Tommy Castro & The Painkillers

“I love the fact that when some people think about my music they think of it as joyous, but there is darkness inside,” Anat Cohen says. “We are complex humans.”

A recent batch of great jazz from today’s most caliente Latin artists, clockwise from top left: Zaccai Curtis, Salsa de la Bahia, Melfis Santa, Leiba Trio, Duduka Da Fonseca Trio, Hamilton De Holanda & Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Diego Figueiredo and The John Santos Sextet & Friends.

“It sounds together, there’s nothing random, yet hardly anything was said,” saxophonist Ohad Talmor said of Back To The Land.

“Why, being a classically trained musician, do I have to only play the obvious themes?” asks Kristin Lee.

“This is one of the great gifts that Coltrane gave us — he gave us a key to the cosmos in this recording,” says John McLaughlin.

Charles Lloyd (left) and Julian Lage perform at the Zakir Hussain memorial concert on Feb. 28.

“This music is really about honoring my forebearers and expressing gratitude to my parents and my grandparents,” Kono says about Voyages.

“I attribute the jazz elements to my upbringing in the Black American classical pedagogy, to my grandparents Kenny and Joanne Barron,” says NIKARA.

“Not in a million years, man,” said saxophonist Jeff Coffin about imagining if he’d be inducted into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame. He was last year.