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What values does a jazz education offer beyond the music itself?

Where Donny's previous album Perpetual Motion was a blistering electro-acoustic hybrid, Casting for Gravity soars past fusion into alchemy, forging a visionary voice from eclectic influences.

The in-studio video of track 1 from Dave Douglas' album Be Still featuring Aoife O'Donovan of Crooked Still, Jon Irabagon, Matt Mitchell, Linda Oh, and Rudy Royston.

Others will no doubt express themselves in writing about the late, great tenor saxophonist Von Freeman better than I ever could but I'm not sure the written word is necessary anyway. Here is seven minutes of tenor saxophone mastery that's all you really need in order to know the man and what mattered to him.

We're trying to reach our goal of seeing Dave have 5000 followers on Facebook, so we're running a promotion that one of our new followers will get a free signed copy of his first album on Greenleaf, Mountain Passages, if we reach 5000. We have a lot more in store for you this fall, so get clicking.

Grammy-winning saxophonist and composer Joe Lovano and two-time Grammy nominated trumpeter Dave Douglas are current masters on their respective instruments within the pantheon of modern jazz. From their collaborations on acclaimed recordings such as Trio Fascination: Edition Two and more recently John Zorn’s Stolas, Lovano and Douglas have shown that their distinct and robust voices can lead, blend and push the idiom forward both in composition and improvisation, while embracing the front-line masters of previous generations. In 2008, when Lovano and Douglas were co-leaders of the renowned SFJAZZ Collective, the group paid tribute to living icon Wayne Shorter showcasing arrangements of Shorter originals alongside newly composed pieces influenced by Shorter’s compositional voice. The experience was a catalyst that lead the two instrumentalists to conceive the Joe Lovano & Dave Douglas Quintet, Sound Prints; an all-star ensemble including up and coming pianist Lawrence Fields, bassist Linda Oh, and drummer Joey Baron. Performing new repertoire as well as brand new Shorter compositions in direct collaboration with Shorter, the quintet is less an homage to Wayne Shorter and more of a unique convergence of three unparalleled trajectories.

Linda Oh with Dayna Stephens, Fabian Almazan, Rudy Royston plays Jazz Standard, Tuesday June 19th.

We're always really excited about music that begs you not to define it, music that is truly unique and individual, music that is a deeply emotional and reaches people. Lucky for us, Matt Ulery sent us his new 2-disc album "By A Little Light" late last year.

NY Times: Casual listeners to jazz who might not tune into big differences between bass players would notice Linda Oh. Her music leans forward at you. She has a percussive touch, graceful and sometimes aggressive, and she likes playing fast, walking or soloing or delivering a jagged ostinato. She’s justifying the role of bassist as bandleader, starting the tunes, pushing the band, delivering clean, strong rhythm and melody.