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

Kevin Sun is one of the most talented saxophonists and composers on the jazz scene today. Inspired, individualistic and smart, he brings forth music that entertains and intrigues. His work is never a straight line. And his influences? Well, let’s just say they are very, very varied! He may take inspiration from a jazz legend or a video game, a wizard of electronic music or a visionary of television music scoring. But along the way, he makes music his way for his own label and follows wherever the muse takes him.

For his latest two releases, Kevin Sun I. and Kevin Sun II., the tenor saxophonist proves the point. On I., he lays out a studio-driven set of eight songs that were workshopped over some 18 months at the Lowlands Bar in Brooklyn, New York, with guitarist Max Light, bassist Walter Stinson and drummer Jon Starks. The album features great musicianship and a very cool production edge. On II., the whole thing was cut in one afternoon in Minneapolis after a tour with Stinson, pianist Christian Li and drummer Kayvon Gordon. Two very different settings, groups and goals, but one successful accomplishment: some fascinating music.

Kevin Sun I. charges out of the gate with “Go In,” a rapid-fire blitz of melody over John Coltrane’s “Countdown.” It makes you wonder if this is how Trane might have sounded in 2026. “Souls Of Fire (A Moment’s Peace, From Dark Souls)” is a slow build with electronics backing Light’s melodic guitar work. This reviewer knows nothing about the video role-playing game Dark Souls, except now I know it has a really cool soundtrack. Sun and company choose creating atmosphere over blistering runs of notes. Nothing extra is added, just what is needed. And it’s lovely. On “Between Night And Day,” Sun offers achingly slow, long tones over a bed of electronic washes to beautiful effect. In the liner notes, he says that the bed was actually a studio trick he learned from pianist Christian Li. He recorded the music backwards, then played it in reverse “to create an otherworldly, Twin Peaks effect.” Mission accomplished! With “Riot In Lagos,” Sun tricks out the Ryuichi Sakamoto tune by overlaying takes to give this raucous explosion a “double quartet” feel.

With Kevin Sun II., the artist strips away all of that production, choosing to document his touring band at the time in an old-school, one- or two-take, no-edits, one-afternoon session at the end of the tour. It kicks off with “Unformed, Shrouded By Fog (Souls Prologue),” a film noir soundscape, make that a game noir soundscape. Sun dedicates the tune to Lim Pik-Sen, the Malaysian-British actress who passed away in 2025 and whose voice narrated the Dark Souls role-playing game trilogy. “Souls Of The Mist (From Demon Souls)” is another Dark Souls-inspired creation that finds the quartet in a quiet, slow groove. Sun’s tenor swings plaintive, searching; Christian Li’s piano, fluid and soothing with just the right touches of beauty and sorrow. Stinson and Gordon glide through the groove with grace and elegance. With “Laura Palmer’s Theme,” there’s something in the air, this is the second recent reading that’s hit DownBeat of the music written by Angelo Badalamenti for David Lynch’s defining television drama Twin Peaks (the other by pianist Jamie Saft on Oh, Angelo). Talk about film noir. This tune just drips with tragedy and dusk. Sun said he wrote this arrangement after watching the first two seasons of the show back in 2013 and revisited it now that both Badalamenti and Lynch have joined the ancestors. Sun has a true admiration for the ancestors. For me, “Belong, Sonny” is the crown jewel of these two recordings, a beautiful love letter to two tenor giants who have passed: Benny Golson and Sonny Rollins. It’s a tribute that bops with full-on tenor worship and a title serving a dual purpose. Yes, it mentions Sonny, but the letters can be rearranged to spell out Benny Golson. Beyond that, Sun draws his inspiration for the tune from Golson’s composition “Stablemates.” It’s both fitting and exhilarating with all four members of the band delivering amazing artistry. Sun offers himself as a tenorist who’s fully aware of his own gifts, but also knows the shoulders he stands upon.

It’s the way George Garzone and his all-star quintet play that makes this studio recording feel so much like a live blow. It’s the soul-stirring conviction heard in their approach to the three originals on this eight-song, straightahead jazz program that makes them sound as warm and familiar as old standards. And it’s the exploratory manner in which the Boston-tough, Berklee-smart tenor saxophonist and his co-conspirators — trumpeter Randy Brecker, pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Santi Debriano and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts — reinvent the program’s four standards (and one contrafact) that makes them so worth listening to again. Themes For Good Friends showcases Garzone’s enduring — and highly influential — voice after more than 50 years in the music. Indeed, he continues to play with the same harmonic sophistication, pure tenor tone and deliberate approach to improvisation that have defined him all along. Themes For Good Friends also serves as a celebration of musical relationships forged over a lifetime. Each musician is a bandleader and improviser in their own right; together they create a unified ensemble built on decades of friendship and collaboration. Opening the album is John Coltrane’s “Theme For Ernie” performed as a lyrical duet between Garzone and Perdomo. Archie Shepp’s “U-Jaama” follows, with Watts anchoring the full ensemble before launching into a commanding solo and Debriano providing a rhythmic foundation that allows the music to swing effortlessly. “It Will Happen To You,” built upon the framework of Jimmy Van Heusen’s “It Could Happen To You,” demonstrates Garzone’s wit as an arranger, as the track transforms familiar material into a joyful modern swing vehicle; Brecker delivers a trumpet performance filled with warmth and invention, while Perdomo contributes an exuberant piano solo before the fun concludes with a spirited exchange between Debriano and Watts. Debriano’s composition “Ripty-Boom” provides one of the album’s more expansive performances, with every member stretching freely. Garzone’s “To Michael Brecker” finds him joining the late saxophonist’s trumpet-playing brother in a single melodic statement that becomes a moving tribute to one of jazz’s most beloved voices. Garzone and Watts’ duet deconstruction of “Giant Steps,” an adventure in twisty improvisation that reveals the familiar Coltrane melody only in its closing moments, is one of the bolder statements in this delectable, highly accessible program of hard-swinging hard-bop and heart-wrenching balladry. It passes the “listen to this album over and over all day” test with flying colors.

As a critic, I often use Ella Fitzgerald’s stereo recordings as guideposts for standards I’m less familiar with; her fidelity to the written melody, attention to detail and interpretative brilliance are nonpareil. Yet this makes it easy to forget how thoroughly she makes the songs her own, especially in concert — and what a blast it is when she does so.

On Live At Falkoner Theatre Copenhagen 6th February 1966 (special thanks to Gearbox Records for squeezing most of the historical context just into the album title), she eases into it. The only real customizing of opener “Satin Doll” comes when she reprises the last eight bars, and there’s just slightly more decoration on Burt Bacharach’s “Wives And Lovers,” which oddly enough might be the gig’s hardest-swinging number. (Accompanying Ella on the gig is the Duke Ellington Orchestra, minus Duke and the rhythm section: pianist Jimmy Johnson and his trio sit in.) Yet by the time she’s done with both, you can barely imagine anyone else singing them.

By the time of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” however, she’s recomposing top to bottom: It’s an oddly monotonous rewriting, but she fills it with her panoply of oomph. She growls, hollers, belts, shrieks and shouts so that even the Johnny Hodges/Paul Gonsalves reed section is just barely able to keep up. Almost as much fun, though, is “Só Danço Samba,” which she barely alters at all, but merely punches in all the right spots. Then there’s “How High The Moon,” by this time Ella’s traditional showstopper; if it’s not quite the dizzying heights of her famous 1960 Berlin recording, it’s not because she doesn’t put just as much energy into it.

The most astonishing trick of all, though, comes in the set’s two ballads, Billy Strayhorn’s “Something To Live For” and Ellington’s “I’m A Lucky So-and-So.” On the former, particularly, she’s as precise and on-the-page perfect as one can fathom; on the latter, she surely sounds exactly as Duke intended for the song. Yet in her hands, they no longer belong to those giants and it sounds like they never did. How did she do that?

The vibes are a magical instrument, creating otherworldly sounds with all that shimmer, echo and glow that just floats in the air. Jalen Baker, at 31, is a young master practitioner on the vibes. He feels the draw of this instrument and knows just how to compose and arrange to bring out the full, lush tonality of the instrument. In the case of RePaved, Baker’s fourth album, he also demonstrates how to form a less-than-conventional group around his music. He joins a jazz quintet featuring flutist Alexandria DeWalt, pianist Paul Cornish, bassist Gabriel Godoy and drummer Gavin Moolchan with a string quartet consisting of Yoojin Park, Ciara Jamila, Tia Allen and Reenat Pinchas. The combination is fantastic. Baker creates gorgeous washes and complex interplay that simply sound beautiful in his music. But beyond that, he proves to be a true storyteller, in this case detailing through instrumental music the trials, travails and power of his home: the 3rd Ward in Houston Texas. Along with most of the musicians on the recording, Baker grew up in the gritty neighborhood, which boasts a proud history of being one of Houston’s historic Black neighborhoods. RePaved serves as warning shot to those who attempt to gentrify the neighborhood and pave over its storied streets without paying homage to its cultural roots. And Baker sets forth to play some beautiful music while teaching some of that history. The set opens with “Antioch,” a tribute to the first Black baptist church created by slaves emancipated in Texas on Juneteenth, 1865. The tune slides into “John Henry,” a lovely ballad dedicated to the church’s founder, John Henry “Jack” Yates. “Dowling:Emancipation” drives an upbeat tempo and melody to celebrate the day in 2017 when Dowling Street — originally named after Dick Dowling, a Confederate commander — was renamed Emancipation Avenue. “Freedman” continues the proud theme of the community rising above pain. As does “City On The Water,” a tune that pulls at the heartstrings and reminds us that one act of nature can wash it all away. Baker changes the mood quickly with the buoyant “Kashmere,” a smile-inducing tribute to the Kashmere Stage Band, one of the swingingest high school bands in history under the direction of Conrad O. Johnson in the 1960s and 1970s. He also does a terrific take on the Thelonious Monk/Dezil Best tune “Bemsha Swing,” and the proceedings conclude with a wistful dose of memoriam via Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile.” Throughout the set, Baker conjures thoughtful, deep imagery and demonstrates his expansive artistry as a composer, musician and all-around artist. He’s got the goods!

Ayn Inserto captures the beautifully complex and soulful essence of the celebrated trumpeter-educator Sean Jones on this spectacular new recording made in collaboration with Germany’s renowned WDR Big Band. When the Boston-based composer-arranger — an important contributor to the worldwide contemporary large ensemble scene who’s worked extensively with her own jazz orchestra for 25 years as well as the Frankfurt Radio Big Band beginning in 2022 — was commissioned by the Cologne-based WDR to present an evening-length concert performance of her original music in 2024, she selected compositions representing various aspects of her existing oeuvre and wrote a brand-new suite for Jones, the night’s featured soloist. The program begins with a series of pieces released on earlier albums by the Ayn Inserto Jazz Orchestra (“Eschel Sketch,” “La Danza Infinita,” “Vinifera” and “Down A Rabbit Hole” for those already familiar with her work). The middle portion of the set includes “Mr. Jones And Company” (a 2019 piece commissioned by NYO Jazz, the Carnegie Hall national youth ensemble led by Jones) and “BJ’s Tune” (Inserto’s arrangement of a Jones composition) — both of which contribute to setting up the show’s grand finale: the 22-minute, four-part “Suite For Sean Jones,” dedicated to the evening’s special guest artist, a personal friend who’s had productive and meaningful musical encounters with Inserto previously. Named for the many disparate qualities that embody Inserto’s work — including deliberate yet heavily syncopated rhythms, flowing lyricism amid a buoyant sea of tonal rubs and harmonically tense ensemble figures, and a youthful attitude that vitalizes her more mature, abstract constructs — Jagged Edges & Elegant Lines documents a monumental event in the large ensemble realm and paints a gorgeous portrait of one of jazz’s most well-rounded and accessible instrumentalists.