From Such A Blue Sky defies you to discern what, if anything, of it is composed and what, if anything, is improvised. So do I. For that matter, the music that Danish guitarist Jakob Bro and Japanese multi-percussionist Midori Takada make defies most descriptions beyond “melodic,” “delicate” and “atmospheric.” Well, OK: “beautiful,” too.

If anything, genre is the least helpful category of description here. The opening “Lullaby for You” begins as a folk-like acoustic guitar melody (with bell and piano fills), then dissolves into a gauzy sonic dreamscape. “Breatharian” begins as a gauzy sonic dreamscape, Takada’s marimba and Bro’s barely-there strumming backgrounding flutes and whistles of unknown provenance and, eventually, a variety of softly struck gongs. The title of “Falling and Fragmentation” is actually the opposite of what happens in the track itself, which opens upon a vague firmament of guitar, marimba, cymbal and (perhaps?) tympani fragments that, oh, so slowly, over an eight-and-a-half-minute run time, rises and emulsifies into … a vaguely coherent drone. The denouement, however, is that the finely and gorgeously sculpted “A Voice Calling in the Sea,” closing the album with malleted cymbals punctuating convergent guitar and piano ostinati.

These, however, are the collective envelope that binds the nearly 12-minute centerpiece, “Unendable Dream.” It’s a true epic, with Takada’s slowly rising gongs creating a foundation that bells then accentuate—like a noh theater diorama—over more than five minutes before a lilting waltz bed takes over, with what sounds like overdubbed electric guitars playing in counterpoint while metallic sounds interpolate. It’s like the bright orb at the center of the Milky Way: an ethereal, dissolute form, but a form nonetheless, full of splendor and wonder.

Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman brings his lifelong love of the Delta blues to this full-length collection, which comes on the heels of an immersive live touring production of the same name. Within the 12 songs on Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience, a century-long journey unfolds through the genre, tracing its history from Blind Willie Johnson’s 1927 masterpiece “Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground” to “I Lied To You” from the soundtrack to the 2025 hit horror film Sinners. Joining Freeman, who serves as narrator (on the introductory track) and producer for this one-of-a-kind project, are blues luminaries Taj Mahal, Keb’ Mo’, Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell and Shemekia Copeland, along with some of Mississippi’s finest present-day players — many of whom are regulars at Ground Zero Blues Club, which Freeman co-founded 25 years ago in Clarksdale. They all gathered at Mitchell’s Royal Studios in Memphis to record the foundational tracks and vocals, and the Chineke! Orchestra, Europe’s pioneering majority-Black and ethnically diverse ensemble, recorded their sweeping, blues-sensitive instrumental contributions at Abbey Road Studios in London. It amounts to an extraordinary undertaking, with standout tracks including Son House’s 1965 hit “Death Letter Blues” featuring Taj Mahal on lead vocals and guitar; Super Chikan’s gritty take on the 1936 Robert Johnson classic “Crossroads”; the Great Migration opus “Cadillac Assembly Line” featuring Keb’ Mo’ on lead vocals and guitar; and Copeland’s rocking version of Johnson’s “Traveling Riverside Blues.” 2027 touring dates for the live production of Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience, with pre-recorded narration by Freeman and cinema-quality visual augmentation, are expected to be announced later this year.

Even as determined as he is not to repeat himself, Söwt is like nothing else in tenor saxophonist JD Allen’s album-per-year catalog. Even using lush chordal accompaniment, as with pianist Brandon McClure on last year’s Love Letters (The Ballad Sessions), Allen has reserved for himself a spacious approach where he can pursue his melodic and harmonic fancies. This one, recorded in Morocco, dispenses with that for the trancelike drones of the Gnawan musical tradition. The results couldn’t be more wonderful.

Allen leads an international quintet including French pianist Leonardo Montana, Cuban drummer Ruy Adrian López-Nussa and Moroccan bassist Hamza Souissi and guembri player Yazid El Alaoui. However, it’s El Alaoui, the Gnawan, who sets the tone with his one-chord ostinatos on each song. Souissi and López-Nussa maintain a low simmer alongside him, though both are more improvisational (particularly the drummer, who continually finds new syncopations and textures inside the groove). It’s Montana and Allen who do the building on that foundation — and generating friction with it.

Said friction comes in ways subtle and not. In the former case, there’s the opener “Kin,” on which Allen’s solo comprises short, jagged phrases that he places just barely out of step from El Alaoui and López-Nussa’s four-bar riffs. Later, on “Solid,” with Souissi more prominent in the rhythm section, Allen’s improvised phrases are in step, but just outside the harmony instead. The title track finds Montana playing an even neater trick. He raises the temperature enough that he threatens to boil over; he doesn’t, but riles López-Nussa into doing so instead. On the not-so-subtle side, Allen plays long, slow, noirish figures over a weirdly harried rhythm section on “Found,” Montana responding with thick, oddly shaped chords. If it’s a battle of moods, Allen’s slinkiness wins — but it’s the battle itself that’s compelling.

“Found” notwithstanding, the Gnawa meditations are the defining feature of this music, not least because of softly muttered chant-singing from El Alaoui (with an uncanny resemblance to singer Damo Suzuki of the classic German band Can). They usually manage to overtake — beautifully so on the captivating “Moussayé,” where stormy playing on both sax and piano isn’t enough to drown out the gorgeous repeating figure on the guembri. Things are just as compelling when Allen and Montana put aside the tensions and go with the flow, as on the lyrical “Lil Lullaby.” It would be out of character for Allen to tackle this concept again, but, oh, how I hope he does.

There are few things on planet Earth more beautiful than the voice of Lizz Wright. Her alto demands your ears. Her tone and phrasing melt your soul. So, what could be more perfect than an assembly of standards, spirituals and originals featuring just the voice of Ms. Wright and the soulfully brilliant pianism of Kenny Banks Jr.? Nothing. From the first strains of “The Nearness Of You,” it’s time to grab a comfortable chair, close your eyes and let Wright and Banks take you away. “Nearness” becomes a prayer at an achingly slow tempo that hangs every syllable, lyric and stanza on a gentle breeze. When Mr. Banks slides over to the Hammond B-3 for the spiritual “Soon I Will Be Done,” the duo takes us to a Sunday morning sermon, testifying: “Amen.” Throughout Nearness, Banks and Wright weave an intimate cocoon of spirituality with wonderful takes on “Hold On,” “Amazing Grace” “How I Got Over” and, especially, “Deep River.” On the latter, Wright crosses over into an almost operatic vocal that is absolutely stunning. Somewhere Mahalia Jackson is smiling. When not taking us to church, the duo sends a bit of a love letter as highlighted by the title tune, “All The Things You Are” and “Just You, Just Me” as well as the terrific originals “Hold Me” and “Circling,” the closing number done a cappella. Ms. Wright and Mr. Banks beautifully offer calm, confidence and hope in a chaotic world. Nearness is a perfect balm for difficult times, and a treasure.

The most frightening moments of Halloween Tales unfold on the haunting first track, which finds the goresome foursome of saxophonist Michael Blake, pianist Gary Versace, bassist Ben Allison and drummer Michael Sarin scaring teenaged babysitters witless with their rendition of the haunting main theme to the 1979 movie Halloween. You can’t help but feel a little unsettled as bell-like tolls of doom signal the onset of All Hallow’s Eve and the boys set out trick-or-treating in the dodgy part of the neighborhood where the most gleefully devilish jazz cats dwell. First stop is “Stalking Monster,” the second movement of Duke Ellington’s 1955 symphonic jazz suite Night Creature; after some heavy, slow, syncopated stalking from Versace at extreme ends of the keyboard, this minor-key swing groove is as easygoing as it is unsuspecting, even as the titular monster’s multiphonic roars can occasionally be heard emanating from Blake’s otherwise subdued tenor. The much less foreboding and more optimistic “Great Pumpkin Waltz” (by Vince Guaraldi), with Blake playing dark-timbred tones on soprano, is classic 1966 Charlie Brown music — an swinging autumn stroll in 3/4 through the fields with childhood pals and pets. “Transylvanian Lullaby,” from the 1974 movie Young Frankenstein, is slow-walking and hauntingly beautiful, conjuring the first tentative steps of the film’s newly “born” quasi-human abomination; if you’ve seen the picture (with music composed by John Morris) you won’t be able to keep from laughing at the memory of those classic comedic scenes with character actor Peter Boyle. The gang heads back to Ellington’s house on “Anatomy Of A Murder (Main Theme)” from the triple-Grammy-winning 1959 film of the same name; it’s a minor blues in 12/8 that serves as a soulful study in cinematic suspense. An outing with this lineup of familiar jazz cats wouldn’t be complete without a songbook standard; they play Cy Coleman’s “Witchcraft” much witchier and breathier than Frank Sinatra’s 1957 hit version. Before heading home for the night with their Halloween haul, the merry pranksters conjure up a just-for-fun original, Blake’s “The Creep,” which crawls, then runs, then slows again to a spooky, cautious stroll following a killer bass solo, ending on an unresolved note that just might leave you glancing back over your shoulder once or twice.

I wanted to make a crack about how BCDELUXE is “the solo bass clarinet album the masses have been clamoring for,” but, by God, the masses should have been clamoring for it. You’d swear it was a demonstration disc on what the instrument was capable of, if D’Angelo didn’t have — and nail — such high artistic ambitions.

This can’t be called an unaccompanied bass clarinet album, because D’Angelo’s axe accompanies itself, via overdubs of differing timbres and textures. “Blues Lightening” offers three versions of D’Angelo, with soft-edged smoothness on the bottom and coarser, more aggressive tones in the foreground (though at some points the triple voices blend together), and it swings like hell. “Sonification” puts the breathy drones up front, with the higher, more melodic D’Angelo further back and drenched in reverb; the effect, not unlike that of medieval polyphony in an old stone church, is beautiful.

D’Angelo doesn’t need the multitracking. He swings without it on the brief interlude “Dingsbums” and achieves a folksier gait on another quickie, “Referendum.” Yet it’s hard to argue with the results when he does double or treble himself. “PK 3809” is exquisite, a romantic lullaby with an organ-like pedal point and delicate lyrical strains. The masterpiece of the session, however, is the closing “Light Language” (at nine-and-a-half minutes, almost twice the length of the second-longest track). The long drone tones are the highest voicing, creating a Bill Frisell-like atmosphere, with the low end being soft to the point of inaudibility at times and the middle tones carrying the melodies. At least, that’s the default setting; the three voices interweave, sometimes in harmony and sometimes in counterpoint; they play calls and responses, and they leave each other space to comment. Loveland Records owner Jakob Bro, who once roomed with D’Angelo and heard him practicing solo bass clarinet, long knew what the rest of us can now attest: All by himself, D’Angelo is both a virtuoso and a visionary. –Michael J. West