More New Jazz Vocal Albums
World Of Jazz Overflow Show 2
Another batch of excellent new albums featuring outstanding vocalists
AUDIO
THE ALBUMS
Stella Heath - For Billie (Matterhorn Records)
Release Date : 15th May 2026
Featured Track : Crazy He Calls Me
Nearly seven decades after Billie Holiday’s death in 1959 her influence as a singularly revelatory artist who never flinched from the truth resonates more powerfully than ever. With Stella Heath’s debut album the San Francisco Bay Area jazz vocalist shines a penetrating light on Holiday’s legacy, interpreting a smartly curated program of songs inextricably linked to the legendary Lady Day. It’s a gorgeous, consistently captivating album that illuminates the treacherous emotional and political terrain that Holiday navigated as a soul-bearing singer who delivered truths at deep personal cost. The album emerged out of The Billie Holiday Project, a thematic, historically anchored tribute show Heath developed via a deep collaboration with pianist and arranger Neil Fontano. More than an expression of admiration for an era-defining artist, the project reflected her desire to honour Holiday as an artist in full, making deliberate decisions at key moments in her career. Most consequentially, Holiday introduced the anti-lynching anthem “Strange Fruit” at the apex of her visibility in 1939. “When I began researching her life more fully, I discovered a complex woman — courageous, flawed, and deeply human,” Heath says. “Her decision to sing ‘Strange Fruit,’ and the personal cost she paid for that choice, is what initially compelled me to create The Billie Holiday Project. To me, she stands as a grandmother to the Civil Rights Movement and as a moral figure woven into our American story.”
Tierney Sutton and Tamir Hendelman - Spring (BFM Jazz)
Release Date : 3rd April 2026
Featured Track: Double Rainbow
The music on Spring captures the effortless rapport between two jazz masters. Hendelman notes, “Tierney is such a sensitive interpreter of the lyrics, but she uses her voice like an instrument—she has great chops, and the way she interacts with everything I do is like walking a highwire.” Soulful and swinging, Sutton’s singing is marked by impeccable phrasing and a deep respect for the lyrics, while Hendelman’s virtuosity always serves the song and the singer. The idea for a duo album blossomed after a series of live performances. “There’s a lot of freedom in the duo format,” Sutton explains. “It allows for more flexibility with phrasing and melody, and we wanted to record the live show we’d been doing on the road—with a great piano and great sound in a great studio.” Recorded essentially as a live set, the arrangements are intentionally loose, giving the music room to unfold in the moment. The result is an intimate musical conversation—easy, fluid, and deeply present. Created during uncertain and challenging times, the album was conceived as a balm for collective unease. Sutton chose the season as a metaphor for renewal and hope, while acknowledging that growth often carries a bittersweet edge. “I don’t believe you can make art without at least a nod to the moment you’re living in,” she says. True to form, her song selections explore spring from unexpected angles. The album opens with Jobim’s “Double Rainbow,” introduced by a lush piano prelude before Sutton enters with an ethereal vocalization.
Faye Carol - Forever Dynamic (Getdown Records)
Release Date :
Featured Track : Last Two Dollars
Although beloved in the San Francisco Bay Area for decades, vocalist Carol has yet to receive the national recognition her extraordinary career merits. A leader on nine albums and a featured artist on more than a dozen others, she now makes a compelling case for broader acclaim with the release of her tenth recording, a 20-song collection showcasing her inimitable interpretations of jazz, blues, and gospel-infused classics. Her brassy, emotionally resonant voice anchors the collection. Never content to stand still, Carol has continually evolved—absorbing gospel, soul, R&B, jazz, blues, hip-hop, and cabaret into a style that resists easy categorization. She avoids labels like “jazz singer” or “blues singer,” insisting that “music is in the ear of the beholder.” Over the years, Carol has changed with the times, incorporating a wide range of styles and genres in her imaginative renditions. With this new release she affirms what Bay Area audiences have known for decades: her artistry is timeless, fearless, and uniquely her own.
Judith Berkson, Trevor Dunn, Gerald Cleaver - Thee They Thy (ECM Records)
Release Date : April 10, 2026
Featured Track : Sated
After Oylam (2010), Judith Berkson, mezzo-soprano, pianist, composer and improviser, returns with another unclassifiable, and strangely compelling, artistic statement. On Thee They Thy, she leads a trio with Trevor Dunn and Gerald Cleaver through a radically changing program addressing new settings for prayer (Berkson is also a cantor), original songs, vocal experimentation, improvised piano and more. “I view the pieces on this recording as a natural extension of my solo work,” Berkson says. “This idea of songs that are quite intimate and personal, informed by jazz with pockets of improvisation but also drawing from song and avant-garde traditions in their harmonic and melodic material, embracing elements of minimalism and even conceptual art.” Thee They Thy was recorded at Oktavaen Audio Studio, Mt Vernon, New York. The album was produced by Manfred Eicher.
Elina Duni, Rob Luft - Reaching for the Moon (ECM Records)
Release Date : April 24, 2026
Featured Track : Foolish Flame
“Few contemporary jazz-influenced singers manage to sound so intensely like themselves while drawing on such a variety of genres, languages, and cultural backstories as the Albania-born vocalist Elina Duni,” The Guardian has noted, and Reaching for the Moon once again casts a wide net. It’s Duni’s third recording with UK guitarist Rob Luft, and where Lost Ships and A Time To Remember featured their co-led quartet, the core duo come to the fore here, in a program that begins with Irving Berlin’s title song and ends with Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman.” Along the way we hear Duni and Luft originals, traditional music from Kosovo, a lullaby penned by Persian singer Mahsa Vahdat, a ballad from Italian singer-songwriter Pino Daniele, French composer Gabriel Fauré’s art song “Les Berceaux,” themes for film written by Japan’s Shigeru Umebayashi and Poland’s Krzysztof Komeda, and more. “Our duo, our project, is a musical journey,” Duni says. “Different styles and different languages to bridge the gap between people.” Duni’s resourcefulness as singer is well-matched by Luft’s instrumental skills, the guitarist drifting mellifluously between idioms, gently enveloping melodies, underlining emotional expression in the song texts, and enhancing atmospheres. Reaching for the Moon was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in June 2025. The album, produced by Manfred Eicher, is released as Elina Duni and Rob Luft embark on a European tour with concerts in Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Albania.
Amal Murkus & Alessandro Sgobbio - Breathing تــنــف” ــس (Levantine Music)
Release Date : 13th February 2026
Featured Track : Canta
The debut album from renowned leading singer Amal Murkus and multi-awarded composer pianist Alessandro Sgobbio. Amal’s vocal melody meets the cinematic atmospheres created by Alessandro’s evocative piano sound and live electronics. This unique duo started its collaboration with a sold-out concert at Teatro Piccinni in Bari (Italy) in 2024, then met again in 2025 for a recording session at the wonderful Artesuono Studios in Udine. The repertoire includes a Palestinian traditional (Khodoni), two Amal’s originals (Risalatohu, La Ahada), one Alessandro’s composition (Bah’ri), a new rendition of Enzo Avitabile’s Canta as well as two timeless songs: Abdel Halim Hafez’s Ahwak (featuring kanunist Firas Zreik) and Syrian Folk Song Ya Mayela.
Mark Adams - This Is Neo-Soul (DownJazz Records)
Release Date - March 20th 2026
Featured Track - Day Dreaming
A new album from keyboardist, composer, and longtime Roy Ayers music director Mark Adams released just over a year after Ayers’ passing at 84. The 10-track release gathers fifteen all-star musicians from the working bands not only of Ayers, but also of Chic, Lonnie Liston Smith, Luther Vandross, Gloria Gaynor, Gil Scott Heron and Chaka Khan. Adams spent more than twenty years as the musical center of Roy Ayers’ touring group Ubiquity serving as keyboardist, arranger, and onstage ballast throughout thousands of shows. True to its present-tense title, This Is Neo-Soul isn’t a gaze into the rearview mirror. It’s a continuation of a language Adams lived for more than two decades. After the “Godfather of Neo-Soul” passed on, Adams and producer David Schwartz chose not to retreat into archival reverence; they understood that Ayers’ sound was never fixed to one moment. It was — and remains — a living vocabulary. Schwartz puts the lineage plainly: “There is a triad. There is Roy Ayers, Lonnie Liston Smith, and then Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson. That’s the triad that makes up this very cool neo-soul set.” “It’s a Roy Ayers, ’70s sound, but we authenticated it with the people who played that music and the people trained by them,” Adams says. “I played with Roy for more than 20 years. He taught me everything. So we made this the real thing.”
Adonis Rose featuring Phillip Manuel - Unusual Suspects (Moocha Music)
Release Date : 17th March 2026
Featured Track : Sixth Ward Strut
Rose and acclaimed vocalist Phillip Manuel deliver a recording that is a virtual masterclass in musical craftsmanship. The production is immersive, allowing every nuance of the performances to shine. The arrangements, by Manuel’s long-time writing partner and Musical Director, Michael Pellera are carefully curated to complement each song’s emotional weight. The balance between vocals and instrumentation is exceptional, highlighting Phillip’s signature timbre and phrasing while also leaving ample space for his fellow musicians to shine. Manuel’s voice is beyond rich, possessing a depth of emotion, humanity and truth, that brings to mind Johnny Hartman, and Andy Bey . . . but that’s just for reference, as Phillip Manuel is as singular and purely himself as an artist could be. Regarding the sextet on this disc, they are at the very top of their games and deliver astounding contributions to the music.
