Tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger met trumpeter Steve Lampert on a West Village gig in New York City in 2010 and, as their musical friendship deepened, so did Preminger’s admiration of the elder statesman’s compositional chops. A few years on, he asked Lampert to write a piece featuring himself with an ensemble; he launched the recording of that composition—Zigsaw: Music of Steve Lampert—on his own label, Dry Bridge Records, this past October.

Saxophonist Caroline Davis and pianist Rob Clearfield’s quartet, Persona, takes its name from the Ingmar Bergman film by that title. In the existentialist thriller, the two leading characters muddle the boundaries that separate their individual psyches; as the story progresses, their hold on reality begins to dissolve in the blur of beautiful black-and-white images.

The curation for ECM Records at 50, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s tribute to the famed record label on Nov. 1 and 2 in New York City, must have been near impossible. How to choose from the legions of venerable artists who have recorded for Manfred Eicher, the label’s founder and guiding visionary, over the last half a century?

On the penultimate evening of the 35th annual Belgrade Jazz Festival, which ran Oct 21-28 in the Serbian capital, pianist Gerald Clayton sat alone on a darkened stage. His fingers seemed barely to touch the keys as he launched into “La Llarona,” master saxophonist Charles Lloyd’s dream-like rendition of the Mexican folk song from his 2016 Blue Note album, I Long To See You. One by one, Lloyd and the other members of Kindred Spirits, Lloyd’s new quintet, joined Clayton on stage for the tune—an exquisite encore to an arguably flawless set.

As musical instruments go, the saxophone came into being relatively late—in the mid-19th century, about a hundred years or so after the oboe and clarinet, and eons after the flute. Unlike these other wind instruments, and somewhat unfortunately, the world of classical music has relegated the saxophone to a small corner of the orchestral canon. But this loss is the jazz world’s gain.

The band Fleur Seule (“single flower” in French) has several weekly residencies this month: The Knickerbocker Hotel, the SoHo Grand Hotel, the New York Marriott Marquis at Times Square, and Tavern on the Green. The stylishly retro group suits these classic New York venues; lead vocalist Allyson Briggs, a vision from the pages of a 1940s glamour magazine, sings traditional pop and jazz standards in several languages unerringly.

Artistic director Vojislav Pantić can recount all sorts of stories about the jazz greats who have played the Belgrade Jazz Festival, now in its 35th edition. There was the time in 1971, the festival’s inaugural year, when trumpeter Miles Davis wouldn’t go on until he was sure that his pianist, a very late Keith Jarrett, had arrived at the concert hall, straight from the tarmac.

 The Warrior Women of Afro-Peruvian Music breaks new ground by delving into the rich musical tradition of black female artists in Peru and challenging the racism, sexism, and marginalization that these women face daily in their homeland.

London composer Binker Golding has a way with a hook. And not just during his addictive, melody-driven sax solos or in his acoustic versions of broken beat rhythm tracks, but when he writes the mischievous titles that describe his music. You may not understand what he means by Abstractions of Reality Past and Incredible Feathers, the title of his new release on Gearbox Records, but the music makes you want to find out.

On “Creative,” the first track of Anatomy of Angels: Live at the Village Vanguard (Verve) pianist and bandleader Jon Batiste packs what seems like eight minutes of music into a dizzying four.

In the late 1950s, Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto and pianist/composer Antônio Carlos (Tom) Jobim revolutionized American music with the introduction of the bossa nova and the samba to the jazz lexicon. America’s love affair with these lyrical rhythms has never gone away—in fact, we continue to discover more about these jazz innovators and their influence through albums like Samba Jazz & Tom Jobim (Sunnyside).

Bandleader and percussionist Adam Rudolph sees himself as an inventor rather than a composer. Composers generate written music with a pen or an app or a music notation program, but he does more than that. He creates new methods for making music.

Last year, Blue Note released Kenny Barron’s leader debut for the label: Concentric Circles, a tour de force for quintet featuring, for the most part, the pianist’s original compositions. Barron had recorded for Blue Note on other high-profile dates—as a sideman for bassist Ron Carter, saxophonist Sonny Fortune, singer Dianne Reeves and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, for example—but never under his own name.

Grammy-winning Brazilian singer/pianist Eliane Elias, a Concord artist, adds an extra layer of romance to her performance on Love Stories, her latest album, which features a full orchestra and all-English texts.

Pain might not be pretty, but honesty is riveting. Thirsty Ghost is an unabashed exploration of loss, heartache and, ultimately, healing. It represents a departure for vocalist Sara Gazarek, whose career began its ascent when she was a teenager singing with Wynton Marsalis at Avery Fisher Hall. It’s also the most exciting recording of her career.

In 2015, a few months after the U.S. lifted a decades-long embargo on travel to Cuba for U.S. citizens, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band made a pilgrimage to the Caribbean island from their home base in New Orleans. This trip, memorialized on film, became the lauded 2019 documentary A Tuba to Cuba (Blue Fox Entertainment). The film’s soundtrack, just released on Sub Pop Records under the same title, stands as an arresting musical narrative even without the colorful visual imagery from the film—the music tells its own story.

Los Angeles singer Gretje Angell’s debut …in any key (Grevlinto Records) comes as a surprise and a delight. A surprise because by her own admission she’s turned to jazz somewhat belatedly in her performing life and a delight because this debut is that good.

On the third night of her June run at Jazz Standard in New York City, singer Jazzmeia Horn leapt into her opener, the Betty Carter signature tune “Do Something,” with a fleet, peripatetic scat.  As she progressed further into the improvised number, the references zipped by without pause—Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints,” Ann Ronell’s “Willow Weep for Me.”

Jazz pianism today stands at an apex. There have been other moments in the music’s history when innovation rushed ahead of performers and listeners. But more than a century after jazz’s emergence, there are countless virtuosic pianists out there composing, recording and seeking a new vision for the genre.

(Elio Villafranca photo by Kasia Idzkowska)

Berlin-based singer-songwriter Céline Rudolph grew up immersed in multi-culturalism, surrounded by different languages, the grooves of several continents, and the tones of various instruments. “It’s a gift being raised with two languages because then your ear is very open to all different sounds,” Rudolph said in a recent trans-Atlantic phone call to discuss her latest release, Pearls, newly launched on her own label, Obsessions. “The ear is my tool—everything comes in through the ear.”