This week we celebrate 80 years of music by the Metropole Orkest, the restless spirit of Michael League, and flying carpets made of percussions, pianos and Hammond organs that take the listener to a hypnotic new dimension.

Here is a playlist of adventurous projects that also serves as a snapshot of the breadth, depth, and versatility of Austrian pianist Elias Stemeseder—heard across a range of recent recordings as sideman, co-leader, and bandleader.

This time we celebrate 75 years of Bill Frisell through his own music and the wide creative wake it has left across today’s scene. This episode also spotlights newly unearthed choral works by Kenny Wheeler and several recent projects involving Francesco Bigoni

Enjoy a playlist of music that slips through the cracks, rewards the open ear; and often crosses cultural and stylistic borders.

Moving from intimate, folk-tinged lyricism to expansive ensemble statements and thoughtful tributes, here is a set that reflects a contemporary jazz landscape defined by optimism, cross-border interplay, and a spirit of exploration

Moving fluidly from New York’s new generation to Europe’s creative hubs and onward to Havana and beyond, this playlist underscores the music’s global dialogue.

A heartfelt tribute to Michel Portal, a rare artist equally at home in jazz and classical music, a prolific film composer, fearless improviser, and true multi-instrumentalist.

Here's a survey of recent albums shaped by renewal, spirituality, and collective energy.

From big band exuberance to intimate trio settings and a celebrated live document, the playlist moves through music that is vibrant, border-crossing, and deeply collaborative.

Enjoy a cross-section of today’s creative scene through a playlist that links transatlantic collaborations, distinctive singer-composers, and artists who stretch jazz beyond inherited boundaries.

A deep dive into British jazz, whether rooted in the UK or transplanted to Australia.

Here's a playlist focusing on Orchestras, Big Bands and String Quartets, at the intersection of jazz, classical, folk and Brazilian music.

Enjoy another playlist dedicated to recent and upcoming releases, where curiosity still rules, and the music often comes from just around the corner… or halfway across the world, Madrid to New York; Amsterdam to London; Brussels to Melbourne.

This playlist explores electro-acoustic projects shaped by atmosphere, texture, and studio-driven imagination, many of them drawing from the muddy, ambient legacy of Jon Hassell’s “Fourth World.” The journey then shifts focus to the next generation, closing with two emerging trombonists.

Enjoy a playlist that showcases a series of tributes connecting today’s European scene with the legacy of American jazz masters—from Don Cherry to Charlie Haden and Steve Lacy—alongside the remarkable work of established and up-and-coming composer-arrangers such as Michael Leonhart and Rebecca Trescher.

This episode -- bookended by drummers who are also adventurous composers and bandleaders -- explores the evolving landscape of contemporary jazz.

A set for piano lovers, with a particular focus on recent and newly issued solo recordings which explore spontaneity, lyricism, and the quiet intensity of unaccompanied playing.

Enjoy a playlist that brings together energy, intimacy, and creative identity, moving across projects that blur boundaries between electric and acoustic, structure and freedom.

Large ensembles are the guiding thread of this segment, approached not as monuments but as flexible, expressive forces shaped by strong compositional voices.

Enjoy the final playlist previewing the upcoming edition of the Winter JazzFest: a compressed, high-voltage snapshot of what jazz sounds like right now, and a rare chance to hear musicians who are not based in New York.

Here's playlist previewing projects and bands that will help the upcoming Winter JazzFest to launch the new jazz year.

With the 2026 edition of Winter JazzFest just around the corner, here we focus on some of the artists arriving in New York from elsewhere to briefly reshape the city’s soundscape.

The playlist features The Five Corners Quintet; Makiko Hirabayashi; Rufus Wainwright, Pacific Jazz Orchestra; Brad Mehldau; Anthony Wilson [pictured]; and Roberto Ottaviano.

As we come to the end of another year, it feels like a good moment to pause—not to summarize everything, but to listen back. This episode is built around songs that lingered, resurfaced, and quietly insisted on being remembered.

This episode of Mondo Jazz isn’t about rankings or best-of lists. It’s about memory. Over the past six months, certain pieces of music kept calling us back. Among them, are the tunes in this playlist.