Eclats - Live in Europe (Intakt)
Captured during a European tour, the trio of pianist Sylvie Courvoisier with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Kenny Wollesen presents a finely honed language shaped through deep trust and evolving interplay, where Courvoisier's compositions unfold with precision and openness, balancing intricate detail, shifting textures, and spontaneous free improv with subtle complexity and vivid expressiveness.
 Niescier, Angelika (Niescier / Adasiewicz / Mitchell / Reed / Rempis / Stewart): Chicago Tapes (Intakt)
Marking her return to Chicago, German alto saxophonist Angelika Niescier reunites with a powerhouse sextet of the city's improvisers, including Nicole Mitchell, Dave Rempis, and Jason Adasiewicz, for a high-velocity session of free improv, where fierce interplay, shifting textures, and spontaneous structures bridge European and AACM-informed traditions with raw, contemporary energy.
 Lewis, James Brandon Quartet: Abstraction Is Deliverance (Intakt)
A powerful quartet session led by James Brandon Lewis on tenor sax with Aruán Ortiz, Brad Jones, and Chad Taylor, blending lyrical melodic clarity with dynamic, responsive interplay, where rich tonal expression and groove-sensitive improvisation draw from the lineage of John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and David S. Ware while forging a deeply personal, contemporary voice.
On Confront we added two essential albums, both duos with label leader and percussionist Mark Wastell. The first pairs Wastell with The Necks pianist Chris Abrahams, performing on a Steinway grand at London's Vortex Jazz Club. Uncharacteristically for a member of The Necks, the album unfolds through 11 succinct pieces, its title cleverly referencing the duo's 2021 release, A Thousand Sacred Steps. The second release stands somewhat apart within the Confront catalog, a duo with Dominic Lash on electric guitar that leans more directly into European free jazz language and kinetic interplay — though despite the comparatively grounded approach, to these ears it remains unmistakably a Confront recording.
 Lash, Dominic / Mark Wastell: Polyvalent Creativity (Confront)
Bringing together two prolific figures in the UK's improvised music community, guitarist Dominic Lash and drummer/percussionist Mark Wastell explore a stripped yet expansive duo format that nods toward free jazz, where a seemingly conventional setup gives way to a language rooted in texture, gesture, and sonic detail rather than pulse or harmonic progression.
 Abrahams, Chris / Mark Wastell: Two Thousand Sacred Steps (Confront)
Expanding their earlier duo work into a live setting, pianist Chris Abrahams and percussionist Mark Wastell engage in a patient, textural session of free improv, where rippling piano figures and resonant cymbal washes unfold in a deeply attentive dialog, shaping a meditative, slowly evolving sound world defined by subtle interplay, spatial awareness, and restrained, ritual-like intensity.
Other albums that piqued my interest over these last two weeks include an exceptional trio release on bassist Damon Smith's Balance Point Acoustic label, bringing together guitarist Sandy Ewen and drummer Weasel Walter in a collaboration dating back to 2011. This latest recording reveals just how deeply the trio has evolved as a collective unit, balancing textural subtlety, explosive energy, and astonishingly responsive interplay — observations reinforced by guitarist Henry Kaiser's insightful liner notes on their uncanny communicative abilities.
Matthew Wright, known for his work with Evan Parker in the Trance Map project, joins Ensemble Klang for the Musical Utopias festival in a long-form improvisation structured to draw exceptional performances from a 12-member ensemble. The work moves through a rich palette of acoustic instruments, electronics, voice, and live sampling, allowing the processed and unprocessed sounds to continuously reshape and respond to one another in real time.
Speaking of "klang", Amy Denio gathers another wonderfully eclectic assemblage of musicians for Tutto Bene Vol. II on Klanggalerie, presenting 11 pieces that highlight both the breadth of her musical vocabulary and the irrepressible joy, humor, and adventurous spirit that have made her work so consistently rewarding over the years.
The most "popular" addition of the past two weeks has been Matchless Records' live 2015 recording from AMM, featuring Eddie Prévost, Keith Rowe on electronics, and pianist John Tilbury. Amusingly titled Phlegm, the album references the persistent coughing of an audience member that drifts through the opening minutes of the performance before mercifully subsiding. Once settled, the recording unfolds as a profound example of the trio's patient, concentrated, and deeply interactive approach to collective improvisation.
Another album generating substantial interest among our customers is the trio recording Bird Food from drummer Pierre Favre, bassist George Mraz, and pianist Irene Schweizer. Captured live at Radio Zurich in 1968 — predating their debut album Santana — the session was apparently forgotten for decades until Favre and trombonist Samuel Blaser rediscovered it while searching through archival tapes. Fortunately for listeners, the performance stands as a remarkable document of early European free jazz, including a vibrant interpretation of Ornette Coleman's "Bird Food".
 Ewen / Smith / Walter: Untitled (2) (Balance Point Acoustics)
Reuniting more than a decade after their explosive 2011 debut, guitarist Sandy Ewen, bassist Damon Smith, and percussionist Weasel Walter deliver a fiercely focused free improv session recorded with vivid clarity, balancing dense collective eruptions, microscopic textural detail, and deeply evolved ensemble interplay shaped in part through years performing together in Roscoe Mitchell's quartet.
 Wright, Matthew (Jerberg / Ensemble Klang / Spheric Totemic): Cracked Glaze (False Walls)
Commissioned for Ensemble Klang's Musical Utopias festival, Matthew Wright leads a twelve-piece ensemble with Sofia Jernberg and Spheric Totemic in a large-scale work structured around a slowly descending tonal "spine," where notated layers and timed frameworks intersect with free improv, while live sampling and post-production deepen the shifting interplay between form, texture, and sonic perspective.
 Denio, Amy: Tutto Bene Vol. II (Klanggalerie)
A wide-ranging solo and collaborative release from Amy Denio, this eclectic set blends voice, accordion, clarinet, guitars, bass, percussion, electronics, and field recordings across composed, improvised, and live performances, weaving jazz, avant-garde, and global influences into a playful, genre-blurring sonic journey rich in texture, storytelling, and inventive ensemble interplay.
 AMM (Prevost / Rowe / Tilbury): Phlegm (Matchless)
A late-period live recording from AMM — Eddie Prévost, Keith Rowe, and John Tilbury — capturing their refined electroacoustic free improv language of near-silence, where percussion, electronics, and piano dissolve into a shared sonic field shaped by extreme restraint, microscopic detail, and a collective focus on texture, duration, and deep listening.
 Favre, Pierre Trio (Favre / Schweizer / Mraz): Bird Food (Songs)
Captured in 1968 in Zurich and long shelved before its recent discovery, this early trio session brings Pierre Favre, Irene Schweizer, and George Mraz together in a concise, fiery set of attentive free jazz, balancing Ornette Coleman's title piece with Schweizer's compositions, where dynamic interplay and acute listening reveal a nascent yet fully engaged collective voice.
Some Enlightening Yard Work:
 Last week I bought a new "boombox" — the instruction manual proudly used the term at every opportunity — so I could bring music outside while working in the yard. The options were surprisingly limited, mostly Bluetooth speakers and disposable-looking plastic cubes, but eventually I found a satisfying hybrid player with genuinely decent sound. Maybe it's old-school stubbornness on my part, but I still prefer listening from CDs in this setting, taking occasional breaks to flip through the booklets, study the artwork, and reconnect with the physical presence of the music itself. I keep a rotating stack of albums nearby to propel the work forward, usually more structured jazz, modern composition, or archival reissues that reward repeated listening.
That routine has led me back to the recent run of extraordinary box sets from the Enlightment label, who have been excavating classic jazz catalogs from the 1960s with remarkable care. In April we added their Joe Henderson collection — eight LPs gathered onto four CDs — and it immediately became part of my outdoor soundtrack. During the 1980s, when I was obsessively exploring hard bop, Henderson was one of my guiding voices, but most of my collection remains on vinyl, and I doubt anyone is manufacturing a turntable-equipped yard-work boombox anytime soon. The Henderson set followed equally compelling collections devoted to Kenny Dorham and Don Ellis; Ellis was never central to my listening, but that box proved genuinely enlightening, revealing just how imaginative and structurally adventurous his approach to large ensemble jazz could be.
 Even more rewarding were the earlier Cecil Taylor and Steve Lacy collections. I know much of that material well, but hearing it again in a format that can accompany physical work outdoors changes the experience entirely. Music reshapes the rhythm of the day, and even the neighborhood birds seem to pause occasionally when the sound drifts through the garden. My outdoor cat, who likes to supervise the proceedings while contributing very little actual labor, may not fully appreciate the significance of free jazz history, but for me these recordings transform routine tasks into something reflective, energizing, and unexpectedly joyful.
 Henderson, Joe: The Classic 1960s Albums [4 CD BOX SET] (Enlightenment)
Bringing together seven landmark 1960s sessions, this 4-CD set captures Joe Henderson at the height of his early career, leading stellar ensembles through a compelling range of post-bop expression, from hard-driving grooves to exploratory improvisation, showcasing his commanding tone, compositional strength, and enduring influence on modern jazz.
 Dorham, Kenny: The Classic Albums 1960-1962 [4 CDs] (Enlightenment)
A 4-CD/8 album survey of Kenny Dorham's early-1960s output, compiling sessions from Show Boat through Una Mas, where his warm, lyrical trumpet leads shifting ensembles including Joe Henderson and Herbie Hancock, bridging hard bop, modal jazz, and Latin-tinged explorations with refined compositional clarity.
 Ellis, Don: The 1960s Albums [4 CD BOX SET] (Enlightenment)
Collecting eight albums from the early to late '60s, this generous four-CD set surveys the groundbreaking work of trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Don Ellis, tracing his evolution from post-bop experiments with shifting metric structures into large-ensemble innovation infused with global rhythms, expanded instrumentations, and a fiercely exploratory imagination.
 Taylor, Cecil: The Classic Albums - 8 Remastered LPs [4 CD BOX SET] (Enlightenment)
Reissuing and remastering eight landmark albums released between 1956 and 1962, this collection traces iconoclastic pianist Cecil Taylor's evolution from bop-influenced beginnings to the groundbreaking free jazz forms he helped pioneer, featuring collaborations with Steve Lacy, John Coltrane, Kenny Dorham, Archie Shepp, Clark Terry, Roswell Rudd, and others, culminating in his trailblazing trio with Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray.
 Lacy, Steve: The Classic Albums [4 CDs] (Enlightenment)
A 4-CD box set collecting 8 albums under Steve Lacy's name from 1957 to 1965, with sidement including Don Cherry, Mal Waldron, Kent Carter, Carla Bley, Louis Moholo, &c: Soprano Sax; Reflections; The Straight Horn of Steve Lacy; Evidence; Disposability; Jazz Realities; Sortie;The Forest and the Zoo.
Squidco Publishing Roundup:
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Oliver Lake / Fred Hopkins / Phillip Wilson / Baikida Carroll / Michael Gregory Jackson:
James Opstad:
Taborn / Cline / Gilmore:
Fonda, Joe Quartet (w/ Wadada Leo Smith / Satoko Fujii / Tizano Tononi):
Jane in Ether (Klein / Mayas / Voutchkova):
Ray Anderson / Joe Hertenstein Quartet feat. Michael Moore & Michael Formanek:
Ivo Perelman / Nate Wooley:
Mike Westbrook:
Martin Escalante / Charlie Mumma / Tete Leguia:
Jerome Deupree / Sylvie Courvoisier / Lester St. Louis / Joe Morris:
