Back in stock: Jazz

Review: Shabaka Hutchings' new label Native Rebel Recordings welcomes understated innovator and educator Chelsea Carmichael for a superb debut album. The River Doesn't Like Strangers is a fresh serving of innovative jazz that finally makes its way to vinyl and features plenty of her hypnotic and warm playing, smart improvisation and subtle sound work. Cultural powerhouse Shabaka Hutchings himself wrote a set of songs for the record which were then perfumed with Chelsea playing alongside Eddie Hick from Sons of Kemet, Dave Okumu from The Invisible and Tom Herbert from The Invisible and Polar Bear.

Review: The heady collaborative cocktail of Marc Collin and the late Olivier Libaux, who came together in 2003, led to the quiet storm that its Nouvelle Vague, a project with its heart set on a winner from the start: the fusion of post-punk songwriting with the form and instrumentation of bossa nova. Intended as a one-off, the success of the project came as a surprise, but the duo were hardly willing to let a good thing slide for the sake of dourer endeavours. As part of a retrospective, comprehensive reissues series on top of a new album, this repress of the first album takes us back to where it all began.

Review: Gregory Porter's beautifully buttery baritone has won him plenty of acclaim, fans, and Grammy nominations. How up to his sixth album, the jazz and soul singer is back to uplift you with his heart-felt, joyful celebrations. Of course, the whole affair is perfectly smooth and seductive, but also mighty powerful. Tracks like "Faith in Love" are string laced and upbeat songs to get a wedding crowd in a spin, "Long List Of Troubles" is a dramatic, dynamic jazz anthem and "Modern Day Apprentice" is a trend, stripped back song from, and to, the heart. This is another record that spans the ages in some style.

Review: Shut has been busy with a great series of reissues of Sun Ra's historic recordings in Egypt. All good things must come to an end, though, and so it does with The Sun Ra Arkestra meets Salah Ragab in Egypt which was recorded with help from the Cairo Jazz Band and first put out back in 1983 on Greek label Praxis. The Arkestra first met Salah Ragab at the home of Goethe Institut ex-pat Hartmut Geerken when they toured the island in December 1971 and later bonded again in 1983. It was then that they got together for these recordings where they played Ragab compositions, 'Egypt Strut' and 'Dawn' amongst others.

Review: The music that makes up Harmony of Difference, Kamasi Washington's first EP of note since the release of acclaimed 2015 album The Epic, was premiered live as a "six-track movement" earlier this year. The "suite" - here stretched across both sides of an essential 12" - sees Washington continue to explore the idea of what it means to be black in America in the 21st century. Musically, the EP contains some of his smoothest and most laidback compositions yet, with all his musical collaborators being on fine form. The headline attraction is undoubtedly 14-minute flipside "The Truth", an almost operatic jazz epic full of swelling choral contributions, fizzing drum solos, rising horns and, of course, plenty of Washington's distinctive saxophone.