Michelle Nicolle Quartet A Flower Is Lovesome Thing (2016)

This is one of pianist Vince Guaraldi's better sets. Showcased in a San Francisco-based trio with guitarist Eddie Duran and bassist Dean Reilly, Guaraldi plays seven standards plus his own "Like a Mighty Rose" tastefully and with light swing, making this a program that is equally successful as both cool jazz and background music.

This is one of pianist Vince Guaraldi's better sets. Showcased in a San Francisco-based trio with guitarist Eddie Duran and bassist Dean Reilly, Guaraldi plays seven standards plus his own "Like a Mighty Rose" tastefully and with light swing, making this a program that is equally successful as both cool jazz and background music.

This is one of pianist Vince Guaraldi's better sets. Showcased in a San Francisco-based trio with guitarist Eddie Duran and bassist Dean Reilly, Guaraldi plays seven standards plus his own "Like a Mighty Rose" tastefully and with light swing, making this a program that is equally successful as both cool jazz and background music.

This is one of pianist Vince Guaraldi's better sets. Showcased in a San Francisco-based trio with guitarist Eddie Duran and bassist Dean Reilly, Guaraldi plays seven standards plus his own "Like a Mighty Rose" tastefully and with light swing, making this a program that is equally successful as both cool jazz and background music.

Former PiL bassist, post punk icon and general cool cat Jah Wobble is set to release Everything is Nothing, his new album with his ever-morphing, genre-enveloping combo Invaders of the Heart on August 26. Made with producer Youth, it’s a super jazzy record and the lineup this time out is pretty damn impressive, featuring Hawkwind’s Nik Turner and the incomparable Tony Allen on drums.

For its fourth opus, the most badass string quartet in France’s young guard revisits standards written by some of the monuments in jazz, namely Mingus, Ellington, Coltrane, Monk and Shorter. And this four-piece is probably one of the most relevant around when it comes to artistic experiment based the material that belongs to our heritage. Here the RP Quartet shows its increasing maturity as it closes in on the essentials of its art, and Poney Jungle is a wild, powerful musical horse ride that clears every obstacle with sincerity and brio. Augustin BONDOUX