Bassist Bill Laswell has been a major figure in creative music for 3 decades as a performer as well as a producer. The list of major names in jazz and rock he has worked with is voluminous. His stamp is on literally hundreds of albums; the majority of them characterized by a sound fusing the energy of punk with the bone-rattling rhythms of dub and funk. Guitarist Raoul Björkenheim emerged from Finland in the 1980s with Edward Vesala then recorded two albums for ECM. A major if under-appreciated guitar hero, he has kept an active profile most recently with Scorch Trio, with whom he has released 4 albums. Drummer Morgan Ågren was voted the #1 best fusion drummer in the Modern Drummer Readers Poll of 2010! He has worked with keyboardist Mats Öberg as Mats/Morgan for over 30 years (since he was 14 and Mats was 10!) and they have released 8 albums. Blixt is the first release by this electric jazz power trio supergroup; think the Jimi Hendrix Experience mixed with outjazz/improvisation.

The São Paulo Underground sound dares you to define it, knowing that even when -- not if -- you fail to do so, you’ll still be so deliriously immersed in the group’s dizzying swirl of styles that you’ll simply be happy to surrender to its unnamable charms. Along the way, you’ll reach for such sonic signifiers as “jazz,” “Brazilian music,” “avant-garde,” and “electro-acoustic” in an attempt to tag Três Cabeças Loucuras, the ensemble’s third album and first for Cuneiform. Sure, when American cornetist Rob Mazurek gets together with his Brazilian buddies Guilherme Granado (keyboards, electronics), Mauricio Takara (drums, percussion, cavaquinho, electronics) and “fourth member” Richard Ribeiro (drums), all of the aforementioned flavors are on the musical menu, but ultimately, it’s best to just term the end result a kind of joyful “chef’s surprise” that gleefully upends expectations.

Note: Três Cabeças Loucuras is also available in a high-quality, limited edition (Only 500 copies!) vinyl pressing that includes a download code for the digital version of the album.

The term dead cat bounce denotes a small, brief recovery in the price of a declining stock, but to composer and saxophonist Matt Steckler it means more; Dead Cat Bounce, both in name and as a group, evokes an artistic vision. “It signifies one’s dedication to creative rebirth and renewal even as time, tradition, and masters move on,” says the Boston-based Steckler, who founded DCB in 1997 to explore new sounds within the classic confines of jazz. Bolstered by bassist Dave Ambrosio and drummer Bill Carbone, DCB features an interactive and inventive frontline quartet of saxophonists: Steckler, Charlie Kohlhase, Terry Goss, and Jared Sims. Drawing inspiration from blues and funk, as well as Caribbean, Brazilian, and West African traditions, DCB’s fourth studio album, Chance Episodes, presents a cosmopolitan and international sound, all in a stunning interpretation of Steckler’s original arrangements. Chance Episodes is Dead Cat Bounce’s first release on Cuneiform Records.

Chance Episodes is awash in the voices of the past, but synthesizes them into a dynamic voice of its own. Fundamentally, it asks the listener to appreciate the foundations and history of jazz, but simultaneously embrace all that is new. Steckler, himself, defines the ideal listener and frame of mind for Chance Episodes, imploring listeners to experience the album “free from distraction and with an ear toward positive experience and renewal.”

Lauded by Coda as "one of the most vital musicians on the planet," Wadada Leo Smith is a highly regarded trumpeter who has, over the course of five decades in jazz and free music, seldom slackened his prolific pace. If anything, he's been experiencing a creative renaissance of late. Smith’s latest CD and fifth release for Cuneiform, Heart’s Reflections, is a bold double-disc set that features Wadada Leo Smith's Organic, a predominately electric, fourteen-piece group that is both active and performing at festivals worldwide. In fact, Organic, a band most notable for a lineup marked by four guitarists, just performed a late-March concert in Milano, Italy. In talking about this shred-heavy band with All About Jazz, Smith said, “I wanted to create this ensemble with this fantastic horizontal and vertical mash of sound. … And [I wanted] the music to be experimental and have a beat to it and to have those qualities that young people are interested in.”

This co-ed outfit sizzles and stomps its way through 14 genre-bending tracks Though longtime listeners might be surprised by the fierceness of Organic’s rhythm section, Heart’s Reflections is nonetheless marked by the trumpeter’s usual touchstones: long sustained notes, occasional clipped phrases, and a tough-to-define playfulness that infuses all of his work.

Proficient, creative, clearly an in demand bassist, Carlo De Rosa has earned a reputation of very high standards. Carlo has work with the likes of: Ravi Coltrane, John Faddis, Yo-Yo Ma, Jack DeJohnette, Hilton Ruiz, Steve Turre, John Scofield, The Chico O’Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, Tyshawn Sorey, Ed Thigpen, Brad Shepik, Ralph Alessi, Nick Brignola, Mickey Roker, Warren Bernhardt, Miguel Zenon and Jason Moran. As a composer and band-leader of the quartet Cross-Fade, he also has very high standards.

Cross-Fade is a band of top-drawer musicians.  Pianist Vijay Iyer is one of the hottest names in jazz right now, and he is featured heavily with Cross-Fade on both acoustic and electric piano. In 2010, Iyer was named Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards,  and his album, Historicity was nominated for a Grammy. Saxist Mark Shim, whose unique deep timbre and chops range from swinging bop, uncut funk, to avant-garde, has recorded three albums for Blue Note. Drummer Justin Brown, the youngest member of the group, is a powerful, potent player who is beginning to make a major name for himself. He has peformed with Esperanza Spalding, Gretchen Parlato, Kenny Garrett, Christian McBride, Stefon Harris, Peter Apfelbaum, Gerald Clayton and Rudresh Mahanthappa. 

The music constantly moves between the modern, avant-garde and electric Jazz worlds, never standing still, but taking the most interesting and attractive elements of these worlds and combining them into a new whole.

As much as we all love recordings, the experience of LIVE music is what separates the wheat from the chaff, the Rodney Dangerfields from the Tom Greens. While touring Sweden, Frank Zappa—one of progressive music’s prime movers from the mid-1960s until his death in 1993 and one of the most exacting bandleaders EVER—was SO taken with the acumen and energy of acolytes Mats Öberg and Morgan Ågren in performance that he asked them to play with his band! Cuneiform Records founder Steve Feigenbaum, whose Wayside imprint distributed discs by Mats/Morgan Band in the US, caught them live in Paris (with members of Magma in the audience too!) and was so impressed he caught up with them backstage and asked them to be on his label. The proof’s in the pudding: Live is that rare CD that encapsulates a band at the peak of their powers, with dazzling creativity and immediacy in full flower. Live was remastered for this Cuneiform reissue.

Fans of old and new progressive rock, math-rock, jazz-rock fusion, funky fusion, post-rock and the Rock In Opposition (RIO) axis of bands—you’ve got one band of Swedes to unite you: the Mats/Morgan Band.