Guitarist Lee Ritenour decided to celebrate the year of his 50th birthday by inviting a bevy of name guitarists into the studio to jam out some tunes, all in the name of love for their chosen instrument. Ritenour's subsequent album, ...

While there's no shortage of Glenn Miller collections, there aren't many that rival Bluebird/Legacy's THE ESSENTIAL GLENN MILLER. This two-disc, 38-track compilation covers the peak years of the iconic bandleader/trombonist's career, and includes a welcome handful of numbers recorded with ...

Rhino's 2001 retrospective The Very Best of Miki Howard is a generous, near-definitive overview of Howard's biggest R&B hits from the '80s. She didn't have many crossover hits, but she did have numerous entries on the R&B charts, all of ...

The follow-up to his smash 2009 concert album Live in Boston, Chris Botti's studio album Impressions features more of the cool trumpeter's crossover jazz, pop, and classical stylings. Focusing on Botti's love of melody, Impressions is an aesthetically varied album ...

Track Listing: Way Down Yonder in New Orleans; Alice Blue Gown; Up a Lazy River; Muskrat Ramble; Amazing Grace; San Antonio Rose; Cheek to Cheek; It Had to Be You; Basin Street Blues; You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby; ...

"Never Lookin' Back," the opening track to Kenny Wayne Shepherd's first studio album in seven years, and his studio debut for Roadrunner, is a contradiction because he does exactly that, at least musically. Last time out, the guitarist experimented with ...

Rio, the double-disc solo concert recording by Keith Jarrett, marks his 40th anniversary as an ECM recording artist; coincidentally, Facing You, his debut for the label, was a solo piano recording, though cut in a studio. Many of Jarrett's improvised ...

Apparently, Etta James' musical career ends with The Dreamer. The legendary vocalist announced a few months back that this would be her final album; she's retiring from music in order to deal with serious medical issues. Co-produced by James, Josh ...

Richard Elliot's In the Zone picks up where 2009's Rock Steady left off. Where that album paid tribute to the saxophonist's R&B heroes, In the Zone, which marks Elliot's 25th anniversary as a recording artist, offers a thank-you to the ...

Liner Note Authors: Jack Jezzro; Beggie Adair. Recording information: Wildwood Recording. Personnel: Beggie Adair (piano); Chris Brown (drums). Audio Mixer: Brendan Harkin.

After years of exploring dance and electronic music, Paul Hardcastle moved to contemporary jazz fusion with his 1993 album, Jazzmasters I. Recorded in late 1990 and early 1991, the album features Hardcastle on the majority of the instruments -- everything ...

Let's put the hook in right from the jump: Echoes of Indiana Avenue is perhaps the most significant release of previously unissued material by a major jazz artist since the The Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane: At Carnegie Hall ...

Organists have been an important part of Pat Martino's life since in the '60s. Along the way, the Philadelphia-born guitarist has played with a long list of skillful organists that includes Jimmy Smith, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Jack McDuff, Joey DeFrancesco, ...

2011 marked the 30th anniversary of Acoustic Alchemy; it was back in 1981 that Simon James and the late Nick Webb, Acoustic Alchemy's original co-leaders, started working together. These days, Acoustic Alchemy have two different co-leaders: Greg Carmichael and Miles ...

One of the challenges of being a mega-successful producer and artist whose talents run deeper and more diverse than what you're known for is trying to find a few spots to showcase that deeper soul in the midst of the ...

The 1963 Impulse! Records LP John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman helped to redefine the renowned jazz saxophonist by pairing him with a singer on a collection of standards, showing that Coltrane wasn't (or wasn't only) an avant-gardist bent on playing ...

When Jeff Lorber reignited the Jeff Lorber Fusion in 2010 with Now Is the Time, he sought to re-examine the very music he'd helped to establish: contemporary jazz. Its instrumental tracks were solid and satisfying, but the vocal cuts lacked, ...

Saxophonist Eric Marienthal is among contemporary jazz's busiest talents. On the day that It's Love was released, Marienthal also played a starring role on the Jeff Lorber Fusion entry Galaxy. The two albums reflect Marienthal's varied talents, as both a ...

This 34-track collection features a quality sampling of Herb Alpert's most sought-after tracks from the '60s to the '80s. Highlights include the original versions of "What Now My Love," "This Guys in Love with You," "Spanish Flea," and "Rise." Recommended ...

When guitarist Al DiMeola left Return to Forever (again) after their 2008 reunion tour, Chick Corea solicited the help of the band's original axeman, Bill Connors, to rejoin the band for another tour. He did. While he rehearsed with Corea, ...

On her 19th album, Cassandra Wilson, ever the musical chameleon, changes directions once more. She is arguably the greatest living female jazz singer. Well known for her blues, soul, pop covers, and jazz standards, her smoky alto bends almost everything ...

Trumpeter Arturo Sandoval's 2012 tribute to legendary jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, Dear Diz (Every Day I Think of You) is a big-band Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz tour de force. Showcasing Sandoval's long-storied titan bop trumpet chops, Dear Diz frames the ...

The Ink Spots were the first modern black vocal group, and although chiefly known for their wonderful harmonies, which bridged the gap between 1940s pop styles and the street corner doo wop styles of the 1950s, they were also a ...

Despite the metaphysical suggestion in Spirit Fiction's title, this is Ravi Coltrane's most cerebral, process-oriented recording to date. This does not mean, however, that his debut offering for Blue Note Records is dry or academic. There is an abundance of ...

Recording information: Henson Recording Studios, Los Angeles, CA (04/02/2012-04/04/2012). Photographers: Bob Wolfenson; Alex Calleros. Personnel: Larry Koonse (guitar); David Piltch (acoustic bass); Jay Bellerose (drums, percussion). Audio Mixer: Helik Hadar.