The tenth studio album from Sufjan Stevens is conceptually looser than 2015's acclaimed Carrie and Lowell, about his complicated relationship with his mother, an addict who suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and the stepfather who brought both levity and depth to Stevens' life. That said, Javelin is more like a greatest-hits of the topics that have always pervaded his music: love and loss and what if; faith and higher power. Modest (but not simple) guitar, an Up-with-People style choir and soft but deeply booming drums create a cocoon-like atmosphere on "Everything That Rises"—a safe space for Stevens to implore "Jesus lift me up to a higher plane ... before I go insane." Folky "A Running Start" captures that weird, suspended-in-amber moment before a first kiss, with Sufjan singing, "I cross my arms to shield my heart." "Will anybody ever love me?/ For good reasons/ Without grievance, not for sport?" he questions on the lovely "Will Anybody Ever Love Me," its stacks of vocal layers almost disorienting. Piano-driven "So You Are Tired" ("So you are tired of us ... So you are tired of even my kiss ... So you are dreaming of after … I was the man still in love with you/ When I already knew it was done") re-creates the helpless feeling of someone falling out of love with you. But Stevens is aware of his own power, too, on "Javelin (To Have And To Hold)," a metaphor symphony of near-misses and regrets. "Searching through the snow/ For the javelin I had not meant to throw right at you," he sings as backing vocals blow behind him like a chilled wind. (Adrienne Maree Brown, Hannah Cohen, Pauline Delassus, Megan Lui and Nedelle Torrisi lend harmonies to the songs.) Musically, Javelin is not so far from Carrie and Lowell's quiet beauty; "My Red Little Fox" manages to bottle the sort of Elliott Smith melancholy Stevens has used in past songs like "Should Have Known Better." But this time around, his emotions cannot be contained in one space. So many of the hushed, even delicate moments here bloom into something much bigger—the big burst on  "Goodbye Evergreen" could fit either a marching band or the Flaming Lips. And "Shit Talk" stretches for a luxuriant eight-and-a-half minutes as Stevens seeks security and comfort while accompanied by The National's Bryce Dessner on clear, bright guitar. "Hold me closely/ Hold me tightly/ Lest I fall," the verses start off like a prayer, before Stevens' tone twists into anguish.The song grows to pandemonium—feminine and masculine voices separating and taking sides but ultimately yearning for the same thing—before fading into a lengthy instrumental interlude: the inhale and exhale of life. It all ends with a stripped-down cover of Neil Young's "There's a World"; freed of the original's London Symphony Orchestra grandeur, the song appropriately becomes more vulnerable, its belly exposed. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

In 2010, ECM released Jasmine, an informal archival recording of standards between old friends who hadn't worked together in over three decades. The recordings were made at Keith Jarrett's Cavelight home studio in 2007. The nine tunes on Last Dance are taken from those same sessions. There are two alternate takes of tracks from the earlier album. "Where Can I Go Without You" is played at a similar tempo, yet offers more lyricism from Charlie Haden. Gordon Jenkins' "Goodbye," a well-known Benny Goodman theme, closes the set, but it's slower here, more emotionally resonant; almost poignant in the way it reveals something deeper than its articulation on the earlier volume. Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight" has been done by Jarrett before, but here it is offered with a curious, almost strange intro. As it unfolds, it reveals an affection for its melody that he's not previously displayed. Haden's confident ability to assert the correct note for each phrase has long been a trademark in his playing, but the warmth he offers to it here is remarkable. He remains open and inquisitive about its lyric rather than engaging in a nostalgic presentation. He knows there are still possibilities inside its framework. "Everything Happens to Me" is more uptempo, but far from quick. Haden's woody tone and impeccable swing add dimension to Jarrett's songlike pianism in the melody and solo. Bud Powell's "Dance of the Infidels" is not played with breakneck athleticism, but is sprightly and fluid. Jarrett digs with delight into the intricate melody, offering a punchy sense of reflexiveness in his solo, while Haden strides along. In his own solo, the bassist once more peels back the skin in the harmony and finds hints of several other melodies all placed within different sections of the tune's body. The elegance in the presentation of Cole Porter's "Everytime We Say Goodbye" reveals the pair's confidence in their interplay. They don't overstate anything; the music provides meaning all on its own. They relax into its beauty playing toward one another as hints, suggestions, and references to popular music history bridge the space between. Last Dance is a necessary addendum to Jasmine; it fleshes out the confident, mature, amiable, and eloquent speech in the canonical language these two jazz masters share.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Who's Next is not an album lacking for reissues. In addition to a deluxe edition from 2003, there have also been multiple audiophile editions and remasters of the album since its 1971 release. So what could a "super deluxe edition" possibly contain? Quite a bit, as it turns out. As even casual Who fans know, the genesis of Who's Next was as Lifehouse, a multimedia rock opera even more ambitious than Tommy. Pete Townshend had developed a bizarre, dystopian story that somehow merged his devotion to Indian guru Meher Baba, his recent fascination with synthesizers, and the idea that the only thing that could save humanity from a test-tube-bound future was "real rock 'n' roll." Yeah, the aftereffects of the '60s were wild. After some live shows at the Young Vic in London and a series of marathon recording sessions, a 16-song tracklist was finalized, but by this point, it was collectively decided—both creatively and commercially—that perhaps another concept-dense double album might not be the best studio follow-up to Tommy. So, eight Lifehouse songs were re-cut and one new song ("My Wife") was recorded and the leaner, meaner Who's Next was released in August 1971. The album was both an instant success and has become an undisputed part of the classic rock canon, thanks to the inclusion of absolutely iconic tracks like "Won't Get Fooled Again," "Baba O'Riley," and "Behind Blue Eyes."While one could make an argument that the taut and focused power of Who's Next inadvertently proved the point of the Lifehouse story (namely, that rock 'n' roll is most effective when it's at its most primal), it's important to remember that Who's Next was also a giant artistic leap forward for the Who, as it found them at the peak of their powers as a pummeling rock band and as a band willing to be experimental and artful in their approach to being a pummeling rock band. (If any evidence is needed of the group's unrivaled power, check out take 13 of "Won't Get Fooled Again" on this set, which is so immediate and electric that it could easily be mistaken for a concert performance.) While several Lifehouse tracks found their way to other Who and Townshend records, getting a sense of the contours of the project has been difficult. But this massive, 155-track set creates those lines thanks to the inclusion of multiple Townshend demos as well as recording sessions of Life House tracks that occurred both before and after the release of Who's Next, and, most notably, two freshly mixed live shows from 1971 (including one of the Young Vic shows) that provided both the energy and, in some cases the basic tracks, for the album versions. While nothing on this bursting-at-the-seams edition overrides the all-killer-no-filler approach of Who's Next, it does provide plenty of long-desired context and documentation for what made that record so powerful. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

The fourth studio album by Long Island brother duo Brian and Michael D'Addario—aka The Lemon Twigs—finds them still digging through the crates of the '70s for inspiration. Having already played around with the histrionics and bombastics of Cheap Trick, ELO and Jim Steinman, the two have moved over to a different section. "When Winter Comes Around" is a perfect distillation of John Denver-style singer-songwriter sincerity and immediately uncovers one of the big new revelations this time around: fraternal harmonies. "On previous records, whoever wrote the song might do most, if not all, of the harmonies on their track, but not so much on this one. Our blend is a strength that we tried to exploit as much as possible," Brian D'Addario has said of the record. The melded vocals of "Every Day Is the Worst Day of My Life," mesmerize, while "Corner of My Eye" is so much like an Everly Brothers track it sounds lifted from some lost Felice Bryant archive. "Any Time of Day" nods to the toothy, wholesome balladry of family groups like the Carpenters or the Osmonds and gives Brian in particular a chance to hit a whole new array of high notes. "Sometimes you have to crawl/ To know that gravity is working/ 'Til you're one day walking tall/ And know that nothing is for certain/ And no one can close the curtain," he sings on the track, which the band has said came about over a business deal gone wrong after the were "hired to write material and act in an interactive TV show about an imaginary '70s brother band" for the now-dead streaming service Quibi. "Ghost Run Free," which comes the closest to tapping into the soaring upbeatness of 2020's Songs for the General Public, truly sounds like it should have been the theme to a That Girl-style sitcom. The D'Addarios apply melancholy horns on the ballad "I Don't Belong To Me," sweeping strings to the ambitious title track, and a waltz beat and carousel melody to "Born to Be Lonely." Starry-eyed "What Happens to a Heart," meanwhile, is pure chamber-pop pomp, complete with dreamy pin-up vocals. And when they revisit Badfinger-style power pop—on "What You Were Doing" and the chiming "In My Head"—here, it is whipped-cream-cloud perfection. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Relaxin' features the Miles Davis Quintet in a pair of legendary recording dates -- from May and October of 1956 -- which would generate enough music to produce four separate long-players: Cookin', Relaxin', Workin', and Steamin'. Each of these is considered not only to be among the pinnacle of Davis' work, but of the entire bop subgenre as well. As with the other titles, Relaxin' contains a variety of material which the band had concurrently been performing in their concert appearances. In a brilliant stroke of time conservation, the scheme was hatched for the quintet -- who includes: Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor sax), Philly Joe Jones (drums), and Red Garland (piano) -- to perform the equivalent of their live repertoire in the studio for eventual release. The results are consistently superior both in terms of song selection as well as performance. The solid nature of the unit as a singular musical force is immediately apparent. "If I Were a Bell" -- from the play Guys and Dolls -- includes some remarkable soloing via Coltrane and Garland. Davis' solos are additionally impressive, as they're derived from the same four-note motive as the melody. Hearing the many variations that he comes up with throughout the song conveys how intrigued Davis must have been by the tune, as it stayed in his performance repertoire for decades. Tracks such as "You're My Everything" and "Oleo" highlight the synchronic nature of Davis and Coltrane as they carry each other's melodies while trading off solos. The steady syncopation of Philly Joe Jones keeps the rhythms tight and the delicate interplay all the more conspicuous. Relaxin' offers something for every degree of jazz enthusiast. Likewise, the quintet's recordings provide a tremendous introduction for the curious jazz consumer.© Lindsay Planer /TiVo

In 1954, Chet Baker was named trumpeter of the year by the American jazz press. Miles Davis wrote in his autobiography, “I think he knew he didn’t deserve it over Dizzy and a lot of other trumpet players. [...] Both him and me knew that he had copied a lot of sh*t from me”. Whatever Miles may have said or written, Chet Baker’s name was certainly on everyone’s lips in the 1950’s. Even when he played alongside some of the best musicians in the business like Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan and Russ Freeman, Baker still held his own. The angel-faced musician based in Los Angeles played a pivotal role in the development of cool/West Coast jazz and in 1958 he signed a four-album contract with Riverside Records, a New York label who was captivated by his music. The complete collection of The Legendary Riverside Albums, released in autumn 2019, is a compilation of essential tracks showcasing a musician far more versatile than he may at first appear, who glamorized California’s cool jazz but was also able to work alongside hard bop heavyweights from the East Coast. In addition to these four re-mastered albums in Hi-Res 24-Bit, he compiled a number of alternative takes from these sessions into a fifth album. The first of these four albums (Chet Baker Sings) It Could Happen to You, released in October 1958, shows his originality as he has a modern take on standards such as How Long Has This Been Going On? and Old Devil Moon. Unlike his business partner Bill Grauer, producer Orrin Keepnews was initially reluctant to welcome Chet Baker to his label and therefore didn’t produce this first album. But as it happens, after hearing Chet’s singing accompanied by Kenny Drew on piano, George Morrow and Sam Jones on double bass and Philly Joe Jones and Dannie Richmond on drums, Keepnews ended up being seriously impressed. Compared with the great singers of the time Chet Baker was just as innovative with his vocals as he was when playing his instrument. He stayed true to himself and his own style – which is a real testament to his character. One month later he was back in the studio working on Chet Baker in New York, which was released in 1959 featuring Johnny Griffin on saxophone, Al Haig on piano and Paul Chambers on double bass. This album really raised the bar as the musicians take on some exquisite solos in ballads such as Polka Dots and Moonbeams and much more up-tempo hits such as the lively Hotel 49. Perhaps the most impressive of the lot is the album Chet, recorded on December 30 th 1959 and 19 th January 1959, featuring pianist Bill Evans, guitarist Kenny Burrell, flutist Herbie Mann and saxophonist Pepper Adams. You can hear the languor of Chet’s playing more than ever as the music takes on an all-new impressionistic feel and Evans’ wonderful phrases on piano are completely in sync. From the first few seconds of the opening track of this masterpiece, Alone Together, with its stunning cover (Chet with model Rosemary “Wally” Coover, photographed by Melvin Sokolsky), the sensual and minimalist style give the album a more modern style. Later in July of that same year (1959), he recorded Chet Baker Plays the Best of Lerner & Loewe to round off his brief episode with Riverside Records. It covers Broadway hits from musicals such as My Fair Lady, Gigi, Brigadoon and Paint Your Wagon by lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe. Chet is once again joined by Bill Evans, Pepper Adams and Herbie Mann here, as well as saxophonist Zoot Sims. His repertoire is just as distinctive as ever as he makes an esthetic sleight of hand when covering these tracks by adding his melancholic phrasing. Great music. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

With his sixth album, Gregory Porter excels once again in perfectly blending jazz, soul, rhythm'n'blues, pop and gospel. In addition to being blessed with a voice of pure velvet (so cliché, but so true), the Californian, who knows Great Black Music inside out, is also a real wordsmith. In these troubled times, Gregory Porter's music refreshes and rejuvenates, like on "Revival Song," a sort of neo-gospel hymn that ignites the soul and frees the body. This sense of wellbeing can also be felt when Porter puts on his crooner hat on "If Love Is Overrated" or when he channels his inner Marvin Gaye and George Benson on "Faith In Love." Brilliantly produced by Troy Miller (Laura Mvula, Jamie Cullum, Emili Sandé), All Rise propels the American singer towards greater global recognition, reaching audiences well outside the jazz sphere. © Max Dembo/Qobuz

Though the Fugees had been wildly successful, and Lauryn Hill had been widely recognized as a key to their popularity, few were prepared for her stunning debut. The social heart of the group and its most talented performer, she tailored The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill not as a crossover record but as a collection of overtly personal and political statements; nevertheless, it rocketed to the top of the album charts and made her a superstar. Also, and most importantly, it introduced to the wider pop world an astonishingly broad talent. Hill's verses were intelligent and hardcore, with the talent to rank up there with Method Man. And for the choruses she could move from tough to smooth in a flash, with a vocal prowess that allowed her to be her own chanteuse (à la Mariah Carey). Hill, of Haitian heritage, rhymed in a tough Caribbean patois on the opener, "Lost Ones," wasting little time to excoriate her former bandmates and/or record-label executives for caving in to commercial success. She used a feature for Carlos Santana ("To Zion") to explain how her child comes before her career and found a hit single with "Doo Wop (That Thing)," an intelligent dissection of the sex game that saw it from both angles. "Superstar" took to task musicians with more emphasis on the bottom line than making great music (perhaps another Fugees nod), while her collaborations with a pair of sympathetic R&B superstars (D'Angelo and Mary J. Blige) also paid major dividends. And if her performing talents, vocal range, and songwriting smarts weren't enough, Hill also produced much of the record, ranging from stun-gun hip-hop to smoother R&B with little trouble. Though it certainly didn't sound like a crossover record, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill affected so many widely varying audiences that it's no surprise the record became a commercial hit as well as a musical epoch-maker.© John Bush /TiVo

It took Depeche Mode only four years to assemble their first singles compilation, but 12 to assemble The Singles 86>98. Appropriately, the second set was much more ambitious than The Singles 81>85, spanning two discs and 20 songs, plus a live version of "Everything Counts." The Singles 86>98 was an album that many fans, both casual and hardcore, waited patiently for, and for good reason -- Depeche Mode were always more effective as a singles band than as album artists. That's not to say that the double-disc compilation is perfect. DM's output fluctuated wildly during those 12 years, as the group hit both career highs and lows. It's possible to hear it all on this set, from "Strangelove" and "Never Let Me Down Again," through "Personal Jesus" and "Enjoy the Silence," to "I Feel You" and "Barrel of a Gun." It's possible that some casual listeners will find that the collection meanders a bit too much for their tastes, but the end result is definitive and, along with The Singles 81>85, ranks as Depeche Mode's best, most listenable album.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Label Impulse! has unearthed from its archives this previously unreleased concert from November 2007 between two absolute giants: Charlie Haden and Brad Mehldau. The bass player, who passed away in 2014, met the pianist for the first time in the early nineties. The spark was instantaneous, and the two virtuosos regularly worked together, both on stage and in studio. But never in duo. This 2007 live was the first time. At the invitation of Heidelberg Enjoy Jazz Festival, in Germany, Haden and Mehldau agreed to perform together in the magical setting of a church, the Christuskirche in Mannheim. And while the result was stunning, the tapes remained in storage for over a decade… "It’s thrilling to play with someone who improvises like this”, recalls the American pianist. “After all, this is the guy who did it first on his instrument. Those early records of the Ornette Coleman Quartet like This is Our Music or Change of the Century were not “free” in the sense that they abandoned the principles of harmony. They often were free of a fixed harmonic schema, though, and Charlie was improvising the harmony, from the ground up!"Above all else, it’s the depth of their complicity that shines through on this recording. The ease with which Charlie Haden and Brad Mehldau integrate space and silence in their exchanges is sublime. In terms of repertoire, they opted for classics  (Charlie Parker, Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Gershwin, Kern…) that they stroke with their fingertips. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Morgan Wallen opens One Thing at a Time with two songs where the narrator cops to drinking too much and not quite remembering what they've said. It's not the only time he alludes to letting the bottle turn him into a different man, an elliptical allusion to the scandal that embroiled the country singer after he was captured on video uttering a racial slur. The incident happened not long after the release of Wallen's Dangerous: The Double Album, and far from knocking his career off track, the scandal helped consolidate his audience; the double-LP turned into the best-selling album of 2021. One Thing at a Time offers more of the same -- a lot more of it. Weighing in at 36 songs, it's six tracks longer than Dangerous: The Double Album, a difference that clocks in at nearly an additional half-hour, bringing it just a few minutes shy of two hours. This untrammeled sprawl means One Thing at a Time offers a little something for everybody: there are sentimental weepers like "Thought You Should Know," a superstar duet thanks to Eric Church's cameo on "Man Made a Bar," party songs, sad songs, songs that lift liberally from classic rock standards ("Everything I Love," which borrows from both Allman Brothers Band's "Midnight Rider" and Marshall Tucker Band's "Can't You See"), songs about beer, songs about whiskey, and songs about wine. On Dangerous: The Double Album, all this radio-ready variety suggested that Wallen wanted to appeal to every audience everywhere, but in the wake of his scandal, this multi-purpose crowd-pleasing suggests an artist who wants to provide the perpetual jukebox within a walled garden.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

With their surprise success behind them, the Cranberries went ahead and essentially created a sequel to Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can't We with only tiny variations, with mixed results. The fact that the album is essentially a redo of previously established stylistic ground isn't apparent in just the production, handled again by Stephen Street, or the overall sound, or even that one particularly fine song is called "Dreaming My Dreams." Everybody wasn't a laugh riot, to be sure, but No Need to Argue starts to see O'Riordan take a more commanding and self-conscious role that ended up not standing the band in good stead later. Lead single "Zombie" is the offender in this regard -- the heavy rock trudge isn't immediately suited for the band's strengths (notably, O'Riordan wrote this without Noel Hogan) -- while the subject matter (the continuing Northern Ireland tensions) ends up sounding trivialized. Opening cut "Ode to My Family" is actually one of the band's best, with a lovely string arrangement created by O'Riordan, her overdubbed vocals showing her distinct vocal tics. Where No Need succeeds best is when the Cranberries stick at what they know, resulting in a number of charmers like "Twenty One," the uilleann pipes-touched "Daffodil's Lament," which has an epic sweep that doesn't overbear like "Zombie," and the evocative "Disappointment."© Ned Raggett /TiVo

Coming off their work on Dntel's beautiful This Is the Dream of Evan and Chan, Jimmy Tamborello and Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard team up again for their full-length debut as Postal Service, Give Up. Instead of covering that EP's territory again, with this album the duo crafts a poppier, new wave-inflected sound that recalls Tamborello's work with Figurine more than Dntel's lovely subtlety. However, Ben Gibbard's famously bittersweet vocals and sharp, sensitive lyrics imbue Give Up with more emotional heft than you might expect from a synth pop album, especially one by a side project from musicians as busy as Tamborello and Gibbard are. The album exploits the contrast between the cool, clean synths and Gibbard's all-too-human voice to poignant and playful effect, particularly on Give Up's first two tracks. "The District Sleeps Alone" bears Gibbard's trademark songwriting, augmented by glitchy electronics and sliced-and-diced strings, while "Such Great Heights"' pretty pop could easily appear on a Death Cab for Cutie album, minus a synth or two. Despite some nods to more contemporary electronic pop, Give Up's sound is based in classic new wave and synth pop, at times resembling an indie version of New Order or the Pet Shop Boys. Songs like "Nothing Better," a duet that plays like an update on Human League's "Don't You Want Me?," and the video-game brightness of "Brand New Colony" sound overtly like the '80s brought into the present, but the tinny, preset synth and drum sounds on the entire album recall that decade. Sometimes, as on "Recycled Air" and "We Will Become Silhouettes," the retro sounds become distracting, but for the most part they add to the album's playful charm. The spooky ballad "This Place Is a Prison" is perhaps the most modern-sounding track and the closest in sound and spirit to Gibbard and Tamborello's Dntel work. The crunchy, distorted beats and sparkling synths recall both This Is the Dream of Evan and Chan and Björk's recent work; indeed, this song, along with the "All Is Full of Love" cover Death Cab included on their Stability EP, could be seen as an ongoing tribute to her. Overall, Give Up is a fun diversion for Tamborello, Gibbard, and their fans. It doesn't scale the heights of either of their main projects, but it's far more consistent and enjoyable than might be expected.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Having built up a considerable reputation thanks to So Tonight That I Might See, Mazzy Star reappeared after three years with Among My Swan, only to receive widespread indifference. It's a touch surprising -- unlike, say, fellow 1993 breakthroughs the Cranberries, David Roback and Hope Sandoval didn't rapidly descend into self-parody crossed with delusions of grandeur. Instead, they kept on keeping on, proffering the same combination of psych, blues, folk, and art-pop touches that made their earlier releases so captivating. That said, though, at base Among My Swan just isn't as quietly involving as the earlier records, that magical fusion of styles somehow coming across as a little been-there, done-that here. There's nothing quite as immediate as "Fade Into You," nothing as awesomely delicate as "Five String Serenade," as woozy and powerful as "Mary of Silence." There are plenty of songs that try for that, though, and even if Among My Swan won't raise the dead or heal the sick, it's still pleasant enough listening, and sometimes the secret of success is in the details. Keep an ear out for the soft chimes that punctuate "Happy," for instance, or how William Reid from the Jesus and Mary Chain's guest guitar helps turn "Take Everything" into the slow-burning monster it is. Sandoval's singing is as drowsily intoxicating as before, while Roback's ability to create atmospheres is equally fine. Among the better moments: "Rhymes of an Hour," which carefully balances a quieter arrangement with sudden moments that almost but don't quite lead to a full-band jam; the acoustic-based mood-out "All Your Sisters," suggesting such earlier guitar/violin efforts as "Into Dust"; and the soft-landing conclusion, "Look on Down from the Bridge," a bit of a church hymn in its own way, thanks to the organ-led melody.© Ned Raggett /TiVo

In just three sessions between November 1955 and October 1956, Miles Davis and his first quintet recorded enough material for the release of five albums under the label Prestige. With the great Rudy Van Gelder in his studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, this creative marathon produced some of the most iconic albums in the trumpeter’s discography, such as Miles: The New Miles Davis Quintet (1956), Cookin’ (1957), Relaxin’ (1958), Workin (1959) and Steamin’ (1961). Joining him are pianist Red Garland, double bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Philly Joe Jonas and saxophonist John Coltrane (before he became famous as a musical God). Throughout these 32 tracks which are chronologically sequenced and remastered in Hi-Res 24-Bit, the quintet essentially writes the birth certificate for hard bop, defining the genre. Although it often seems to be Miles David’s second quintet (1965-1968 with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams and Wayne Shorter) which has pride of place in the jazz history hall of fame, it shouldn’t overshadow this earlier group from the mid-fifties which was equally as influential. Miles’ pared-down style, the originality of Coltrane and his intricate keys and the great precision of Garland’s playing make for some stunning versions of these compositions, which include both popular music and more unconventional and innovative pieces. A must-listen! © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Not counting the 2016 holiday LP Behold, 2018's Look Up Child is the follow-up to Lauren Daigle's breakout debut, How Can It Be, an album that topped the Billboard Christian chart and crossed over to the Top 30 of the Billboard 200. More stylistically diverse and notably more soulful, Look Up Child not only lives up to the potential of her debut but ups the ante in terms of arrangements, production, and performances. (It also outperformed her debut on the charts, going all the way to number three on the Billboard 200.) As if to re-set expectations, it opens with a dramatic, orchestral glissando before settling into the urgent "Still Rolling Stones," a choral call to faith. In terms of rhythmic diversity, she ventures into reggae on "Your Wings," and the syncopated title track experiments with African-inspired beats and gospel. Seeming to embrace higher volumes -- vocally speaking -- on much of the record, there is plenty of dynamic balladry here, too, including tracks like the choir-backed "You Say" and poignant "Love Like This." Offering respite from the album's frequent swelling climaxes, she offers more delicate interpretations on tracks like "Rebel Heart" and "Inevitable," the only song with solo piano for accompaniment. After 12 original songs, the album closes on a carefree, six-and-a-half-minute version of the traditional hymn "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus." Throughout, Look Up Child's nuanced, soul-steeped vocal performances are bound to draw Daigle even more comparisons to Adele -- not the worst burden to have to endure.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo