Nubya Garcia returns; Impulse! Records further syncs itself to today's scene; Ches Smith finds catharsis in laughter; Ken Stubbs pays tribute to Sonny Rollins... These are only some of the interesting things in this episode of Mondo Jazz.

Straight to you from Bushwick, NY--from where Mondo Jazz broadcasts--here is music rooted in Amsterdam and New Amsterdam, Sydney and Munich and other places in between.

This set focuses on Andrew Hill, Herbie Nichols, Bob Dorough and Oliver Nelson, four American originals and various generations of musicians they've inspired.

The elegance of the unforeseen might well be the core theme of this set featuring gorgeous and surprising international projects.

Zoe Rahman opens the show with the beautiful writing and arrangements of her latest album, followed by two remarkable recent releases by Jason Adasiewicz. At the end of the set the compelling music of Vilhelm Bromander.

At a time when music producers have been seriously entertaining the thought of promoting one minute-long songs to deal with the short attention span of today's online music listeners, we want to celebrate musicians who are unfazed by this trend, and instead they follow their internal muse. At the top of the hour the remarkable new album by Loren Stillman.

Chris Potter's upcoming album and then two tunes which were recorded without any concerns about time limitations, either in studio or live on stage, a place where suddenly the perception of time is altered in the midst of the creative flow.

At this stop we focus on up and coming pianists, Butcher Brown's eclecticism and some interesting European projects.

The sultry depth of Dominique Fils-Aimé paves the way to a number of projects which merge fun and intensity, and a long-awaited re-release.

Enjoy a set featuring jazz inspired by a Persian mathematician, Omar Khayyam; jazz which blends with Hindustani and Carnatic music; jazz that meets a chamber string quartet; jazz that pays tribute to Joni Mitchell; and a whole bunch of other jazz permutations.

New York City's Winter JazzFest might be the festival where fans and promoters from all over the world come to learn about the New York scene's going-ons, but it is also the event where Newyorkers get a rare chance to see remarkable musicians from abroad (or at least from out of town), including those featured here. Enjoy a playlist which will make you want to go to see them live!

We may regret not having been around when some of our idols were writing the pages that have now become foundations of the music we love. There is not much we can do about that, other than fantasizing about those times and those musicians. What we can do however is feeling lucky to live at a time when there is a number of modern masters in action. One of them is trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire [pictured], for whom 2023 was a remarkable year. Here we focus on the wide range of releases he has worked on, as well as on those of other adventurous musicians.

This is the last hour of Mondo Jazz for 2023. Thank you for your attention and support in the past 12 months. We look forward to sharing more beauty in the key of jazz in 2024.

The past four episodes were dedicated to a retrospective and a celebration of the many good things that happened in the jazz world in 2023, through a focus on our favorite songs of the last few months. This time we revert to our regular overview of recent and upcoming releases… some which could also have been included in our favorites, but we just didn't have enough space in the last four playlists.

For the past few episodes we have been looking back at albums released this year which we've been most fascinated by, and we cherry-picked songs from those albums that struck us the most… To wrap up this retrospective here's the last batch of sonic gems.

A playlist with a few more among the songs that we have been collecting through the past 6 months with a plan to share them, all at once, in an attempt to close a challenging year under more than a few good notes, a right of passage from one phase of our lives to another.

It's that time of the year when we look back at the past twelve months and realize that Jazz continues to be possibly the only thing that doesn't let us down, while the world is getting crazier by the hour. So here we are again, sharing a few mores tunes we've loved the most in the past few months.

This week we focus on the songs that have made us smile, tap our feet, reflect and keep our optimism in spite of the dire state of the world during the past six months. We hope they'll have the same effect on you.

If this episode of Mondo Jazz could be summarized in a flow-chart it would be someting like: West-African tinged European Jazz -> jazz meets (symphonic or chamber) classical music -> electro-acoustic chamber jazz.

Here's an episode mostly dedicated to the proposition that piano jazz has a very beautiful future, if we have to judge by what emerging pianists like Micah Thomas, Nitai Hershkovits [pictured], Dexter Goldberg, Joona Toivanen or Fergus McCreadie are putting on record. Before and after this piano segment, thrilling new albums.

Emerging saxophonists, emerging guitarists, established masters, and the good feeling that we're in the middle of a great time for jazz lovers where tradition and innovation bring about tons of good music.

Stevie Wonder, Maya Angelou, Ryuichi Sakamoto, the crazy world we live in, and the world immigrants left behind are some of the sources of inspiration of the intriguing music featured this week on our playlist.

This time we play with an unusual idea, alternating big band albums with albums recorded by vibraphone players. Why?, you may ask... For no particular reason, other than the fact that we realized the tunes we selected flow well together in this sequence.

We open this week's edition with a few projects that represent the essence of world fusion which is taking place in these modern times, and we close with a few projects that gravitate around that music catalyst that {{Carlos Niño}} is. In between, projects that will let your fantasy fly.

This episode features music inspired by {{Miles Davis}}, {{Andrew Hill}} and {{Buddy Emmons}}, but also by the Amazon Forest and the rivers of the Brazilian North-East.