Weather Report's fourth recording finds Wayne Shorter (on soprano and tenor) taking a lesser role as Joe Zawinul begins to really dominate the group's sound. Most selections also include bassist Alphonso Johnson and drummer Ishmael Wilburn although the personnel shifts from track to track. "Nubian Sundance" adds several vocalists while "Blackthorn Rose" is a Shorter-Zawinul duet. Overall the music is pretty stimulating and sometimes adventurous; high-quality fusion from 1974.

Jeremy Pelt is two years away from his 50th birthday, and released his first album as leader (Profile) in 2002. In that time, he has created a prodigious body of work. This album marks his 25th album as leader, and he has been sideman to many artists including, Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, Al Foster and Mingus Big Band. Stylistically, his playing is a mix of Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard and electric-era Miles Davis.
And like Miles, Pelt does not believe in simply going over the same old musical ground. ‘To me, my music is a living, breathing organism that is meant to grow,’ he states boldly in the album’s short liner note, ‘I’m not interested in “new” for the sake of “newness.” Rather, I’m infatuated with disparate perspectives which continue the story.’ Having said that, Pelt is not averse to reworking old tunes, and on this album there are four of them…

The debut domestic recording by Steps Ahead (following three sets only released in Japan) features the 1982 version of the group: vibraphonist Mike Mainieri, tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker, pianist Eliane Elias (a young unknown at the time), bassist Eddie Gomez, and drummer Peter Erskine. The music is essentially high-quality funky fusion, with Brecker typically blowing up a storm, Mainieri often playing the synthivibe, and Elias showing some early individuality. Best known among the seven originals are Don Grolnick's "Pools" and Mainieri's "Islands." The inventive but pretty accessible set concludes with "Trio," a fairly free improvisation featuring Brecker, Gomez, and Mainieri.

The title of Anna Wilson's third album, Yule Swing!, gives an accurate indication of its contents, which consist of seasonal music in big-band (and small-band) jazz arrangements. But without the subtitle that's written vertically in script up the right side of the cover, one might expect to hear the usual perennials. That subtitle reads, "A Collection of Original Holiday Songs."

Excelling at the art of blues balladry demands that a musician possess great feeling but also great control. No surprise then, that one of its greatest practitioners, Nancy Wilson, has both traits in abundance. Save Your Love for Me: Nancy Wilson Sings the Great Blues Ballads is one in a loose series of three Capitol compilations to compile her late-'50s and early-'60s prime, the others focusing on the Great American Songbook and the torch song.

Susannah McCorkle, one of the finest jazz-influenced vocalists to emerge during the 1970's and 80's, sings a wide variety of music on her Pausa disc. In addition to some prebop material (including Cole Porter's "At Long Last Love," a vocalese version of "All Of Me," "I Get A Kick Out Of You" and Johnny Mercer's title cut), she also tackles tunes by Paul Simon, Oscar Brown Jr, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Leiber & Stoller. No matter what the style (she is essentially a swing singer), Susannah McCorkle uplifts each song. She is assisted by the Ben Aronov trio, and occasionally guitarist Gene Bertoncini and tenor-saxophonist Frank Wess.

This is a fairly typical date from the Oscar Peterson Trio (which features the pianist-leader, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Ed Thigpen). Many of the songs on this LP are associated with other musicians (such as "Waltz for Debbie," "This Could Be the Start of Something Big" and "Six and Four") but Peterson has little difficulty swinging them in his usual fashion; a highlight is the original version of Ray Brown's "Gravy Waltz."
On the other hand - bonus album, "West Side Story". boasting the same formation, showcases the trio giving their version of the celebrated Leonard Bernstein score.

Clapton is Eric Clapton’s first solo album in five years, but he hardly spent the back half of the 2000s in seclusion. After 2005’s Back Home, he went on a journey through the past, writing a 2007 autobiography – also titled Clapton, although that’s the only connection they shared – mending fences with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker for a brief Cream reunion, establishing a lasting connection with his old Blind Faith bandmate Steve Winwood, and recording a duet album with his ‘70s inspiration JJ Cale. This embrace of history isn’t directly heard on Clapton but it’s certainly felt, extending to how EC relies on old tunes – blues and country, but also pop and R&B – for the bulk of this 14-track album.

Few female singers matched the hard-swinging Anita O'Day for sheer exuberance and skill in all areas of jazz vocals: her splendid improvising, wide range, dynamic tone, and innate sense of rhythm made her one of the most enjoyable singer of the age. O'Day's first appearances in a big band shattered the traditional image of a demure female vocalist by swinging just as hard as the other musicians on the bandstand, best heard on her vocal trading with Roy Eldridge on the Gene Krupa recording "Let Me Off Uptown." After making her solo debut in the mid-'40s, she incorporated bop modernism into her vocals and recorded over a dozen of the best vocal LPs of the era for Verve during the 1950s and '60s. Though hampered during her peak period by heavy drinking and, later, drug addiction, she made a comeback and continued singing into the new millennium.