Omer Avital, hailed by the LA Times as “a pioneer in combining jazz with myriad world music elements,” is a composer, a virtuosic bassist, an oud player and an active force on the world music scene for well over a decade. This recording features Omer Avital's quintet performing several jazz pieces Live at Smalls Jazz Club in Greenwich Village.

Vocalist Tessa Souter dazzled listeners with her excellent debut album, Night Of Key Largo, which was awarded the Swing Journal Gold Disc. With her next album, Beyond the Blue, Souter embarked on an ambitious task: writing lyrics to well-known classical compositions and performing them in a jazz setting. Being a gifted writer, Souter herself wrote the lyrics for all but three of the songs. For this release, Souter is supported by outstanding New York-based jazz musicians. She sings gracefully and intelligently, using her beautiful voice to the fullest.

Since arriving in New York City, Tessa Souter has built a dedicated following. She was a relative latecomer to jazz, taking time out to raise a family at a young age and work as a journalist before studying at the Manhattan School of Music and privately with vocal great Mark Murphy, though she has developed into a formidable singer in a relatively short time.

Barcelona trumpeter/singer Andrea Motis has sounded and looked like a mainstream jazz star since her teens. She is now 21, and her major-label debut features a Spanish band led by her teacher and bassist/saxist Joan Chamorro, plus American guests including saxophonist Joel Frahm and accordionist Gil Goldstein.

Joel Frahm is New York-based saxophonist and recording artist. This album features "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", "Early Autumn" and other love songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Bossa Nova's famous songs romantically and sentimentally tells jazz's attractive tenor saxophone.

"New Song" features a quintet which Omer Avital has led for many years, and which is a direct descendant of the ensemble with which Avital made a name for himself when he first arrived in New York. However, this current group is imbued with the cultural heritage that the bass player took time exploring in the mid-2000s, when he returned to his homeland to reconnect with his ancestral roots Yemenite on his mother's side and Moroccan on his father's. With Omer Avital, the integration of jazz with the musical traditions of the Arab world is more than just a convenient meeting.

Beat Kaestli turns his attention to the Great American Songbook on Invitation, his auspicious debut for Chesky Records. Recorded at St. Peter's Church in Chelsea, this stirring collection of jazz standards is the perfect showcase for Kaestli's hauntingly beautiful voice, which falls somewhere in the Chet Baker-Kenny Rankin range. His voice is imbued with clarion articulation, naturally relaxed phrasing and uncanny feeling.

Two-time Grammy winner Diane Schuur, a leading vocalist in contemporary jazz, pays tribute to her important mentors Frank Sinatra and Stan Getz on this album with all new arrangements by pianist Alan Broadbent. "I Remember You" was released in 2014 to commemorate Schuur's "official" discovery 35 years earlier by Getz at the 1979 Monterey Jazz Festival.

Joel Frahm has been one of the brightest talents on the New York jazz scene for over two decades. His performances on record and live are always a rich and beautiful experience. Recorded February 28th and March 1st of 2011, "Live At Smalls" illustrates that beauty with crisp sound and soulful musicianship. A great live date that shows Frahm in fine form with marvelous line up including Kurt Rosenwinkel, Joe Martin and Otis Brown III and featuring five Frahm original compositions.