Thursday, December 2
He calls the sound of his new album, Xmas Vibe "sort of Gary Burton meets George Winston." And while there's a kernel of truth in that, it downplays the uniqueness of what vibraphonist Charles Xavier does. He's based in the precision of jazz percussion (Xavier is a drummer as well), but works on [...]

March 4
Jazz fusion is alive and kicking in the person of Dutch trumpeter Eric Vloeimans. Actually, Vloeimans is a relentlessly experimental musician by any standard, but he devotes special attention to a gleaming electric sound—as on his newest CD, Heavensabove!—that can rock hard or space out with equal ease. Vloiemans' band on the disc is [...]

Nov. 5
Once upon a time it seemed that New Orleans trumpeter Nicholas Payton was the reincarnation of Louis Armstrong, with his bright virtuosic phrases and Big Easy swing. Then came 2003's Sonic Trance and last year's Into the Blue, which transplanted Payton into slow, spacy fusion jams that had more in common with Bitches Brew [...]