DownBeat published its first full-length feature on composer/alto saxophonist Steve Lehman in the May issue with good reason. His music (and career) continue to grow with each and every album he puts out and every live show he puts on. In the case of his most recent album, The Music Of Anthony Braxton on Pi, listeners get a good dose of both. Here we have Lehman with his working trio of Matt Brewer on bass and Damion Reid on drums, plus tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, performing the music of one of Lehman’s greatest mentors. They dig into Braxton’s catalog with drive, ambition and fury, delivering the master’s music with grit, groove and just the right amount of outside-the-lines spice. Braxton’s music has always been absolutely heady, taking a different path from the rest of the crowd, and that’s what makes it so special. This trio +1 fans that flame, but also gives the music a deeply soulful spin. For example, they take on “34a” at a slightly slower tempo, but still at breakneck speed. That gives Brewer’s bass and Reid’s drums the opportunity to seriously lock in as Lehman and Turner blaze over the rhythm. From the outset, it’s important to note how well this music was recorded. Every nuance is captured, from the rattle of the E string on Brewer’s bass to the slap of a saxophone key. All four members of the ensemble shine throughout. Brewer’s bass solo on “40b” is divine. Lehman and Turner thrill on unison lines on “23b + 23G,” then sprint off on their own killer solos. With both Lehman and Turner on the fast-growing L.A. jazz scene now, it’s exciting to hear them together, both creatively gifted improvisers. They absolutely feed off of each other throughout the set. And Reid brings an easy, fiery grace to the drum kit, fueling changes in tempo and color on “23e + 40a” and “23c.” In addition to the five Braxton tunes in this set, it also includes two Lehman originals: “L.A. Genes” and “Unbroken and Unspoken,” both terrific additions to his body of work. They close with Thelonious Monk’s “Trinkle, Tinkle,” in a performance Lehman included to demonstrate the connection between its melodic line to Braxton’s “23b.” Steve Lehman is a thinking man’s musician who also knows how to burn.

Veteran drummer Phil Haynes, a prolific composer and improviser who’s been featured on nearly 90 releases from myriad American and European labels (including his own Corner Store Jazz imprint), pairs up with two of his longtime collaborators — electric guitarist Steve Salerno and upright bassist Drew Gress — on the visceral new recording Return To Electric. The album not only reconnects Haynes with old friends from his two decades spent living and working in New York, but it also fulfills a long-held dream of making a fusion album — one that ultimately serves as a vehicle for nostalgic yet progressive time-travel back to the genre’s early experimental days, awash in the edgy, iconic sounds of the electric guitar that captivated and inspired him as a youth coming of age in Oregon. The trio takes on fusion classics by Wayne Shorter (“Paraphernalia”), Chick Corea (“Crystal Silence”), John McLaughlin (“Spectrum” and “Lotus On Irish Springs”) and George Russell (“Living Time”), alongside repurposed Haynes originals and a trio of short improvised solo “Cadenzas” by each member of the band. Passages of free-improv play abound on Return To Electric, whose 13 modest-length tracks seldom stick to any one groove or stay on any particular tack for very long. Unrestrained by strict song forms, the music shifts with an organic feel, touching on everything from ethereal atmospherics and hard-hitting rip-and-crunch to old-school funk grooves, easygoing swing diversions and a sparse, exploratory “sandbox” approach to group improvisation. Another, simultaneous new release, Transition(s), marks the debut of Haynes in a duo configuration co-led with guitarist Ben Monder, a fellow seeker on the New York downtown scene a quarter-century ago who semi-regularly teamed up with the drummer for informal improv sessions that almost always culminated in a meditation on “Transition,” the title track from John Coltrane’s posthumously released 1970 album. Here, the tune serves as the guiding star for a set of airy, spacious art pieces — at times amorphous and atmospheric, at others tense and urgent or lyrical and weightless, all of it built upon a still-vital, telepathy-like stream of communication that was, in retrospect, long overdue for a reawakening.

Myra Melford Splash is a damned exciting piano trio record. You can know that without immersing yourself in the paintings of Cy Twombly, whose work inspires the music — although the piece on the album cover (part of Twombly’s famed Lepanto cycle) certainly suggests the bright contrast, odd shapes and ordered abstraction within.

What’s more important is that those elements make Splash a blast to listen to. Pianist Melford’s expressionistic squiggles really pop against bassist Michael Formanek and drummer/vibraphonist Ches Smith’s deceptively steady grooves on “Drift.” Inversely, it’s they who stand out against her determined propulsion on “Freewheeler.” “A Line With A Mind Of Its Own” finds all three players somehow in relief against each other, each playing their own version of the idea expressed in the title while also working in tandem. One never knows where any or all of them will go, but it sure is fun to find out.

A powerful sense of kinesis drives the entire album (not unlike the graffitiesque forms in Twombly’s art, but, again, that’s a minor point). In the first two of Splash’s three “interludes,” that kinesis functions ironically; frantic or pointed piano, bass and vibes figures converge into placid, meditative wholes. (The closing “Chalk,” though not an interlude, does the same.) The third accomplishes a more daunting task as a tranquil whole deconstructs itself into oblong shards — without sacrificing the tranquility.

It’s “Drypaint,” however, that best showcases the motion at work in this music. Formanek transitions back and forth between Melford and Smith, partnering with one then the other to draw angular, segmented lines that aggressively clash with whoever is the odd trio-mate out at any given moment. It’s as striking and fresh an approach as Twombly’s.

The crisis in the title of this gripping album by Mexican-born drummer Gustavo Cortiñas, who now lives in Chicago, applies to the globe warming, but rings just as true for the entire sense of chaos we’re experiencing at the moment. This is impactful music, marked with all the sorrow, strife, confusion, anger and bits of joy that go into the confounding mix of emotions Cortiñas feels at this moment in history.

From the downbeat of the opening tune, “The Basic Economic Farsity,” this album grabs the ears and demands attention. Even though it’s a drummer’s record, drums are not at the forefront, rather part of an excellent ensemble. The music begins with the pleading violin of Mark Feldman in a solo that pulls at the heartstrings for well over two minutes before Cortiñas enters along with Jon Irabagon on tenor saxophone and Dave Miller on guitar. At moments the music squaks and squeals in splatters of sound, then locks into a hard groove only to splinter into sound-surfing angst. The effect serves as great storytelling without saying a word. Tunes such as “The Growth Imperative,” “Skepticism,” “The Crisis Knows No Border” and “Your Right Under The Sun” will appeal to those of us who like their jazz with a bit of punk attitude. But there are beautiful, quieter moments, too, such as “Oil And Water Don’t Mix,” “Sea Levels Rising” and “The Man Of Flesh And Bone.” And “Wishcycle” is a great headphone noise interlude.

The album’s closing number shows Cortiñas at his finest with nearly six minutes of intense drum soloing on “Meditation On The End Of Times” — but to call it soloing doesn’t do this piece justice. It is exquisite instant composition that happens to take place on the drums. Cortiñas is masterful, as are his bandmates, as is the entirety of The Crisis Knows No Borders.

In addition to being a flat-out great listen, Brighter Days documents the evolution of Chicago-area tenor saxophonist and composer Jarod Bufe’s working quartet since its auspicious 2018 debut New Spaces, a program of exquisitely crafted and impeccably executed original compositions developed over years of regular live performances at jazz-friendly clubs like FitzGerald’s in historic Berwyn, Illinois. With guitarist Tim Stine, bassist Matt Ulery and drummer Jon Deitemyer once again onboard, Bufe leads his crack band of like-minded A-listers through fresh material that benefits from their hard-earned cohesiveness, which they’ve managed to refine over an especially challenging stretch of years — from the steady-building momentum of pre-COVID gigs through the current, post-COVID era as a stronger, more mature ensemble demonstrating heightened awareness, a broadened artistic sensibility and a more emotional presentation overall. This new collection of tunes is clearly inspired by pandemic lockdowns and reflections on the role of music in expressing and providing hope during dark times, with telling titles like “Midnight” (a minor vamp with an angular melody that conjures a slightly ominous “Bohemia After Dark” mood), “The Forgotten Before” (an uplifting jazz waltz with great solos by Ulery and Stine), the bluesy Joe Lovano-meets-John Scofield vibe of “Loss Of Agency,” the funkified groover “Fighting For Hope” (with a snappy backbeat courtesy of Deitemyer, a master of tasteful crispness and top-of-the-beat propulsion), “Goodnight, My Brooklyn Prince” (an elegiac tribute to the late saxophonist Mark Colby, Bufe’s close friend and frequent collaborator) and “Eclipse” (which alternates between repetitive-riff mania and sweet rides of cymbal-tapping release) — not to mention the uptempo swing and forward-facing optimism of the album’s title track. Brighter Days is a shining example of the type of high-calibre art that ultimately takes shape when team players stick together and creativity triumphs over adversity.

The boldness of Living Ghosts lies not in its selections but in their groupings. One of the foremost piano stylists in European jazz, Michael Wollny — who recorded Living Ghosts live last year with his longtime trio mates, bassist Tim Lefebvre and drummer Eric Schaefer — is known for the bold omnivory of his repertoire. But it’s one thing to have compositions by both medieval maestro Guillaume de Machaut and alt-rocker Nick Cave in one’s book (as the Wollny Trio does, from 2014’s Weltentraum and 2022’s Ghosts, respectively). It’s another to have them both on the same track.

The tracks are here called “sets,” and each contains two — in one case three — compositions. The shortest of these is 12½ minutes and features the one piece new to Wollny’s repertoire, Jeff Babko’s “This West” (the original recording of which featured Lefebvre), juxtaposed against “Willow’s Song,” a folk-ish gem from the 1973 horror film Wicker Man. It works because Wollny casts the two disparate pieces in similar moods, so that the latter feels like a natural outgrowth of the former. In fact, all of these “sets” work, but not always for the same reason. Consider the hybrid of Wollny’s “Hauntology,” a quasi-minimalist piece; Duke Ellington’s “In A Sentimental Mood,” which the trio reworks into something dissonant and menacing; and Jon Brion’s “Little Person” (another soundtrack piece, from Synechdoche, New York), which has the delicate wistfulness we usually associate with the Ellington tune. Why does this cohere? I don’t know, but it does.

The best answer seems to be that the trio’s collective personality functions like glue. That might be the only explanation for the pairing of Cave’s “Hand Of God,” here worked into a frenetic boil that little resembles Cave’s recording, with Machaut’s ars nova masterpiece “Lasse,” rendered as faithfully as a jazz piano trio can render a 14th-century motet while playing a tu-way-pocky-way beat. What should be oil-and-water is instead magic — but don’t ask why. Just go with it.