America/Brasil is a rollicking, celebratory album that keeps Herbie Mann on the winning streak he started with the release of Peace Pieces in 1995. Recorded during a week of concerts to mark his 65th birthday in April 1995, this disc is much stronger than its immediate predecessor, Celebration, also taken from the same week of live concert performances at New York's Blue Note jazz club. The material here is superb, and the playing top-notch. As the title implies, the emphasis here is on Mann's Brazilian side, but there are touches of the non-Brazilian with Bill Evans' "Peri's Scope" and Miles Davis' "All Blues." "Summertime" is recast in an Afro-Cuban mode with Paquito D'Rivera sharing the solo space on alto sax. However, lengthy Brazilian showstoppers are placed at the beginning, middle, and end of this wonderful disc. The opening "Keep the Spirits Singing" is propelled by the polyrhythmic pulse of percussionists Cyro Baptista and "Café," and the 17-minute title track finale features trumpeters Randy Brecker and Claudio Roditi, trombonist Jim Pugh, and guitarist Romero Lubambo.

French trumpeter Erik Truffaz has been a mover and shaker on the European creative improvisational scene since the mid-'90s. With the release of The Mask (a compilation of three previously released recordings: Out of a Dream, The Dawn, and Bending New Corners), Revisité (a DJ dance remix of The Mask), and 2002's forward-sounding Mantis, Truffaz became one of the most popular electronic jazz trumpeters to hit North America since Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer charged forth with Khmer and Solid Ether…

Reuniting with Larry Mizell, the man behind his last three LPs, Donald Byrd continues to explore contemporary soul, funk, and R&B with Places and Spaces. In fact, the record sounds more urban than its predecessor, which often played like a Hollywood version of the inner city. Keeping the Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, and Sly Stone influences of Street Lady, Places and Spaces adds elements of Marvin Gaye, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Stevie Wonder, which immediately makes the album funkier and more soulful. Boasting sweeping string arrangements, sultry rhythm guitars, rubbery bass, murmuring flügelhorns, and punchy horn charts, the music falls halfway between the cinematic neo-funk of Street Lady and the proto-disco soul of Earth, Wind & Fire. Also, the title Places and Spaces does mean something – there are more open spaces within the music, which automatically makes it funkier. Of course, it also means that there isn't much of interest on Places and Spaces for jazz purists, but the album would appeal to most fans of Philly soul, lite funk, and proto-disco.

Brazilian musicians and studios are fond of backup arrangements quite as mushy as anything the U.S. industry can provide, so live albums of Brazilian performers tend to be a lot more satisfying than studio gigs. That's certainly true of this release compared with his earlier Braziloid album. A punchy backup band does wonders for his attractively laidback style.

Nguyên Lê is a maverick, a hyper-fluent guitarist with a penchant for mixing up genres. Born in Paris of Vietnamese descent, he’s regarded as a jazz musician, though his most celebrated albums pay tribute to 60s rock gods like Hendrix and Floyd. Here he teams up with a young traditionalist, Ngô Hong Quang, on fiddle and lute to portray “the soul of Vietnam” and its quickening evolution. There are jaunty folkish tunes, temple bells and ethereal melodies with titles like Heaven’s Ground, but nothing arrives without surprises. One moment you are among mountain clouds, then Lê unleashes a storm of widdly-diddly electric axe. Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu adds elegant Milesesque licks to a remarkable fusion of ancient and modern.

After attracting attention with her clear soprano voice in the classical and opera genre, German singer Esther Kretzinger discovers new paths with her second album Sound of a Poem. Together with a small jazz ensemble of international repute, she sheds new light On a special selection of Romantic and Impressionist songs by Claude Debussy, Joseph Marx and Othmar Schoeck. With the Swiss violinist Georges-Emmanuel Schneider, New York vibraphonist Tim Collins, renowned bassist Wayne Darling and Austrian drummer Gerald Endstrasser, Esther Kretzinger works out the essence of these songs in the language of jazz, showing that the differences between Impressionist music and jazz often lie more in external features such as sound colour, articulation and instrumentation rather than their artistic cores.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet - The Columbia Studio Albums Collection features each of the 19 albums in a replica mini-LP sleeve which reproduces that LP's original front and back cover artwork. Where applicable, the albums in each box include the bonus tracks that have been released on the expanded CD editions over the years. As noted above, nine of the titles in The Dave Brubeck Quartet - The Columbia Studio Albums Collection are making their debut appearance on CD in the U.S. with this box set.

Kenny Burrell's guitaristry is well-documented in his years with Oscar Peterson and on his first dates as a leader on the Blue Note label, but God Bless the Child, his only date for CTI in 1971, is an under-heard masterpiece in his catalog. Burrell's band for the set includes bassist Ron Carter, percussionist Ray Barretto, Richard Wyands on piano, flutist Hubert Laws, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, and drummer Billy Cobham. CTI's house arranger, Don Sebesky, assembled and conducted the strings in a manner that stands strangely and beautifully apart from his other work on the label. Sebesky understood Burrell's understated approach to playing guitar…

Recorded on the final night of their tour at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2003, this special 16 track live package from the Jazz-funk legends Level 42 is packed with classics. The band are at their brilliant best performing hits including 'Lessons in Love' and 'Something About You' that have underlined the reasons why the group have always been at the very top level of modern day music.

Intelligent, moving, jazz influenced, progressive rock performed by a stellar cast of musicians including amongst others and in addition to Pip himself is: Dave Stewart, Barbara Gaskin, Phil Miller, Jakko M Jaksyk, Richard Sinclair, John Greaves, Fred Thelonious Baker, Hugh Hopper, Paul Rogers, Didier Malherbe and Elton Dean. Pip Pyle has played drums with amongst others Gong, Hatfield and the North, National Health and In Cahoots and this album shows also what a great composer he is. Quite simply this album contains some of the best examples of the Canterbury/Prog Rock music that has been heard on CD…

Following the major sales and airplay successes of Benoit's previous GRP outings, Shadows is a more conceptual album, a collection that perfectly fuses the hip-hop grooves introduced on Inner Motion's popular track "M.W.A," with a lush orchestral approach. All without losing sight of the spirited composing and playing style that made him one of smooth jazz's biggest stars. Helping bring Benoit and co-producer Marcel East's chemistry to life are friends old and new to the Benoit studio fold: guitarist Pat Kelley; bassists Neil Stubenhaus, Nathan East, and Jimmy Johnson; saxophonist Michael Paulo; drummers Jeff Porcaro and John Robinson; and percussionists Chris Trujillo, Michael Fisher, and Fattburger's Tommy Aros.

Bunny Brunel and Stanley Clarke make their presence know on all of the songs on Bass Ball. The two virtuosos (Bunny and Stanley) have very distinctive playing and soloing styles, making it easy to guess who's playing what on the album. In the liner notes, "Bass Ball" carefully outlines each bass player's part. However, If you know your bass players, you'll no trouble identifying these iconic players.

When most jazz singers do standards, they come from the "classic" American songbook, the one that includes show tunes and pop songs from a bygone era, one that was powered by names such as Gershwin, Lerner & Loewe, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Sammy Kahn, Johnny Mercer, and so many others. That said, Cassandra Wilson is not just any jazz vocalist, and her Blue Note catalog – the label she's been with since 1993 – proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Wilson has explored her deep love of jazz and blues to be sure, covering everyone from Robert Johnson to Miles Davis…

On Jonathan Butler's N2K Encoded Music debut, Do You Love Me, he continues his jack-of-two-trades approach, balancing R&B-based vocal tunes with easy, acoustic guitar-based instrumentals. While it's a friendly enough listen, Butler here doesn't display a powerful enough mastery of either format. His guttural, heartfelt vocal style – reminiscent of Jon Secada – can make even the most Lionel Richie-esque lyric seem deeper than it is (even a new song with a title like "The Way You Look Tonight"), but few of the adult-oriented vocal tunes here are as memorable or hooky as his best-known hit, "Sarah Sarah." "Do You Love Me?," for instance, should be a deep, emotional moment, but comes off as a pleasant, easily dismissed conversation. Fortunately, "You Don't Belong to Me" has more lyrical bite, nicely underscored with a percussive guitar line underneath his angry tone. Butler should put more of that pointed energy into his play-it-safe instrumentals, which generally gallop along smoothly without building much steam. The best one can do with this sort of album is like Butler a lot.

Trumpeter Chris Botti's To Love Again: The Duets picks up where his stellar 2004 release When I Fall in Love leaves off, with more gorgeously lush and heartfelt orchestral jazz via the London Session Orchestra. This time showcasing guest vocalists – as well as a handful of instrumental tracks – Botti takes an even more classicist approach than before and once again brings to mind such iconic jazz albums as Clifford Brown with Strings and Miles Davis' Porgy and Bess. Largely known as a smooth jazz artist with a sweet trumpet tone, it wasn't until When I Fall in Love that Botti dropped the smooth jazz synthesizers and pop-oriented compositions in favor of Gil Evans-style jazz orchestrations and an acoustic backing quartet…