Three Jazz albums for this week
contemporary picks for this week!
It’s been a little while! Things have been a bit crazy, so I haven’t had the time I’d have liked to be able to sit down and put together some posts. However, I’ve got some things in the works! For now, I wanted to share three albums I’ve been enjoying the past couple weeks, one in particular that I am really loving.
The Circling Sun - Spirits (2023)
The Circling Sun is a Jazz band from New Zealand making really fantastic spiritual/modal Jazz, infused with Latin sounds. Their music may evoke bits of Pharoah Sanders, Lonnie Liston Smith, and many others.
At times, the music can wander between ‘spiritual’ and ‘psychadelic’ but the entire album experience is really quite special to me, popping onto my radar at just the right time.
I recommend listening to the entire album in one sitting if you are able. It was a rare buy for me as soon as I was finished!
I Am An Instrument - IAAI, Vol. 3 (2020)
Released in summer of 2020, this album was recorded live in Copenhagen just shorly before the COVID-19 lockdowns. IAAI exclusively record live, 100% improvised performances, so these albums capture the magic of a one-off session.
This is another album best listened to from start to finish all at once, since it keeps the music in context with the rest of the session. If you enjoy this one, check out their other releases!
Artemis - Arboresque (2025)
The third Blue Note release from the powerhouse band Artemis, ‘Arboresque’ thematically focuses on the Earth — just look at the song titles. The band won the reader’s poll for Downbeat magazine for the best working Jazz group two years in a row (2023 and 2024), so if you’ve never given them a listen, now is as good as time as ever!
A few stand outs here are Olive Branch (below), Petrichor, and Komorebi, but the album as a whole is pretty solid!
Other things:
I recently got a bag (Il Bisonte - Frame) a bit ago (I may have already mentioned it), but after some extended use I can’t recommend it strongly enough. Just incredibly impressed with the quality. They offer 10% off with signup to their newsletter.
Two new pieces of art made their way to my personal collection in the past couple weeks: This drawing and This painting.
That’s all for now!
I love the new Artemis album!
Nicole Glover is one of my favorite Tenors working today