With Drunk, Thundercat gets a little more real even as his music gets a bit more cerebral. True to the album’s name, the music is self-deprecating, anxious, spaced out, and hilarious — often during the same song.

“A Fan’s Mail” sees Thundercat dreaming about turning into a cat (and literally meowing about it). “Uh Uh” has some unreal bass lines that feel like the product of Nintendo and cosmic drugs. “Walk On By”, which features Kendrick Lamar, sounds like it belongs on To Pimp a Butterfly. But “Show You the Way”, the preceding track, is a soft rock track that features both Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins.

Despite their myriad of differences, these songs are united by their common love of jazz and jazzy experimentation. Make no mistake, even when he’s experimenting with synths and pop beats on album standout “Friend Zone”, Thundercat is channeling his favourite jazz icons.

All of this makes Thundercat’s latest record as hard to classify as always. But one thing is certain: Drunk is certainly more upbeat than Thundercat’s last record, The Beyond / Where Giants Roam. While They Beyond dealt with death and transcendence, and what happens in “the beyond” after our lives are over, Drunk seems to embrace our morbidity in life and celebrate it (with a healthy dose of partying and drinking). Hence the title.

In a lot of ways, Drunk feels like a reaction to 2016. The songs aren’t all politically charged, but there are many that deal with being black. Thundercat’s take on this is racially charged, of course, but also lyrically ironic (which isn’t surprising). But on the flip side of that, Thundercat’s leaving his wallet at the club and getting drunk and friend zoned as he tries to sort out the mess that is life.

It all feels like a poor way or dealing with stress — which maybe we can all relate to, at least a little bit.

In it all of its idiosyncrasies, Drunk feels like Thundercat being his most relatable — even if it is drowning in experimentation. It’s a can’t-miss record that celebrates life and runs away from it, often in the same breath.

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So yes, Ben Wendel looks back on What We Bring. The album is a retrospective on acoustic, traditional jazz. It reworks classic compositions with a modern perspective. In particular, Wendel’s quartet focuses on rhythm. Each of the songs on What We Bring features a strong rhythmic backbone, which makes some of the intricate solo work more approachable for jazz newbies.

In other places, though, Ben Wendel embraces indie rock. “Doubt” is a reinterpretation of Wye Oak’s track of the same name. Once again, the backbone is stronger here than in the original. If anything, Wendel makes the song sound even sadder than it did before.

“Song Song” feels like the most traditional jazz track here. While it’s still influenced by much of today’s more vocal indie pop, there’s a playfulness here that’s evocative of jazz’s golden era. Similarly, Wendel’s cover of “Solar” is both technically impressive and melodically astute — creating a version of the song that is both memorable and unique.

What We Bring is about what musicians bring to the table: their influences, their peers, their taste, and their ideas. It’s a fascinating concept for a jazz record. Artists with new ideas and fresh perspectives always refresh the genre, which is exactly what What We Bring encompasses.

What We Bring is a record made by masters, but it’s also humblke in its search for new ideas and fresh visions. It’s one of the year’s best and most interesting jazz records.

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It doesn’t take long for The Comet Is Coming to begin to deliver on their promises of unique jazz. “Space Carnival”, the album’s second track, feels almost like a dance track — with moments that feel lifted from dance and electronic records, it certainly doesn’t sound like the jazz of old.

I don’t think that’s a problem, though. You can hear in their stylings that The Comet Is Coming has a reverence for what came before. The way they handle time signatures and solos, as well as the large batch of musical ideas that may be in one song, speak to their understanding of jazz’s heritage and its creativity.

That’s not to say that the group is never recognizable as a jazz outfit. On tracks like “Journey Through the Asteroid Belt”, they wear their label proudly — even if they’re mixing it with a percussion setup that would make most DJs jealous. “Slam Dunk in a Black Hole” understands the weird side of jazz that Miles Davis explored on Bitches’ Brew, but mixes it with a techno-inspired backbeat that somehow makes the whole thing feel modern and contextual for our times.

And, of course, the solos throughout this album are amazing. The group is made up of three guys, if you aren’t familiar, and each are gifted at what they do. It’s worth mentioning their names — they’re treasures in and of themselves: “Danalogue the Conequeror” is their synthesizer. “Betamax Killer” plays drums. “King Shabaka” is the saxophonist. All three are impeccably talented. It’s hard to believe Danalogue the Conqueror is handling synth duties solo, and the sounds King Shabaka gets out of his sax are incredible.

Tracks like “Cosmic Dust” make it clear this isn’t the first record you’d want to show to your friends who are merely interested in jazz, though. This record is for people who are interested in concepts. This is jazz for fans of psychedelic music — or vice versa.

“Channel the Spirits”, the album’s titular track, sounds like a jazz track played overtop of a pummelling rock riff. It’s the fully-fleshed equivalent of a Mastodon record on mushrooms. (It’s also my favourite track on the record.) The album is all over the map, but conceptually, it’s all bound together by an idea.

I think the idea is simple: jazz still has new places to explore, new cosmos to go. The comet may be coming, and when it hits, it might wipe out jazz as we know it. But the genre is beginning its formation into something new.

The Comet is Coming’s debut record is an unmissable delight for fans of challenging, complex music that plays with form and challenges the identity of genre. The band has earned a new fan in me, and I look forward to spending much more time with their music over upcoming years.

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The first minute and a half sounds nearly Hitchcockian, in a sort of terrifying way, where the all-saxophone jazz ensemble brings out all the discordant stops. The second half is the deconstruction of its first, where everything the first half completes is undone and left blowing in the wind, powerless after a single saxophone innocently renders it into fearless noise.

To put it simply, Tokyo-chutei-iki doesn’t care about what your preconceptions are about jazz. They forge their own paths on The Last Baritonik, with a playful nature that captures the improv the genre is known for. The band is made up of thirteen saxophone players (although I think they had ten at one point), with no other supporting elements.

The opening track is as joyful as jazz gets: “One Hundred Fingers” is a celebration of the genre, a cheerful burst of solos that’s the musical equivalent of a menagerie. It doesn’t take long to understand the fascination of what could easily be a novelty act: saxophones are both musical and rhythmic, capable of carrying a melody and a beat. And because they carry such a wide tone of sounds, saxophones are also easily able to be distinguishable from one another when the need occurs.

Saxophones also, of course, lend a visceral and playful nature to the music. “The Room of Iron Frame” dodges back and forth between noises that frighten and noises that play in an intoxicating mix that feels like multiple musical set pieces in a jazz opera. It’s thoroughly unconventional and surprising, never settling to be comfortable or comparable to anything we’re already intimately familiar with.

This level of ingenuity speaks to what makes Tokyo-chutei-iki so important to jazz as a genre right now: they might understand where the genre has been (and I’d argue their reliance on saxophones makes that clear), but their astute understanding of classical composition and disregard for jazz practice makes them more jazz-like than most of their contemporaries.

Jazz has shed its original clothing to become less married to specific time signatures or dances and more married to experimentation as art. And The Last Baritonik is definitely that. Tracks like “It is Soroso Spring”, complete with Japanese vocal work, feel like they belong in a post-modern opera.

When a single track is clearly influenced by Baroque-period classical, Miles Davis, and The Beatles, you know you’ve stumbled onto a sound that is inherently unique.

The Last Baritonik is a complete surprise and utterly imbibes jazz’s experimental soul. Tokyo-chutei-iki are, without a doubt, one of the genre’s most important flag-bearers right now.

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When Charlotte Cardin is at her best, though, it feels like she’s alone in a room with you. Perhaps that’s because her lyrics are clearly sensual: the chorus in “Dirty Dirty” talks about washing her dirty thoughts off her. It’s not subtle, but it’s successful because it’s not. The instrumentation is dripping with atmosphere, and oozing with sensuality.

Everybody’s been talking about the jazzy take she has on pop music, but truth be told, I don’t hear a lot of jazz in it. There’s definitely a French jazz influence — Charlotte Cardin’s Montreal heritage is readily apparently — but the influence largely extends to the rhythm. This is pop music through and through. It’s sensual, and it’s fascinating, but it’s pop. “Les échardes” — an excellent song, by the way — is the closest she gets to traditional jazz. (It’s impeccably well done, and I’d love to hear Cardin do more like it.)

What’s great about Cardin is that her voice is completely natural. There’s no autotune here. On the Apple Music version of the album, there are two bonus videos of her performing “Big Boy” and “Les échardes.” It’s revealing of two things: her music is incredibly minimal. The production on the record is deceiving, because it sounds bigger than it is. When those trappings are lifted, the music takes on an air that’s intimate and special.

The second thing it reveals is the quality of Cardin’s voice: there isn’t a hint of autotune here, and she hits every note exactly how it is on the record. Charlotte Cardin’s vocal performance is impeccable and haunting — nearly angelic if it weren’t so sexual. I’m looking forward to a complete LP from her in the future.

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But it feels like ALA.NI has arrived from another era. It’s as if she spent most of her life hanging out with Ella Fitzgerald and Cole Porter. YOU & I is the sort of record that people don’t make anymore: the songs don’t cradle themselves within theatrics, and share more in common with lullabies than anything we might consider jazz or pop today.

But there’s a sense of innocence throughout the record that it feels like we’ve lost. That innocence, which I feel we traded in for sophistication, is what makes ALA.NI so memorable. Her subtle choral effects have something in common with Feist, but it doesn’t feel likely she’s ever listened to Feist.

“Ol Fashioned Kiss” is exactly the sort of song that a person steeped in the Jazz Age would write, and it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful largely because it’s about a kiss: there isn’t any innuendo here. It’s not a slutty song about somebody’s birthday.

It would be easy to mistake this innocence for naïveté, but tracks like “Darkness at Noon” (which has a stupendous chorus) suggest that ALA.NI isn’t foreign to emotional trauma. It’s just that she chooses to frame the experience of life through lenses that are different from how we’re used to hearing it.

YOU & I is over almost as quickly as it begins. Many tracks are under three minutes long, and some are under two. When the album is over, you’re left with the rare sensation that it just wasn’t long enough. ALA.NI might be emulating a style we’ve long forgotten, but for many of us, hearing it again is an emotionally powerful sensation. It’s such a rarity to hear music that, at its most basic level, still packs an incredible emotional punch.

I immediately hit Play again, and put the record on repeat. I suspect that you’ll do the same.

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But Cleary still has a tell: he’ll turn to the audience with a look on his face that falls somewhere between a nudge and a wink, and he’ll say something cutesy to drive up audience applause. This is your moment of involvement. And it’ll often happen halfway through a song, when every stops and later picks back up in grand fashion.

These live moments are what makes jazz performances great. There’s an energy to them that simply can’t be captured on a record. It’s one of the reasons the best way to experience jazz is to see a live show, and it’s undoubtedly the reason there are still a lot of jazz bars left over from the genre’s heyday.

Some of that riotous crowd-pleasing is present on Mo Hippa, the live album that Jon Cleary put out with The Absolute Monster Gentlemen, his backing band. You can hear it on crowd-pleasers like “When U Get Back,” which is a stunner of a track — particularly with its chorus and harmonies.

The track is a great demonstration of everything else that Jon Cleary and his band have to offer to: most of the track is an incredible, jubilant piano solo that lights up the room. The crowd loves it. It’s in exact time with the band.

The hardest thing about jazz is the timing. The solos require an incredible amount of precision, regardless of the instrument you’re playing — and everybody in Jon Cleary’s band is monstrously talented (pardon the pun). But what makes the band so impressive is how tight they are. Jazz is often polyrhythmic, working in non-traditional time signatures. (That’s also the reason jazz is often so dance-able.) Those time signatures make playing tightly very difficult, but Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen are impeccable.

I say all that so you can really appreciate what’s happening here, particularly on Booker T inspired tracks like “Mo Hippa,” the finale. Everybody on stage here plays incredible, and if it weren’t for Jon Cleary’s immense voice, they would completely overpower him. (I couldn’t find a version of this track on Youtube, but it’s a can’t-miss track. Here’s a performance from 2008.)

Some tracks in jazz rely on a more traditional blues-like structure, creating an atmosphere of melancholy. “Port Street Blues” are a perfect example of the mopey New Orleans vibe i’m talking about: it takes expert musicians to be able to play through a track like this, shimmying between different time signatures and tempos with ease. It’s also a fantastic track.

For most people, though, I suspect that Jon Cleary’s going to be at his best when the band is at their most energetic. For those people, “Cheatin’ On You” might be one of the standouts on the record. This is one heck of a track. “People Say” is also going to be a standout, particularly after the drums get involved.

If there’s anything I can say about Mo Hippa (Live) that I haven’t said yet, it’s simply this: I think the album is one of the clearest representations of New Orleans jazz that we as a music community are blessed to have. For fans of New Orleans jazz, it’s a must-listen. For people wondering why some of us love the genre so much, this is an approachable and fun way to find out.

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I feel the album truly kicks off with Speaking Gently (although And That, Too is a good warmup). There’s a clear chorus, beautiful solos throughout, and a sense of forward motion that forces you to sit up and take notice. Even when the album is playing in the background, you know when Speaking Gently is on. It’s pure jazz.

BADBADNOTGOOD isn’t some sort of jazz throwback, though. These guys are carving their own path, and they’re doing it with really great guest moments. Sam Herring’s guest performance on Time Moves Slow elevates the track, but Kaytranada’s spot on Lavender feels like a game-changer. His electronic movements support the band at all time, and fit in well with their jazzy modus operandi without overwhelming them — but his parts also add a certain amount of texture that’s absolutely blissful.

These guest spots, even though they’re not strictly jazzy, feel like they imbibe the genre’s playful experimentation and delight in surprise.

Even Hyssop of Love, which features rapper Mick Jenkins spitting vocal lines on the track, feels like jazzy moment. So much hip hop comes from jazz, and it’s neat to see them play well together. As the single hip hop track on the record, it feels out of place and it slows the momentum, but it’s also this oddly refreshing moment that occasionally recalls the best in jazz rap — like A Tribe Called Quest, Kendrick, and De La Soul.

IV, the title track, feels the most traditional on the record. For a moment, I thought I was listening to a cover of a Bitch’s Brew track. It’s all over the place and wild, and it feels as authentic as jazz can be.

For BADBADNOTGOOD, this record feels like a statement solidifying their place as some of the best — and trendiest — jazz players alive right now. IV is a monument to the genre, and one that fans and non-fans alike will love.

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The lead singer, Miles Arntzen, put on a heckuva show. He was practically manic: he played an upright, standing drum kit centre stage, pounding it with a palpable degree of ferocity. The bassist head banged through every track, but in the sort of dancey way that you might laugh at if you saw a friend do it.

The sax and trumpet player can’t stop dancing, wiggling on stage like they’re at an EDM show. The percussionist in the back has all the excitement of a DJ who’s really into the tunes. This show was messy, and the band wasn’t as tight as they maybe could have been, but it didn’t matter. It was an explosion of energy — one of the best lives shows I’ve ever seen.

That energy isn’t necessarily captured on their debut self-titled record, but the incredible music is. Emefe is straight out of New York, so their Vampire Weekend-inspired Afrobeat sound is almost familiar, but the way they layer in jazz and funk makes it feel like a whole different gig.

Same Thing is one of the moments on record where it feels like they manage to capture as much of their energy as a recording can handle, and their jazzy style is on full display. The keyboardist is oozing psychedelics, and the trumpet and sax are out in full force. Not to mention that the music is delightfully weird, and oddly danceable.

The One isn’t dissimilar: the guitar lays down a nice, groovey riff, the vocal line makes for a nice sing along, by and the time the song is over, the whole band is jamming over a gnarly riff that’s simply divine.

I also love Sun Spat, which might be my favourite track on the record. I love the way that the instruments interact with the off-beats of the drums. It’s cool stuff, even if it “feels” musically wrong. It’s an incredible track, played with power, delivered with gravitas.

The following track, Summer, feels nearly traditional by comparison. But it’s clear, at this point in the record, that Emefe is all about defying convention. I love the way the song slowly builds up, in a manner that feels reminiscent of some of the great funk of yesteryear. Plus, that guitar riff (and the surrounding instrumentation) about a minute and a half into the song is plain old delightful.

Every member of this eight-piece band feels important, and necessary. Even if the music isn’t your cup of tea, if it’s too avant-garde for you, they’re a band you need to see live the next time they’re in town. They’ll make a fan out of you yet with their incredible live show — among the most energetic and exciting I’ve ever seen.

I can’t recommend Emefe highly enough, and I cannot wait to see where they go next.

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Robert Glasper’s reworking of some of these classic songs makes much of Miles Davis’s songs almost completely unrecognizable. Usually, that would demean the original artist’s intent, but in this case, it’s easy to let it slide. After all, Glasper (known for his work with Kendrick Lamar) isn’t trying to make another jazz record, but more trying to bring jazz music into mainstream light.

And in that end, Everything’s Beautiful is a monstrous success. Tracks like Ghetto Walkin’ and Violets feel like extremely modern takes on the jazz legend, allowing rappers to come in and break beats the way they’d break bread. It’s some of the best hip hop you’ll hear this year; at once familiar, but also meditative and willing to wander.

Tracks like I’m Leaving You and Right on Brotha (which features Stevie Wonder) are more likely to remind you of some of Miles Davis’s work, but they add a good deal of soul to the song. Occasionally, some of Davis’s trademark trumpet sneaks through, but the songs really use his music as a backbone more than they do recreate it.

That Davis’s music is so fundamental to modern jazz as to be the foundation for a record like this is astounding. The album is paying homage, yes, but it’s doing it by suggesting that without Davis jazz, hip hop, soul, and so much more wouldn’t exist. Robert Glasper is insidiously burying Davis’s work within this record to suggest its foundational requirements. I love that. To me, this is the purest way to honour the legend. It’s graceful, bold, and courageous.

Like everything Robert Glasper touches (and like everything Miles Davis ever touched), Everything’s Beautiful feels like it’s heralding a new era of jazz without leaving behind the groundwork. I wouldn’t describe Everything’s Beautiful as essential listening, but I don’t hesitate for a second in saying it should be celebrated by music lovers from all walks of life. Everything’s Beautiful is a triumph.

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