In the mid-1970s, Alice Coltrane began to remove herself from the hectic world of touring and recording, instead delving ever more deeply into the contemplative philosophies of Eastern spiritual traditions. By the early 1980s, she had changed her name to Turiyasangitananda. Rough recordings from that time reveal that her music had changed, too.

Midway through the 2021 Jazz Foundation of America Gala on June 30, singer Norah Jones took her seat at the piano, the smattering of sequins on her jacket glinting here and there in the lights of the City Winery stage. “It’s my first gig,” she said with a quiet smile, alluding to the recent return of live music.

Todd Cochran, a chameleon at the keyboards, breaks a 10-year hiatus from recording with Then and Again, Here & Now . That Cochran chose to return with a standards album rather than another type of record seems significant. (Truly—he can play everything.) But these tunes, flush with lyricism and rhythmic vitality, reflect his early grounding in the blues-based innovations of mentors like John Handy, Woody Shaw and Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

Let’s say you like swing more than salsa, or vice versa, or both equally. To accommodate, singer Rubén Blades offers three different editions of his newest album, a pulsating, horn-driven release with his frequent collaborators, the Panama City-based bandleader Robert Delgado and his Orquesta.

Given the tenor of the times, Carla Bley’s extraordinary career shouldn’t have happened. What were the chances, in the 1950s, that a teenaged girl from Oakland, California would land smack in the middle of New York’s vibrant jazz scene, much less emerge as one of its most lasting compositional voices? Bley, who turned 85 this year, enters the Downbeat Hall of Fame after more than six decades of writing, recording and performing.

Samara Joy McLendon won the Sarah Vaughan competition in November 2019, just a few months before the clubs closed, the tours stopped, and the music industry went into freefall. McLendon was then in her junior year as a jazz studies major at SUNY-Purchase, and when she graduated this past spring, she had her debut album ready for release and some summer touring lined up. Out of the scorched earth of the pandemic, such green shoots signal a return to something resembling normal. At last.

On Purest Form, James Francies’ second Blue Note album, the pianist doesn’t so much compose music as conjure fascinating nebulae of sound. Like Flight, his 2018 label debut, the sequel continues Francies’ research into music as an abstract language grounded in the stuff of everyday life—vulnerability, resolve, love.

Sweet Megg (a.k.a singer Meaghan Farrell) and woodwind player Ricky Alexander tap into the enduring appeal of early swing on their debut, I’m In Love Again (Turtle Bay Records). Delectably pithy, each of the record’s 11 tunes delivers a heady dose of syncopation and tuneful improvisation, recalling the abandon of jazz-age dance halls and speakeasies.

When the Blue Note reopens with its much-anticipated annual festival this month, British composer/arranger Jacob Collier will be the only headlining vocalist in the lineup. But it would be a mistake to tag him as a jazz singer.

Once, when alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón was working as Charlie Haden’s sideman, legendary bandleader Ornette Coleman joined his former bassist on stage for an encore. Decades before, these two players had spearheaded the free jazz movement as founding members of Coleman’s revolutionary quartet. “That was the only time I ever saw them play together,” Zenón remarked.

Young Jazz Leaders for 2021

Peggy Lee wasn’t born with that name. Her given name, back in May 1920, was Norma Deloris Egstrom. But for some impulsive reason lost to time, the radio host of one of her earliest professional gigs assigned her the now-celebrated anonym, and it stuck. Not only did it stick, it made music history: Peggy Lee went on to become one of the most known (and prolific) jazz and pop singers of her generation.

The trombone’s warm, reverberating sound often goes unappreciated, contends bandleader Jennifer Wharton. Look to jazz history for the reason: The trombone, once the bellwether of swing, lost its popular footing when bebop arrived. Slides just can’t move as fast as valves.

Pat Metheny’s latest, Road to the Sun, represents several departures for the individualistic guitarist-composer.

In 2018, South Korean composer/leader Jihye Lee won the BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize for her big band original, “Unshakeable Mind,” which led to a commission for a second, “Revived Mind.” These two compositions, complex pieces woven out of simple threads, help to understand the high concept behind Lee’s second release for Motéma Music, Daring Mind: the composer’s ruminations on New York City, her adopted home.

The little-known fact that light has a mass intrigues Paris-based pianist Benoît Delbecq. In a quest to elucidate the physical manifestation of such ineffable things, the improvisatory composer launches The Weight of Light, his first solo piano recording in more than a decade.

London’s Edition Records has expanded its roster of select U.S. jazz vocalists—a propitious move. Kurt Elling, who signed to the indie label in 2019, debuted Secrets Are The Best Stories on Edition a year ago this month, taking home a Grammy in the best vocal jazz album category for it earlier this year. Long-time industry favorite Gretchen Parlato chose to launch Flor, her first album as a leader in six years, on Edition just last month. And Sachal Vasandani, the label’s latest vocal signatory, drops Midnight Shelter, his first recording for the imprint, on Apr 23.

How Mack Avenue Keyboardists Are Changing the Face of Jazz

It’s hard to think of Chris Potter as only a sax phenom after There Is A Tide, his 2020 solo album recorded at home and launched during lockdown. A one-man jazz orchestra, he played 14 instruments on the release, his third for U.K.-based Edition Records. His move to Edition in 2019 makes room for such creative forays, which continue apace with this year’s Sunrise Reprise.

With Adventures of the Wildflower, Yelena Eckemoff’s March 19 release through her own label, L&H Productions, the composer adds another voluptuous creation to her extensive canon of nature-themed works. This modern jazz song cycle—18 distinct pieces in all—depicts musically the life of a columbine plant, from seed to eventual death and rebirth. For Eckemoff, however, the symbolism of the columbine runs deeper than mere inspiration.