Starbase 17: ATJAZZ Launches a 27-Track Cosmic Soul Odyssey

Atjazz returns with his long-awaited 27-track opus Starbase 17, an expansive, deeply immersive journey through rhythm, harmony, and imagination. The project finds Martin “Atjazz” Iveson at the height of his powers, blending his unmistakable deep-house sensibility with elevated songwriting, lush arrangements, and forward-thinking production. The result is not just an album but a fully realized sonic universe — one where each composition stands independently while contributing to a larger, cohesive voyage.

Drawing on decades of influential releases, remixes, and collaborations, Atjazz distills the essence of his signature deep musicality and fuses it with cinematic scope and meticulous craftsmanship. Starbase 17 feels both retrospective and exploratory: rooted in soulful house traditions yet boldly pushing into new emotional and textural territories. The album unfolds like a space-bound narrative, each track orbiting a central creative vision while exploring its own atmosphere and gravitational pull.

To bring this cosmic vessel to life, Atjazz assembled a remarkable ensemble of globally respected artists. Among those joining him on this interstellar expedition are Fred Everything, Nathan Haines, Sio, Karizma, LyricL, Peacey, Pete Simpson, OVEOUS, Charles Webster, Kaidi Tatham, Clyde Beats, Natasha Watts, Omar, Max Beesley, Josh Milan, Rona Ray, Osunlade, and Clara Hill. Each collaborator brings their own tonal identity and creative spark, ensuring that no two moments feel alike while maintaining a unified emotional arc.

Across its six sides, Starbase 17 traverses soulful house, jazz-inflected grooves, broken-beat textures, spoken-word atmospheres, and lush downtempo passages. The title track, “Starbase 17,” establishes the album’s conceptual framework — expansive, cinematic, and rhythmically assured. “Hold It Tenderly,” featuring Ernesto & The Basement Gospel, channels warmth and uplift, while “L'arrivée” with Fred Everything blends elegance with understated drive. “Horizon,” featuring Jorge Bezerra and Nathan Haines, glides effortlessly between jazz phrasing and deep-house propulsion.

The album continues to shift shape and tone across its sprawling architecture. “Tentative” with Sio delivers introspective depth, “Oceans Apart” featuring Audrey Powne and Karizma explores rhythmic tension and release, and “You’ve Got This” with LyricL and Peacey radiates encouragement over intricate grooves. “Cardiac” featuring OVEOUS pulses with spoken-word intensity, while “Falling Apart” alongside Charles Webster leans into moody sophistication.

Elsewhere, “Change The Rules” with Kaidi Tatham bursts with harmonic vitality, and “Honey Bee” featuring Natasha Watts, Omar, JD73, and Octavio N. Santos exudes classic soul energy refracted through modern production. “Twin Flame” with Josh Milan and “Shine” featuring Rona Ray deliver soaring vocal house moments, while “YOUniversal Love” alongside Osunlade channels spiritual uplift. The closing stretch — including “Endless” with Clara Hill and “World We Know” featuring Imaani — leaves listeners suspended in reflection, completing the journey with grace and resonance.

Despite its ambitious 27-track length, Starbase 17 never feels indulgent. Instead, it unfolds with narrative logic and emotional pacing, each side deepening the listener’s immersion. The album stands as both celebration and evolution — a testament to Atjazz’s enduring relevance and refusal to stagnate creatively.

Starbase 17 is more than a release; it is an odyssey through sound and space, a gathering of kindred spirits, and a reminder that soulful music — when crafted with imagination and intention — remains limitless.

Asymmetrical Dot: Stephen Emmer Turns Inheritance into Sound

The music of Stephen Emmer does not begin with the self. It begins with lineage. With parents and grandparents. With the meeting of worlds that might appear incompatible at first glance: Dutch and Indonesian heritage, European harmonic architecture and Eastern cyclical flow, structural order and living asymmetry. Out of that convergence emerges Asymmetrical Dot, Emmer’s most personal and philosophically resonant project to date, arriving on February 27, 2026.

Raised in an in-between cultural space, Emmer learned early that identity resists containment. Where others perceived borders, he perceived resonance. That sensibility animates Asymmetrical Dot, an album that makes ambiguity audible. Long, sustained tones rooted in Indonesian folk traditions stretch across the sonic landscape, intersecting with luminous contrapuntal writing for vibraphone, celesta, marimba, and strings drawn from Western chamber music. Wordless vocals hover above the instrumentation like pure emotional vapor, intentionally unbound from language so that meaning remains open, fluid, and deeply personal.

The album unfolds as an intimate family chronicle. Created in the same year Emmer lost his mother and welcomed his first grandson, the project transforms private transition into shared musical meditation. The departure of one generation and the arrival of another become structural pillars within the work itself. What may once have felt like misalignment — cultural duality, artistic hybridity, emotional contradiction — reveals itself here as inheritance. The music forms a living thread across three generations: from the merging of two cultures, through Emmer’s own lifelong compositional inquiry, toward the future embodied by his grandson Benja.

This intergenerational dialogue is particularly vivid in “Benja’s Birth,” where children’s voices and indigenous percussion announce the arrival of new life. The piece carries the sense of cultural memory not as static archive but as something lived, transmitted, and transformed. It reflects the album’s broader arc, shaped during a year marked not only by his mother’s passing and his grandson’s birth, but also by the loss of a close musical friend and a serious health scare. These events converge into a sustained meditation on mortality, continuity, and the fragile elasticity of time. The tension between departure and arrival pulses quietly through every composition.

Musically, Asymmetrical Dot occupies a compelling space between contemporary chamber music, jazz noir atmospheres, and alternative global sound traditions. Emmer’s long-form tonal structures draw inspiration from Indonesian musical sensibilities, while Western contrapuntal textures create intricate webs of interaction. The vibraphone shimmers; the celesta glows; the marimba grounds the harmonic field with warmth and depth. Above it all, the human voice is treated as instrument rather than narrator. By avoiding text, Emmer preserves emotional ambiguity, granting listeners the freedom to inhabit the music without linguistic constraint.

A defining element of the album is its international ensemble, bringing together musicians from Armenia, Peru, Venezuela, Indonesia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Rather than dissolving into a homogenized global style, each artist retains their distinct tonal identity. The result is a layered, polyphonic dialogue that mirrors Emmer’s own experience of cultural multiplicity. Identity here is not forged through separation, but through exchange — a continuous conversation between histories, aesthetics, and inner landscapes.

The title itself operates as metaphor. “Asymmetry” reflects life lived between structures — between cultures, between beginnings and endings, between clarity and contradiction. The “dot” references the musical notation symbol that extends a note beyond its written duration. In that extension lies memory, emotional resonance, and the idea that life’s meaning is often found not in fixed centers but in sustained motion. What once seemed imbalance becomes equilibrium. What once appeared fragmented becomes whole.

For the realization of Asymmetrical Dot, Emmer collaborated with an extraordinary creative team. Vocal producer Beth Hirsch helped shape the album’s ethereal choral textures. Grammy winner Fernando Aponte contributed to its global rhythmic dimension. Concertmaster Everton Nelson added orchestral precision and emotional sweep. Grammy-winning mastering engineer Patricia Sullivan ensured sonic clarity and depth, while acclaimed jazz and global vocalist Maria Alejandra Quintanilla brought a deeply human timbre to the album’s vocal landscapes.

Long positioned at the intersection of contemporary chamber music, global traditions, and atmospheric sound art, Emmer has consistently resisted stylistic confinement. With Asymmetrical Dot, that resistance becomes revelation. The album is not simply a genre-spanning experiment; it is a meditation on origin, inheritance, and renewal. It is a work shaped by grief and joy, fragility and endurance. It invites listeners into the beauty of imbalance and the resonance of continuity.

In extending notes beyond their expected duration, in suspending voices beyond language, and in bridging cultures without erasing difference, Asymmetrical Dot becomes more than a musical project. It becomes a living testament to the idea that identity is not a fixed point but a sustained vibration — carried forward, generation by generation.

Pinnacle Returns: BUSTER WILLIAMS’ Landmark Debut Reborn for a New Era

A precious, long-elusive gem by master bassist Buster Williams is set to reenter the jazz firmament with the April 18 reissue of Pinnacle, the NEA Jazz Master’s celebrated 1975 debut as a leader. Presented as an exclusive Record Store Day LP release by Time Traveler Recordings, this marks the first time the album has been reissued since its original mid-’70s pressing, restoring a foundational document of post-bop and fusion-era jazz to its rightful place in the canon.

This edition arrives as the latest installment in Time Traveler’s Muse Master Edition Series, a carefully curated excavation of masterworks from the historic Muse Records catalog. Produced in collaboration with Virgin Music Group and Craft Recordings, the series is spearheaded by TTR co-founder, producer, and self-described “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman, whose meticulous archival work continues to reconnect listeners with essential recordings in definitive editions.

The restoration of Pinnacle has been handled with audiophile-level care. Remastered AAA directly from the original analog tapes by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab in Salina, Kansas, the album is pressed on 180-gram vinyl by Optimal Media. The presentation matches the sonic upgrade: a hand-numbered, high-gloss tip-on sleeve houses the LP, accompanied by a newly commissioned liner essay by journalist Mike Flynn and a rare period photograph of Williams by Raymond Ross. Also included are the original 1975 liner notes by Elliot Meadow, who produced the session at Blue Rock Studios in New York City.

At the time of the August 1975 recording dates, Williams—born Charles Anthony Williams in Camden, New Jersey—was 33 years old and already a commanding presence on the international jazz scene. Throughout the 1960s, he toured and recorded extensively with vocalist Nancy Wilson, while freelancing with leading ensembles including The Jazz Crusaders and saxophonist Harold Land. In 1967, he substituted for Ron Carter in the Miles Davis Quintet, where he connected with pianist Herbie Hancock. That relationship would prove pivotal: in 1971, Williams joined Hancock’s groundbreaking Mwandishi band, positioning him at the forefront of the emerging jazz fusion movement.

Recorded shortly after Mwandishi’s dissolution, Pinnacle reflects that lineage of adventurous, rhythmically charged, and harmonically expansive music. The ensemble assembled for the session reads like a summit meeting of modern jazz visionaries. Fellow Mwandishi alumnus Billy Hart anchors the drums, while former Miles Davis sideman Sonny Fortune contributes soprano saxophone and flute. The front line is further electrified by legendary trumpeter Woody Shaw, alongside saxophonist Earl Turbinton. Keyboardist Onaje Allan Gumbs and percussionist Guilherme Franco expand the album’s textural palette, with vocalists Suzanne Klewan and Marcus appearing on two tracks.

Williams was among the early pioneers in bringing the electric bass into modern jazz contexts without sacrificing depth or nuance. As Flynn notes in his new essay, he stands as “a pioneer among jazz doublers—musicians equally adept on upright and electric bass.” The album opens with “The Hump,” driven by Williams’ Fender electric bass, its muscular groove emblematic of the era’s experimental funk currents. Yet much of Pinnacle is rooted in the resonance of the acoustic upright bass—Williams’ first love. That instrument anchors the darker, exploratory excursions of the title track and “Batuki,” and provides the supple foundation for the spiritual gravity of “Noble Eagle” and the buoyant lyricism of “Tayamisha.”

“What I love about the acoustic bass is what I have to do to get music out of it,” Williams reflects. “The sound I get depends all on me, not the help of an amp. The instrument relates to my heart; it’s alive, it has emotion, it’s not just a piece of wood.” That philosophy pulses through Pinnacle, where the bass does far more than keep time. As Flynn writes, while bassists are often described as the anchor of a band, in the hands of a master like Williams, the instrument becomes the engine and heartbeat—the mellifluous core driving the music forward.

Williams composed four of the album’s five tracks, making Pinnacle not only a showcase for his virtuosic playing but also a declaration of his compositional voice. In his original liner notes, Meadow observed that Williams’ writing had already garnered attention, and that this debut presented a fresh and varied program: the propulsive urgency of “The Hump” contrasts with the haunting serenity of the title track; “Tayamisha,” named for Williams’ daughter, floats with lightness and grace; and the intensity of “Noble Eagle” reveals a deep spiritual current running beneath the album’s surface.

In hindsight, Pinnacle feels prophetic. It foreshadows the next five decades of Williams’ career—years defined by a delicate balance between forward-looking experimentation and deep reverence for the jazz tradition. The title itself proves apt. As Flynn concludes, Pinnacle was not merely a debut; it was a statement of arrival—an artist stepping confidently from a prolific past into a fearless and unbounded future. Now, under the meticulous curation of Time Traveler’s Muse Master Edition Series, that statement resounds with renewed clarity, reminding listeners that true artistry never fades—it only waits to be rediscovered.

Feed the Fire: Hannah Marks Ignites the Future of Modern Jazz

Bassist, composer, and educator Hannah Marks steps boldly into her next chapter with Feed The Fire, a fearless and deeply personal sophomore statement that cements her place among the most compelling voices in contemporary jazz. The first single, “Feed The Fire,” is out today, offering listeners a powerful preview of an album that will be released on Endectomorph Music on June 12, 2026. Produced by the visionary pianist and composer Jason Moran, the album was recorded January 9–10, 2025 at The Bunker Studio in Brooklyn, New York, and captures the electricity of a band fully alive in the moment.

Marks is joined by an exceptional quartet: Nathan Reising on alto saxophone, Lex Korten on piano, and Steven Crammer on drums. Together, they forge a sound that is fiercely modern yet deeply rooted, blending straight-ahead swing, daring avant-garde textures, odd meters, and groove-driven momentum. It is acoustic jazz with edge and urgency—music that embraces tradition without being bound by it.

“I’ve been working with Hannah since her appearance on the NYC scene,” says guitarist and composer Miles Okazaki. “I like to make music with people who are fearless, and she is one of them. She’s unafraid to hit hard with abandon, but also unafraid to play a simple and tender melody, which is often a greater challenge. Her beat on the instrument is grounded, and her compositions point to her influences without mimicry or sentimentality. I look forward to seeing how she continues to feed her hunger for knowledge and musical experiences, because she’s really pushing now and finding ways to hear and be heard.”

NEA Jazz Master and vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater calls her “One to watch.” Saxophonist Walter Smith III observes, “In her short time in New York, it's already obvious that she is laying the foundation for a long and successful career in music.”

Feed The Fire represents a monumental creative step for Marks. All of the album’s original compositions were written after her move to New York City in 2019—a move encouraged by Moran—and the music pulses with the energy of that decision. The city’s restless motion, its friction and flow, its contradictions and quiet corners, are embedded in the writing. Raucous swing and grooving odd meters evoke the bustle of the streets, while freer, ethereal passages reflect the rare stillness found in parks and late-night reflections. Marks describes the album as “a culmination of many meaningful musical experiences I’ve had over the past decade, and a representation of pushing and dedicating myself as an artist to find new musical colors, shades and directions within this music that I love and revere.”

The title track holds particular weight. “Feed The Fire,” composed by the late piano luminary Geri Allen, has been pivotal in Marks’ artistic evolution. Shortly after relocating from Bloomington, Indiana, she heard Moran’s trio perform the piece at Village Vanguard. The performance reshaped her understanding of swing—unfettered, uninhibited, ablaze with possibility. An Aries by birth, Marks embraced “Feed The Fire” as a personal mantra: a reminder to stay inspired, to push forward, and to continually stoke the creative flame.

Elsewhere on the album, “Aggro” channels the adventurous spirit of The Jazz Gallery, nodding to its influential programming and to the compositional complexity associated with artists like Ambrose Akinmusire, while incorporating a coda inspired by Moran’s structural sensibilities. “When Day Becomes Night” emerged from a serene stretch during Marks’ residency at MacDowell and showcases Crammer’s rare ability to navigate seismic rhythmic shifts with clarity and power. “Room 157” reflects Marks’ affinity for multiple genres, pushing Reising and Korten into thrilling, high-intensity interplay; its slippery phrasing and shifting meters trace back to her compositional studies with Walter Smith III at Indiana University.

Providing contrast is “Unconditional Love,” another composition by Geri Allen, rendered here as a tender duo between Marks and Korten—achingly intimate and emotionally transparent. The album closes with “Fan Club,” inspired by seeing Korten perform alongside saxophonist Melissa Aldana. Structured loosely around the hero’s journey, the piece begins with a “Call to Adventure” and descends into an abyss of free drums and bass before returning triumphantly to its melodic theme. Sonically, the band channels the fusion-era spirit of Cannonball Adderley’s 1975 album Phenix, while injecting a contemporary free-jazz sensibility that feels unmistakably of the present.

The full track listing for Feed The Fire is as follows: 1. Aggro; 2. Feed the Fire; 3. When Day Becomes Night; 4. The Dark Knight; 5. Unconditional Love; 6. Mushi Mushi; 7. Room 157; 8. On the Speedy Side of the Pool; 9. The Mountains Are Calling (And I Must Go); 10. Fan Club.

Marks first made waves with her 2023 debut album, Outsider, Outlier, released on Out Of Your Head Records—an explosive exploration of belonging, empowerment, and her love of punk, noise, and free improvisation. Just a few years later, Feed The Fire finds her sharper, bolder, and more assured. Her tone is commanding yet nuanced; her facility on the bass is effortless but never indulgent; her vision as a composer is expansive and deeply considered. The result is an album that hits hard, digs deep, and stands as a defining document of modern jazz emerging from New York City today.

The project was made possible by Chamber Music America’s Performance Plus program through the generosity of the Doris Duke Foundation, with additional support from New England Conservatory’s Entrepreneurial Musicianship Grant.

Hannah Marks Upcoming Feed The Fire Tour Dates: February 19, 2026 – Smalls Jazz Club, NYC; March 10, 2026 – Blues Alley, Washington, D.C.; March 11, 2026 – Georgetown Day School, Washington, D.C.; June 26, 2026 – The Jazz Gallery, NYC (Album Release Celebration). Additional appearances as a leader include March 18, 2026 at Mezzrow, NYC (with Orrin Evans and Dan Weiss), and April 3, 2026 at The Jazz Gallery, NYC (with Jacob Sacks and Tom Rainey).

Vibes & Tribes: Ron Holmes Launches the Eclecticism Project with Genre-Bending 8-Piece Statement

Bassist and bandleader Ron Holmes unveils a bold new chapter with the Eclecticism Project, culminating in the release of Vibes & Tribes on February 6, 2026 via RHMedia, LLC. Known as the visionary force behind the acclaimed jazz fusion collective fo/mo/deep, Holmes now expands his sonic palette even further, assembling a dynamic 8-piece ensemble that fuses Afro-Beat, Jazz, Funk, Soul, and Groove into a high-energy, full-bodied statement of purpose.

At its core, Ron Holmes – Eclecticism is rooted in collaboration and curiosity. The music moves fluidly across stylistic boundaries, shaped by the musicians in the room and the lived experiences they bring to the stage. Holmes describes the project in simple, grounded terms: it’s about connection—making music with people and for people. Just a cat following the groove wherever it leads. That ethos animates Vibes & Tribes, a record that celebrates both individuality and collective spirit.

Holmes’ reputation for forward-thinking fusion dates back to fo/mo/deep’s formation in 2007. Over the years, the group has consistently pushed contemporary jazz and funk into new territory, earning critical praise for albums such as Syzygy (2019), The Groovy Goodness (2014), A Beautiful Bang (2012), and Eclecticism (2010). With the Eclecticism Project, Holmes builds on that legacy while embracing an even broader musical vocabulary, drawing inspiration from Afro-Beat rhythms, jazz improvisation, funk drive, and groove-centric soul textures.

Vibes & Tribes is performed by a powerful 8-piece configuration featuring a commanding horn section and Afro-Latin percussion, evoking the spirit of the great supergroups while remaining firmly rooted in the present. The sound is expansive and celebratory—music designed to move bodies as much as minds. Holmes’ bass anchors the ensemble with authority and warmth, providing both rhythmic propulsion and melodic counterpoint as the arrangements unfold.

The album’s twelve original tracks offer a wide-ranging yet cohesive journey. From the sly swagger of “Isn’t it Time (For That Cigar)” to the punchy urgency of “On My Way (With a Quickness)” and the infectious drive of “The Yaya Club (Red Sea),” the record pulses with vitality. Pieces such as “Yet, Still (Wanting You)” and “Such a Beautiful Soul” reveal a lyrical sensibility beneath the groove, while “Groove in the Air” and “What a Groovy Time” lean fully into the celebratory ethos that defines the project. Select tracks, including “Stir It Apart,” “On My Way (With a Quickness),” “The Yaya Club (Red Sea),” and “Such a Beautiful Soul,” are poised as potential singles.

Holmes’ Eclecticism Project is marked by its refusal to be boxed in. Instead, it embraces multiplicity—honoring the diasporic threads that connect Afro-Beat to funk, jazz to soul, and groove to communal ritual. The result is music that feels both deeply rooted and forward-looking, equally at home on festival stages, in jazz clubs, or blasting through summer speakers.

Based in Ohio, Holmes continues to evolve as both composer and bandleader, carrying forward the mission that has defined his career: to create music that celebrates the human spirit. Vibes & Tribes stands as the latest testament to that vision—an exhilarating sonic tapestry that invites listeners into a shared rhythmic experience.

Frank Sinatra’s Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! Returns for 70th Anniversary in Blue Note’s Tone Poet Series

Frank Sinatra’s classic 1956 Capitol Records album Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! will be reissued March 27 in Blue Note Records’ acclaimed Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Series, celebrating the album’s 70th anniversary. Produced for release by Joe Harley, the new Tone Poet edition was mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analog master tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl at Record Technology Inc. (RTI), and packaged in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket featuring session photography by William Claxton and Ken Veeder.

Arriving on the heels of Sinatra’s introspective landmark In The Wee Small Hours, Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! captured the legendary vocalist in a dramatically different emotional register. Where its predecessor dwelled in late-night solitude and heartbreak, this buoyant follow-up reveled in romance and rhythmic exuberance. Together, the two albums form a striking duality—melancholy and elation—cementing Sinatra’s mid-1950s Capitol period as one of the most artistically rich chapters of his career.

Recorded at Capitol’s KHJ Studios in Hollywood and produced by Voyle Gilmore, the album features effervescent arrangements by Nelson Riddle, whose sophisticated charts became integral to Sinatra’s signature swing sound. Drawing from the Great American Songbook, the set includes enduring standards such as “You Make Me Feel So Young,” “Too Marvelous For Words,” “Love Is Here To Stay,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” and more—each delivered with the conversational phrasing, impeccable timing, and charismatic ease that defined Sinatra at his peak.

Anticipation for additional Sinatra titles in the Tone Poet Series has been mounting since last year’s celebrated reissue of In The Wee Small Hours. That release earned widespread acclaim, including a 5-star rating for both performance and sonics from Stereophile, with reviewer Sasha Matson praising its intimate mono presentation and declaring it a masterpiece newly revitalized through audiophile care. The forthcoming Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! edition continues that commitment to archival excellence, pairing sonic fidelity with deluxe presentation.

The reissue’s track listing remains faithful to the original 1956 release:

Side 1
You Make Me Feel So Young (Josef Myrow–Mack Gordon)
It Happened In Monterey (Billy Rose–Mabel Wayne)
You’re Getting To Be A Habit With Me (Al Dubin–Harry Warren)
You Brought A New Kind Of Love To Me (Irving Kahal–Pierre Norman–Sammy Fain)
Too Marvelous For Words (Johnny Mercer–Richard Whiting)
Old Devil Moon (Burton Lane–E.Y. Harburg)
Pennies From Heaven (Arthur Johnston–Johnny Burke)
Love Is Here To Stay (George Gershwin–Ira Gershwin)

Side 2
I’ve Got You Under My Skin (Cole Porter)
I Thought About You (Jimmy Van Heusen–Johnny Mercer)
We’ll Be Together Again (Carl Fischer–Frankie Laine)
Makin’ Whoopee (Gus Kahn–Walter Donaldson)
Swingin’ Down The Lane (Gus Kahn–Isham Jones)
Anything Goes (Cole Porter)
How About You? (Burton Lane–Ralph Freed)

With its irresistible blend of wit, swing, and orchestral sparkle, Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! remains one of Sinatra’s defining statements—and one of the most beloved vocal jazz albums ever recorded. This 70th anniversary Tone Poet edition offers listeners an opportunity to experience the album anew, restored from the original tapes and presented with the reverence befitting a cornerstone of 20th-century popular music.

Buddy!: Stephen Parisi Jr. Releases Debut Album Honoring Mentorship, Legacy, and Community

On February 20, 2026, bassist and composer Stephen Parisi Jr. releases his debut album Buddy! via Shifting Paradigm Records. Featuring Parisi alongside guitarist Josh Achiron, pianist Nicholas Olynciw, drummer Kabir Dalawari, and saxophonist Jordan Lerner, the album is produced by Buffalo piano legend and longtime mentor George Caldwell. Rooted in Parisi’s formative years in Buffalo and his continued development in Chicago, Buddy! presents a compelling set of original compositions that foreground apprenticeship, family, and local jazz communities as vital forces in the music’s ongoing evolution.

Originally from Buffalo, New York, Parisi established himself as one of the region’s most in-demand bassists before relocating to Chicago to further immerse himself in that city’s deep jazz lineage. Along the way, he has performed across straight-ahead, big band, and contemporary settings, touring nationally with ensembles including the Glenn Miller Orchestra. At the same time, he has remained dedicated to composition, arranging, and education, studying with respected mentors such as Tom Matta, Bill Dobbins, and Dave Rivello. Even early in his career, colleagues observed that his playing “demonstrates a deep respect for tradition while speaking clearly in a personal voice”—a balance that defines Buddy!.

Conceived as a series of musical portraits, Buddy! traces the individuals and relationships that have shaped Parisi’s musical identity. Rather than treating mentorship and community as abstract ideals, Parisi renders them tangible through melody, harmonic architecture, and ensemble interplay. Each piece is named for—and inspired by—a specific person, grounding the music in lived experience. For Parisi, the album is both gratitude and responsibility: an acknowledgment of those who invested in him, and a recognition that participation in a jazz community means carrying those lessons forward.

The album opens with “Shikata Ga Nai,” dedicated to pianist Seiji Yamashita. The composition blends subtle harmonic turns with an understated rhythmic feel, reflecting a philosophy of acceptance embedded in its title. “Tro,” written for Parisi’s mother Kristen, follows with steady resolve, mirroring her unwavering support. “Lascialo,” honoring Aunt Maria and Uncle Lew Custode, unfolds patiently, allowing the ensemble’s collective sound to breathe while highlighting Parisi’s clarity as a composer.

“The Judge (For Ray)” adds a deeper tonal weight to the sequence, while “The Kid,” dedicated to guitarist Josh Achiron, underscores the close musical bond between the two, built on dialogue and trust rather than virtuosic display. The brief drum feature “Shukria” offers a moment of rhythmic focus before “The Italian Space Program (For Angelo),” written for Parisi’s uncle Angelo “Pooch” Puccio, injects playful rhythmic turns and tightly woven ensemble lines. “I Tried to Buy a Shark on the Dark Web” introduces a touch of humor and modern absurdity, balancing the album’s reflective core with contemporary wit. The record closes with the title track, “Buddy!,” a tribute to Parisi’s father, Stephen Parisi Sr.—affectionately known as “Big Steve”—a respected Buffalo pianist and composer. The piece captures the album’s emotional center, pairing warmth with forward motion.

Throughout Buddy!, Parisi’s writing leaves ample room for the ensemble’s personalities to emerge, reinforcing the album’s central message: jazz is sustained not by isolated individuals, but by networks of mentorship, shared history, and mutual respect. Caldwell’s production presence lends cohesion and perspective, guiding the project with the steady hand of someone who has witnessed generations of musicians pass through the same cycles of learning and leadership.

With Buddy!, Stephen Parisi Jr. offers more than a debut statement. He presents a testament to the communities that make jazz possible, affirming his place within that continuum by honoring those who came before him. In doing so, he reminds listeners that the future of jazz depends on remembering—and nurturing—the relationships that sustain it.

Please Plant Flowers: Nicholas Mycio Announces New Trio Album Ahead of March 20 Release

Brooklyn-born, Los Angeles-based guitarist Nicholas Mycio returns with Please Plant Flowers, an intimate and unflinching new trio album arriving March 20, 2026. Recorded with bassist Kyle Colina and drummer Sam McCarthy, the record documents a working band shaped over time—long before studio dates were scheduled—while war, displacement, illness, and death unfolded in Mycio’s life and the lives of those closest to him. The music was not conceived as a concept album. It emerged because he kept writing. “Music lets you express things very directly because it’s abstract,” Mycio says. “You don’t have to litigate how you feel.”

Today, Mycio shares the second single, “Shadow Puppets.” The piece draws from experiences that lingered after time spent in active war zones. He recalls walking home from a gig in New York with his wife when they heard a sound resembling an air-raid siren. “We immediately began to freak out looking for a shelter,” he says, before realizing they were not in danger. The tune captures how those reflexes persisted. “Those experiences are like a shadow on a wall,” he explains. “It can’t harm you, but it’s there and it follows you.” “Shadow Puppets” balances tension and release, tracing the outline of fear without succumbing to it.

Born in Brooklyn, Mycio began playing guitar at four under the guidance of his father, guitarist and music theorist Wasil Mycio. Immersed in jazz from an early age, he developed his language through straight-ahead study and performance before attending Berklee College of Music on a full-tuition scholarship. There he studied with leading voices including Terri Lyne Carrington, Kris Davis, and Nir Felder, refining a style that bridges foundational jazz vocabulary with contemporary harmonic exploration.

By his early twenties, Mycio was drawing critical attention for both technical clarity and aesthetic range. His debut album, Secrets from the Streetlights (2021), paired originals with standards from his working repertoire. NONSTANDARD (2024) expanded the palette further, weaving breakbeats and electronic textures into jazz frameworks. With Please Plant Flowers, however, Mycio narrows the aperture. The instrumentation is stripped to guitar, bass, and drums, and the trio recorded live, preserving what happened in the room. There are no elaborate overdubs or protective layers. “There’s no protection. There’s no hiding,” he says. Without piano, the guitar carries harmonic weight, and Mycio avoids heavy prearrangement, bringing lead sheets into the session and allowing the group to determine shape and direction in real time. “We play improvised music. We’re going to improvise.”

The period during which Mycio composed the album was relentless. His cousin Marcus was killed after being lured to a party and shot. Soon after, the war in Ukraine began. Having lived in both Kyiv and Moscow, with family in Ukraine and Russia, Mycio watched as relatives fled and places he had eaten, performed, and known were destroyed. His sister Ava underwent invasive brain surgery after her medication stopped working. His great-grandfather Norman Cohen died. His grandmother Gloria shattered her hip in a fall and was given a grim prognosis. “It felt like everything was happening one after the other,” he says. “Nothing seemed like it could let up.”

The trio format became both challenge and refuge. McCarthy, a longtime collaborator dating back to Berklee and a drummer Mycio calls both excellent and a close friend, brings elasticity and trust to the sessions. Colina, a seasoned presence on the New York scene, offers grounding and decisiveness shaped by experience. Together, the three musicians navigate shifting emotional terrain without excess ornamentation, allowing the music to breathe and fracture naturally.

The album opens with “Siny,” an E-flat minor blues nodding to The Next Step by Kurt Rosenwinkel. The title translates to “dark blue” in Russian, a color that fit the mood. Less programmatic than other pieces on the record, it reflects the language Mycio has internalized over years of study, shaped to avoid rigid cycles and invite rhythmic and harmonic elasticity.

“Elegy for Norman,” written shortly after the passing of his great-grandfather, resists overt sorrow. “He lived a long full life,” Mycio says. “I didn’t want the song to be sad.” In a time defined by unresolved tension, the piece acknowledges loss without dwelling inside it. “Signals in Black” arose during a period when recognizing joy felt difficult. Mycio links the tune to both that emotional state and to time spent studying the music of Thelonious Monk, channeling angular clarity and subtle defiance.

The title track, “Please Plant Flowers,” anchors the album. Written during years marked by war, death, and uncertainty, it carries a quiet plea. “I was very tired when I wrote this tune, and very scared,” Mycio says. “This song is about how when I die I want things to be peaceful enough for someone to plant flowers at my grave.” The vulnerability is direct but unsentimental, suspended between exhaustion and hope.

“Melancholia” reaches back to Mycio’s teenage years, when he was hospitalized for several months following a suicide attempt. The tune explores the strange gentleness that can accompany depressive states. “It can be gentle in a weird way,” he says. “It can even feel inviting.” “Dreams of Many,” one of the earliest compositions included, once felt too painful to perform, tied to a period of greater optimism before events intensified. The album closes with “When I’m Gone,” completing the phrase introduced by the title track. “This tune and ‘Please Plant Flowers’ make a full phrase,” Mycio explains, connecting the piece to a wish that wars had never happened and that his family could return home. “This song,” he says of the album as a whole, “is about that desire.”

Across Please Plant Flowers, Mycio plays with the intention of speech—seeking to connect thought and improvisation as seamlessly as conversation. The trio’s live recording approach underscores that aim, capturing nuance, hesitation, and surge without polish. What emerges is a record that neither dramatizes nor minimizes its circumstances. Instead, it inhabits them fully, allowing abstraction to hold what words cannot.

Please Plant Flowers is available March 20, 2026.

Immanuel Wilkins Quartet: Live At The Village Vanguard Announced Across Three Volumes

GRAMMY-nominated alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins has announced his first-ever live album, Immanuel Wilkins Quartet: Live At The Village Vanguard, a searing three-volume document capturing his acclaimed quartet in full flight at the legendary Village Vanguard. Volume 1 arrives March 20 on LP, CD, and digital formats, followed by the digital release of Volume 2 on April 17 and Volume 3 on May 15.

Recorded in the storied basement club in New York City, the album documents Wilkins’ working quartet—Micah Thomas on piano, Ryoma Takenaga on bass, and Kweku Sumbry on drums—navigating expansive interpretations of Wilkins’ original compositions in a room synonymous with the living history of jazz. With this release, Wilkins adds his name to the lineage of artists who have made definitive statements within these walls, joining a pantheon that includes John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Elvin Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, and Dexter Gordon.

The project is introduced with a stirring live performance of “CHARANAM,” the devotional composition by Alice Coltrane originally featured on her 1981 recording Turiya Sings. In Wilkins’ hands, the piece becomes both invocation and declaration—an offering that bridges spiritual jazz lineage and contemporary improvisational urgency.

In the album’s liner notes, scholar and writer Tina M. Campt reflects on the weight and resonance of the venue itself. The Village Vanguard, she writes, “makes you feel the presence of so many performances that are still very much alive in the room.” For Wilkins, the recording becomes a deliberate sono-spatial experiment—an effort to channel and reactivate the accumulated sonic memory embedded in the club’s walls, floorboards, and ceiling. Live At The Village Vanguard, Campt continues, is “a bold endeavor to summon the Vanguard’s sonic history and make it audible,” framing the performance as a practice of improvisational sounding, congregational listening, and devotional ritual.

Across its three volumes, the album presents a sweeping portrait of Wilkins’ compositional and improvisational language. Volume 1 features “WARRIORS,” “COMPOSITION II,” “CHARANAM,” and “ETERNAL,” establishing the quartet’s dynamic range—from meditative lyricism to surging collective momentum. Volume 2 expands the terrain with “THE BIG COUNTRY,” “WAITING PT. 1,” “CITRINE,” “GRACE AND MERCY,” and “GO ‘HEAD GET DOWN,” while Volume 3 concludes the arc with “RING SHOUT,” “COMPOSITION IX,” “DOLLA$,” and “PUT 100 ON THE BLUE CHAIN,” underscoring Wilkins’ ability to fuse structural rigor, spiritual depth, and rhythmic fire.

At the heart of the recording is the chemistry of a band that has grown together through years of performance. Thomas’ harmonic imagination and crystalline touch, Takenaga’s grounded yet elastic bass lines, and Sumbry’s textural, propulsive drumming create a framework that allows Wilkins to soar—probing, testifying, and conversing with the room itself. The result is not merely a live album, but a document of presence: four musicians engaging the moment with intensity and purpose in one of jazz’s most sacred spaces.

With Immanuel Wilkins Quartet: Live At The Village Vanguard, Wilkins stakes a bold claim within a tradition that reveres both history and forward motion. It is a statement of arrival and evolution, honoring the echoes of the past while carving new resonances into the Vanguard’s enduring sonic archive.

Brooklyn Stories: Ayman Fanous Announces 5-CD Boxset via Infrequent Seams

Guitarist and bouzouki player Ayman Fanous announces Brooklyn Stories, a staggering 5xCD boxset (also available digitally) arriving April 24, 2026 via Infrequent Seams. Spanning duos, trios, and quartets with a remarkable cast of improvisers, the collection stands as a monumental document of deep listening, fearless interplay, and transdisciplinary imagination. The first single, “Trio With William Parker, Tatsuya Nakatani – 4,” featuring William Parker and Tatsuya Nakatani, is out now, with pre-orders live on Bandcamp beginning February 24.

Working across jazz, avant-garde, and free improvisation, Fanous positions himself in conversation with the very artists who helped define those languages. For listeners attuned to the expansive spirits of Matthew Shipp, Alice Coltrane, Nate Wooley, Mary Halvorson, Luke Stewart, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Cecil Taylor, and Anthony Braxton, Brooklyn Stories will feel less like a debut and more like a revelation long in the making.

Although Fanous has recorded before, he calls this collection “a debut in some regards.” It is his first large-scale statement as a leader, and its ambition is unmistakable. A professional scientist and physician whose research spans schizophrenia, genomics, and psychiatry, Fanous occupies a rare position: an “outsider” to the full-time musician’s circuit, yet deeply embedded in the language and lineage of creative music. One glance at his collaborators dispels any notion of dilettantism. This is serious, hard-earned music made in communion with masters.

The scope of Brooklyn Stories is immense. Across five discs, Fanous engages in a shifting series of constellations: extended trios with Parker and Nakatani; intimate and explosive duos with Joe McPhee; a quartet featuring McPhee, Jason Kao Hwang, and Nakatani; luminous trio and quartet configurations with the late Susan Alcorn; searching dialogues and ensembles with Ned Rothenberg; string-driven trios with Mark Feldman and Thomas Ulrich; and rhythmically charged quartets with Hwang, James Ilgenfritz, and Nakatani. The set closes with a trio alongside pianist Denman Maroney, bringing yet another textural dimension into focus.

The recordings span key moments and spaces: September 20, 2013 at Sonia Vlahcevic Hall, Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia (Disc 1), and May 29–30, 2015 at Firehouse Space in Brooklyn, New York (Discs 2–5). Across these sessions, Fanous moves between classical guitar, electric guitar, and bouzouki, revealing a vocabulary that is at once pitch-centered and open-ended, steeped in flamenco and classical technique yet untethered from orthodoxy.

The liner notes, written by Elliott Sharp, offer both personal recollection and critical framing. Sharp recounts first encountering Fanous in the early 1990s at the Knitting Factory, receiving a cassette that immediately revealed “inventiveness of pitch-based improvising” and “simmering intensity.” Their subsequent studio meeting confirmed it: the depth was real, the technique abundant but never gratuitous. Sharp raises a compelling question that hovers over the entire boxset: how do Fanous’ parallel vocations—scientist, doctor, improviser—feed each other in ways that produce music of such intensity and structural clarity?

Fanous himself traces his roots to acoustic playing, drawing on flamenco and classical approaches alongside flatpicking, with influences ranging from Braxton and Taylor to Webern and Downtown experimentalism. A pivotal mentorship came through his duo with the late Bern Nix, an experience he once described as his true musical education. That lineage—harmolodic openness, clean timbre, structural elasticity—echoes throughout Brooklyn Stories.

One of the revelations of the collection is Fanous’ fluency on bouzouki. While often associated with Greek rembetika and broader Mediterranean traditions, in his hands the instrument becomes a vehicle for cascading modal improvisation—Mixolydian, Aeolian, Phrygian—filtered through a personal, non-microtonal lens. Rapid tremolo passages and rippling textures create sheets of sound that both anchor and destabilize the ensembles, expanding the harmonic field without overwhelming it.

As remixing and mastering engineer for the project, Sharp had the rare vantage point of hearing the music both “globally and granularly,” noting the extraordinary level of sonic empathy at work. What emerges across the five discs is not a guitarist imposing his will on a cast of luminaries, but an artist fully embedded in dialogue—listening, responding, shaping, and surging forward with saturated joy.

The rollout begins February 24 with the announcement and first single release, “Trio With William Parker, Tatsuya Nakatani – 4.” A second single, “Duo with Joe McPhee – 2,” arrives March 10, followed by “Trio With Susan Alcorn, Ned Rothenberg” on April 7. The full 5-CD boxset lands April 24, 2026.

Brooklyn Stories is more than a document of performances; it is a cartography of relationships—between instruments, between improvisers, between disciplines, and between lifetimes of inquiry. In an era of fragmented listening and disposable output, Fanous offers something immersive and demanding: five discs of rigor, vulnerability, and fearless exchange. It is both a culmination and an opening statement.

Bettye Swann – Feel The Feeling, A Lost Chapter From the Atlantic Years, Featuring Five Previously Unreleased Songs

A vital new collection shines fresh light on one of soul music’s most emotive and underappreciated vocalists. Feel The Feeling (S4RLP08) gathers thirteen recordings from Bettye Swann’s tenure at Atlantic Records, including five songs that remained unreleased for decades. The result is both a historical document and a revelation—an intimate portrait of an artist navigating the changing tides of early 1970s soul with grace, grit, and extraordinary vocal depth.

Bettye Swann possessed one of the most emotionally direct voices in the soul canon. Her career, however, was that of a shooting star: it ignited brilliantly, burned with fierce intensity, and then faded with unexpected swiftness. In 1975, after just eleven years in the recording spotlight, she stepped away from the industry, relocated to Las Vegas, and retired the Bettye Swann persona. What remains is a compact but potent body of work that continues to resonate with collectors, DJs, and soul aficionados worldwide.

Born Betty Jean Champion in Louisiana, Swann relocated to Los Angeles as a young woman. Around 1964, she was introduced to Al Scott, owner of Money Records. It was her fourth single for the label, “Make Me Yours,” that propelled her into the national consciousness. One of the defining soul sides of its era, the record’s success led to a contract with Capitol Records in 1968, further cementing her reputation as a formidable interpreter of heartbreak and longing.

By 1972, Swann had signed with Atlantic Records, marking a new chapter in her artistic journey. Her debut Atlantic 45, “Victim Of A Foolish Heart” backed with “Cold Day In Hell,” was recorded at the legendary FAME Studios under the guidance of producers Mickey Buckins and Rick Hall. The single made an immediate impact, reaching #16 on the Billboard chart and signaling a promising new phase in her career. The Muscle Shoals influence lent grit and southern warmth to her delivery, framing her voice against taut rhythms and understated arrangements.

Subsequent releases demonstrated Swann’s gift for bridging genres. Her rendition of Merle Haggard’s “Today I Started Loving You Again” and the tender “Til I Get It Right” leaned into a gentle country-soul sensibility, revealing her remarkable interpretive range. “I’m Not That Easy To Lose” also dates from these fertile sessions, showcasing her ability to balance vulnerability with quiet defiance.

In an effort to broaden her commercial appeal, Atlantic sent Swann to Philadelphia’s renowned Sigma Sound Studios. There, she recorded Phil Hurtt and Tony Bell’s “Kiss My Love Goodbye,” along with “Time To Say Goodbye” and “When The Game Is Played On You.” These sessions embraced the lush textures and sophisticated arrangements associated with the emerging Philly soul sound, placing her voice in a more polished but still emotionally resonant context.

As commercial fortunes shifted, Swann was next paired with Nashville producer Brad Shapiro. The artistic results were stellar, even if not all saw release at the time. Among the treasures finally unveiled on Feel The Feeling are three previously unissued gems: a deeply felt interpretation of The Isley Brothers’ “This Old Heart of Mine,” a definitive take on Maxine Weldon’s “I Want Sunday Back Again,” and the aching “Either You Love Me Or Leave Me.” These recordings underscore Swann’s uncanny ability to inhabit a lyric fully, transforming familiar material into something unmistakably her own.

A duet pairing with Sam Dees, including Barbara Acklin’s “Just As Sure,” was issued as a 45 on the Atlantic-distributed Big Tree Records label, adding yet another dimension to her Atlantic-era output.

Across its thirteen tracks, Feel The Feeling offers a compelling snapshot of an artist in transition—navigating Muscle Shoals grit, Philadelphia sophistication, and Nashville polish while remaining rooted in the emotional truth that defined her work from the beginning. The five originally unreleased songs provide invaluable insight into what might have been, filling in crucial gaps in her discography and reaffirming her status as one of soul’s most expressive vocal stylists.

Now available, Feel The Feeling stands as both tribute and rediscovery: a reminder of a singular voice that, though it burned briefly, illuminated soul music with lasting brilliance.