Hang in there, everybody; the world isn’t over yet. One person holding out hope during this age of impending doom is concerned citizen Mike Holober, the acclaimed New York pianist and composer/arranger known for his deep-dive collaborations with such esteemed large jazz ensembles as the WDR Big Band, the HR Big Band and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra. A recent Chamber Music America New Jazz Works commission has brought us Holober’s latest ambition: a complete song-cycle built around the concept of hope. Titled Don’t Let Go, the concert-length album features Balancing Act, a jazz octet with voice that Holober formed in 2015, performing live in October 2019 at Aaron Davis Hall on the campus of the City College of New York, where Holober has taught since 1995. The smaller ensemble satisfies Holober’s need to make a completely personal statement, one in which his own artistic goals are matched with the fruits of the collective. This particular configuration gives him an opportunity to balance his classical and jazz impulses in an all-inclusive manner that entices listeners from across the musical spectrum. And that’s exactly what you get with Don’t Let Go. Ensemble members Marvin Stamm (trumpet and flugelhorn), Dick Oatts (alto/soprano saxophone, flute), Jason Rigby (tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet), Mark Patterson (trombone), Mike McGuirk (bass) and Dennis Mackrel (drums) navigate the jazz-classical divide with expertise and finesse, their orchestral-level chops easily managing the many contrasting stylistic elements at play within Holober’s nuance-rich orchestrations. Brazilian vocalist Jamile plays an integral role here: Whether she’s singing out front or vocalizing wordlessly within the ensemble, her presence enhances the group’s expressive palette and dynamic interplay. Don’t Let Go comes with two CDs of music, one for each set from the Aaron Davis Hall performance. Every song in the sequence sounds and feels just like its title suggests — “Breathe Deep,” “Burnin’ Daylight,” “A Summer Midnight’s Dream” and “Touch The Sky” being prime examples. The title track closes the album with what amounts to a direct order from the visionary Holober: Let the music uplift you, and embrace optimism at any cost.

There are many artists throughout the back pages of folk and blues once relegated to the dustbins of history who are being resurrected by the kind of people diligent enough to dig through record crates and studio storage closets. Among them, Karen Dalton is certainly having a moment. A woman out of northeast rural Texas, via Oklahoma, don’t let her appearance or bio fool you. She draws comparisons to Bessie Smith, and musicians including Lucinda Williams, Joanna Newsom, Nick Cave, Angel Olsen, Devendra Banhart, Sharon Van Etten, Courtney Barnett and Adele cite her as an influence. Bob Dylan once said of her, “She had a voice like Billie Holiday and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed.”

Perhaps that’s why a documentary of her life is out now digitally and is coming to theaters in October. More importantly, Light In The Attic has a 50th anniversary edition of her sophomore album, 1971’s In My Own Time, considered her masterpiece, out last month. Meanwhile, Delmore Recording Society, via Third Man Records, has a 12-track live set, Shuckin’ Sugar, recorded from 1963 to 1964, featuring the earliest known duets of Dalton with then-husband, guitarist and songwriter Richard Tucker, out for Record Store Day April 23.

So, what does all this sound like? Armed with a long-necked banjo and a 12-string guitar, Dalton sings strongly in an authentic, earned Southern accent with accompaniment that sounds more like the tangled country of the Flying Burrito Brothers — especially on her outing of “When A Man Loves A Woman” — than anything out of Nashville.

Dalton’s certainly no songwriter; only one song on here gives her a credit, and it’s “Traditional; arranged by Karen Dalton,” on a tune called “Katie Cruel.” It doesn’t matter — it’s a staggeringly beautiful performance, just Dalton on banjo backed by a fiddle. She strikes some stomach-wrenching chord changes under her composed yet unassuming voice. She even whistles! And then complains guys never buy her drinks anymore. Ouch.

Elsewhere, Dalton lives in these songs so convincingly it makes it clear she, or someone around her, was archly talented at selecting her material. On “In My Own Dream,” over a medium-tempo romp drenched in barroom piano worthy of Dylan himself, Dalton sings, “I didn’t know I could be a fool. It took me a long time to find out. My mind turned upside-down.” Who would have thought such a relatable lyric could come from Paul Butterfield?

Shuckin’ Sugar, the live set, is, understandably, a rangier affair. Dalton — apparently suspicious of live performance — starts the entire proceedings by remarking to someone, “Shit, I came all this way for them to point at me?” She recovers from whatever was bothering her, and one imagines that by the time she was done using “a Biblical text” to inhabit the life of a snake on “If You’re A Viper” that the audience had stopped pointing. Her 12-string guitar is striking here; it shimmers on every song, particularly “Ribbon Bow.” Fairport Convention later took on the same song but needed seven instruments mic’ed up to match this. Best of all, Dalton and Tucker own “In The Pines” three decades before Kurt Cobain yelped his way through it as “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” on MTV Unplugged in New York in November 1993. Dalton herself had died of AIDS in New York eight months earlier.

Just to whet your appetites for Record Store Day on April 23, one day after the 100th birthday of the great Charles Mingus, here’s a pearl delivered by our friends at Resonance Records. Mingus: The Lost Album From Ronnie Scott’s is not so much a lost record as a shelved record. Thankfully, it’s available now. Back in 1972, the iconic bassist and composer had just turned 50 and his career was experiencing a renaissance. This is something to be astonished by now. How could Mingus’ entire career not be embraced, lauded, enjoyed and placed appropriately on a pedestal? Thus is the fickle finger of fate. That aside, during this period, Mingus was in the midst of newfound fame and respect. He received the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship; his autobiography Beneath The Underdog came out to acclaim; he released the incredible big band album Let My Children Hear Music; and Alvin Ailey, one of the greatest choreographers in modern dance history, had created The Mingus Dances in conjunction with the Joffrey Ballet and complete with music from, of course, Mingus. (A re-staging of this last item would be a worthy pursuit for this Mingus centennial celebration.) The Lost Album finds Mingus in a sextet setting at the end of a European tour finishing up at London’s famed Ronnie Scott’s. The setting and timing seemed perfect, and Columbia Records sent a mobile recording truck to the club to tape the group for two nights. But the tapes languished for some 50 years because in 1973, Columbia dropped its entire jazz roster — except for Miles Davis. The story of how the tapes came to light is beautifully laid out in the extensive liner notes that accompany this three-LP (or three-CD) package. The story is fascinating, but the music is even more incredible. The sound of the recordings offers a pristine time capsule of one of the greatest artists in jazz with a group that measures up to his music. Just hearing Mingus introduce the first song, “Orange Was The Color Of Her Dress, Then Silk Blues,” sets the scene and sends a chill. The band was a new configuration of his sextet with old hands Bobby Jones on tenor saxophone and Charles McPherson on alto saxophone, but newer members fit right in: Roy Brooks on drums, John Foster on piano and a 19-year-old Jon Faddis on trumpet. They cook through the nine tunes on this package, culled from the two nights of performances. The highlights are aplenty. For this reviewer, there is nothing better than hearing Mingus’ solo introducing “Noddin’ Ya Head Blues.” No matter how far out the master took his music, he always carried the blues at his side. The solo slides beautifully into a true treat with Foster adding his gut-bucket vocals, complete with a shout-out to Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson. The musicianship throughout recognizes Mingus’ love for music that was complex without being pristine — “organized chaos,” as McPherson calls it in the notes. There’s also the sheer humor and musical activism of Mingus and his crew. How do you not love a tune called “Mind-Reader’s Convention In Milano (AKA Number 29)” or the classic “Fables Of Faubus,” a tune that aimed to country-fry the governor of Arkansas for his attempts to stop racial integration at a high school? And, back to the blues, when Brooks pulls out a solo on the musical saw, he brings down the house. It’s such beautiful chaos — from “Ko Ko” and “Pops (AKA When The Saints Go Marching In)” to “The Man Who Never Sleeps” and the closer “Air Mail Special.” One last note, what a pleasure it is to hear Faddis as an upstart in this setting. He’ll light your hair on fire with his high notes and crazy chops — and so will this entire album. Mingus: The Lost Album From Ronnie Scott’s is as good a live jazz record as you will ever hear.

Jean-Michel Pilc prefers to fly without a net. A prolific pianist-composer and unpredictable improviser who excels at perpetual invention and is known for performing spellbinding solo sets with no set lists, he’s joined on his debut album for Justin Time by bassist Rémi-Jean LeBlanc and drummer Jim Doxas — longtime trio mates who, like their leader, strive for spontaneous expression in everything they play as a unit. Performing for a COVID-weary, jazz-starved audience at Montreal’s prestigious Dièse Onze jazz club last June, the group takes standards like “Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise” and Miles Davis’ “Nardis” and “All Blues” on long thrill-rides of creative deconstruction. Two Pilc originals — the quirky swinger “11 Sharp” and the gentle, lyrical title track — provide even more surprises as the trio takes listeners on dynamic adventures through an ever-evolving landscape of unexpected plot-twists and sudden style-shifts. But for all the merits of these exceptional players and their sophisticated musical interactions, it’s the overall emotional impact of the performance that makes Alive–Live At Dièse Onze, Montréal such a powerful and important document. The music is joyously uplifting — exhilarating, even — and covers a full gamut of intricacies and nuances that add up to a delightful and satisfying set. It was an amazing night, and the enthusiastic vibe enveloping the room translates nicely into album form. This is collective improvisation at its absolute best, with virtuoso-level artists in their natural habitat, the jazz club, playing music for its own sake. The Dièse Onze concert was recorded in its entirety, and the remainder of the music — the complete second set — is available in digital form for streaming and download. The additional material includes three more Davis-affiliated tracks (Eddie Harris’ “Freedom Jazz Dance” and the standards “Someday My Prince Will Come” and “My Funny Valentine”) along with an intricate romp through the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” a whimsical version of “All The Things You Are,” a lovely take on “My Romance” and an explosive journey into John Coltrane’s “Mr. P.C.” For more information on Jean-Michel Pilc and Alive–Live At Dièse Onze, Montréal, see our upcoming article in the June 2022 issue of DownBeat (print and digital editions).

It hurts to get ghosted, for sure, but on Ghosted, guitarist Oren Ambarchi, bassist Johan Berthling and drummer Andreas Werliin ruminate on the feeling at such length they seem to find a way out of it.

Given the title, this may scan as another quarantine-inspired project, but it actually dates back to November 2018. Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin, three players equally versed in jazz and experimental approaches, met at Studio Rymden in Stockholm to make the music that became this album.

It’s all rooted in the rich tonality and repeating figures of Berthling’s bass, switching between acoustic and electric. Werliin backs him up but never sounds constrained by the role of drummer, tapping out patterns that match his collaborators in establishing himself as a lead instrumentalist. Ambarchi feels his way across this subtly — he begins the second track here, “II” (the song titles give us very little information — they’re called “I,” “II,” “III” and “IV”) with a harmonic figure before stretching into murmuring, expressive guitar effects. It all echoes Can at its most meditative prime.

On “III,” the three players divide up how they introduce their melodic ideas so carefully that you can hear Berthling breathing when he starts his bass line. The track stretches on past 15 minutes, masterfully placing the listener in a quiet mood. Ambarchi’s guitar, impressively, implies there are all manner of instruments here — organs, keyboards, trumpet — when they’re not. “IV” takes us home even more slowly and thoughtfully than everything that proceeded it; a fitting closer.

Mixed and mastered by Joe Talia at Good Mixture in Berlin, the album’s cover tells the tale — a lone figure shoots baskets alone on an expansive court at night. When you’ve been ghosted, you’ve got all the time and space in the world, and Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin figured out what to do with that and set a soundtrack to it.

Ghosted is out on LP and digital download on April 15.