Guardian Music — (Whirlwind)The American drummer Jeff Williams isn't a man in a hurry. Though he's been playing for four decades, he hasn't led a session of his own in 10 years, and has spent much of the last two developing the New York quartet on this album. It's be... more info

Guardian Music — (ProperBox 160, 4 CDs)The West Indian saxophonist Joe Harriott was one of the few true innovators on a British jazz scene that mostly mimicked American models during the 1950s and early 60s. Brought up in an orphanage, Harriott came to Britain from J... more info

Guardian Music — (Nonesuch)As he showed at the Wigmore Hall in duet with mandolinist Chris Thile recently, the US piano star Brad Mehldau treats one-to-one musical encounters as invitations to creativity outside his comfort zone; chances to explore worlds between con... more info

Guardian Music — Guardian and Observer writers are picking their favourite albums – with a view that you might do the same. Here, John Fordham examines the brilliant corners of Thelonious MonkWhen I was discovering jazz as a student, Thelonious Monk seemed to epito... more info

Totally Fuzzy — Rollins (far right) on stage at his 80th-birthday concert in New York City. Also pictured (left to right): Ornette Coleman, Christian McBride, Roy Haynes. What's the 80-year-old saxophone colossus up to now? You'd surely find out at one of ... more info

Guardian Music — Where did the terms retro-nuevo and skronk originate? Or hip-hop? Michaelangelo Matos runs through an exhaustive catalogue of music's phrasemakers and trendsettersMusic comes from everywhere, and so do the names we call it by. There's a longstanding... more info

Totally Fuzzy — In 1987, Alexander Balanescu left the Arditti Quartet to form his own Balanescu Quartet, which has gone on to acquire a reputation as one of the world’s leading contemporary music groups. Collaborators have included Michael Nyman, Gavin Bryars, Or... more info

Guardian Music — Royal Festival Hall, LondonOver his momentous four-decade career – much of it spent in the company of this trio, who have sold out the Royal Festival Hall – Keith Jarrett has done everything he could to make audiences sense the illuminating preca... more info

Guardian Music — Joe Harriott brought a Caribbean flavour to his fiery free-jazz. He also died, broke, at 44. Soweto Kinch on the great British jazzman we neglected for too longI first came across Joe Harriott while I was playing with Jazz Jamaica, a ska and jazz big... more info

Guardian Music — (Archieball) Joachim Kuhn, the great German jazz pianist, has played piano with Ornette Coleman – now he partners another saxophone legend of the 1960s American new wave in this warmly lyrical and distinctive duet with Archie Shepp. Shepp's signatu... more info