Roswell Rudd Quartet
Keep Your Heart Right
(Sunnyside)
Trombonist Roswell Rudd emphasizes the warmth and humor in his music on this delightful album of 10 agreeably eccentric, original songs laced with ironic wit and homespun philosophizing. He presents these slightly skewed but accessible songs with an unconventional quartet featuring pianist Lafayette Harris Jr., [...]

Dr. John and the Lower 911
City That Care Forgot
(429)
This album might be the most powerful and emotionally naked recording in his long career. He lays to rest any notion that New Orleans has forgotten what happened on Aug. 29, 2005, or has forgiven what happened next. In its 13 tracks [...]

Wayman Tisdale
Rebound
(Rendezvous)
Wayman Tisdale is one funky cat. So what’s country crooner Toby Keith doing here? Turning in one of the most smoldering vocals this side of Barry White, that’s what. The duo’s version of White’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” is, doubtless, one of the disc’s highlights – and another [...]

Claudio Roditi
Impressions
(Groovin’ High)
Brazilian trumpeter Claudio Roditi has spent his four-decade-long career exploring the fertile intersection of bebop and samba. The jazzy variant to the subtle and softly voiced bossa nova of Jobim and Gilberto came into vogue during the early 1960s when pianist Sergio Mendez, trombonist Raul de Souza, saxophonist [...]

Dominique Cravic et les Primitifs du Futur
Tribal Musette
(Sunnyside)
Accordions and Edith Piaf are more normally associated with musette than sitars and kotos. But les Primitifs du Futur are not your normal musette band. Guitarist Dominique Cravic’s giddily post-modern take on the bittersweet French cabaret song is full of surprising world-music twists [...]

Jamie Baum Septet
Solace
(Sunnyside)
The flute has assumed many personalities in jazz. But seldom, if ever, has a straight-on classical approach been applied as forward-leaning as that of Jamie Baum. Baum is the flutist in several groups, including the co-op quartet Timepiece and her critically acclaimed New York septet. The latter formed [...]