Out of Orbit, the bold new album by saxophonist and composer Jim Piela, is a celebration of the unknown. It’s about embracing fears with honesty and resolve, not running from or pushing them out of mind. With trumpeter Joey Lamb, bassist Bob Sabin, and drummer Josh Bailey, Piela's adventurous quartet navigates his original compositions, as well as a couple of salient classics, with grace and ingenuity, fully embracing Wayne Shorter's famous definition: “Jazz means, ‘I Dare You.’” 

Burning Ghosts returns to their improvisational roots and delivers a raw, untethered, and passionate response to our current national experience on "American Circus." 

In the spirit of the mad whirlwind that is modern American culture, Burning Ghosts recorded, mixed, and mastered this album in only 72 hours. Because, who knows what tweets will rattle the world tomorrow...

Composer, flutist and conductor James Newton is a verifiable legend in the avant-garde music world. Amongst his contemporaries, his name is synonymous with dedicated and adventurous exploration of the deepest expressions through both composition and improvisation. His latest album The Manual of Light is a gorgeous collection of chamber music and solo pieces written over the last decade, book-ended by two stunning renditions of “Amazing Grace” for string orchestra. Enlisting some of Los Angeles’s best instrumentalists to deliver masterful performances of his spiritually rich compositions, Newton’s new opus is a journey into the divine.

Sometimes a mask is as revealing as what lies beneath. Written over eight years, Mask, the new Orenda Records release from composer, bandleader and brass player David Dominique, bounds between styles, strategies, attitudes and textures. Somehow, the project furthers the language Dominique developed on his enthralling 2013 album, Ritual, while offering a perpetual sense of surprise.

The idea for this project started back in 2008. I would take two related bands that I’d been writing for—The Mentones (Tony Atherton, Bill Barrett, Joe Berardi, me) and the Tee-Tot Quartet (Dan Clucas, Scot Ray, Joe Berardi, me)—and combine them. I started to write the music, I started the artwork, I had the album title—but life and the world intervened. 

Then in 2017, I had the opportunity to play a fairly high-profile gig and I asked to do this, my deferred dream band. The presenter put faith in me (thank you, Lisa Mezzacappa!) and Men-Tot Six was back.