This week’s roundup moves from intimate duo playing to albums pushing jazz firmly into neighbouring territory. Alex Hamburger and José Luiz Martins bring Brazilian influences and spacious interplay to Catalog of Dreams, reimagining Gilberto Gil and Wayne Shorter. Oan Kim & the Dirty Jazz combine cinematic atmosphere and indie-rock tension on Infinity Shakes, Peter Gall sets raw drums against analogue synthesisers and immersive electronics on Drum Seeds, and Glasgow’s corto.alto brings jazz, pop, classical and electronic influences together on the ambitious SOME SMALL FORTUNE. Mali Sheard unveils her debut album Hayfever, which you can read all about in our interview with her in the news section, and Emil de Waal’s Old News begins a new chapter with Novelties, balancing original compositions and collective improvisation while honouring the late Elith ‘Nulle’ Nykjær. Two vinyl reissues then revisit the adventurous jazz of the 1960s. Juan Carlos Calderón’s Bloque 6 captures the Spanish pianist and composer near the start of his career, while Sam Rivers’ Dimensions & Extensions finds Donald Byrd stepping beyond his usual hard-bop setting as Rivers’ final Blue Note album of the decade returns in the label’s Tone Poet series.
Catalog of Dreams
Alex Hamburger & José Luiz Martins
Flutist Alex Hamburger and pianist José Luiz Martins draw on six years of musical and personal partnership for their debut duo album. Recorded in 2025, Catalog of Dreams combines flute, voice, piano and electronic keyboards in intimate, spacious arrangements. Brazilian influences run throughout, with compositions by Gilberto Gil, Airto Moreira and Luisa Lacerda joining pieces by Herb Ellis, Wayne Shorter and Thundercat, alongside two Hamburger originals exploring loss, injustice and the human experience with sensitivity.
Available format: CD
Infinity Shakes
Oan Kim & The Dirty Jazz
Oan Kim & the Dirty Jazz return with Infinity Shakes, a bold, cinematic third album that sharpens their distinctive ‘dirty jazz’ sound. Recorded at La Frette and produced by Mathis Pascaud, its eleven tracks bring indie-rock textures into collision with jazz, pairing Chet Baker’s fragility with Radiohead’s atmospheric intensity. Guest appearances from Melody Gardot and Arthur Teboul add to an album that moves between intimacy and energy, its dreamlike songs poised between reality and fantasy.
Available format: CD
Hayfever
Mali Sheard
London-based saxophonist and composer Mali Sheard’s debut album, Hayfever, explores identity, family and the natural world through music inspired by Hertfordshire and the Yorkshire Dales. Her quintet features Keira Chakraborty, Kyle Osborne, George Balmont and Luke McCarthy, with guests Rob Luft and Huw Warren. Individual pieces evoke Sheard’s Kenyan-Indian heritage, childhood birdsong, summer thunderstorms, betrayal and her Yorkshire grandmother, creating a personal, richly varied reflection on the people, places and experiences that have shaped her. Read our interview with Mali in the latest stories section!
Available format: CD
Drum Seeds
Peter Gall
Following Love Avatar, winner of the 2025 German Jazz Award for Album of the Year, drummer and producer Peter Gall takes a new direction with Drum Seeds. Produced entirely alone, the album sets wild, raw and trance-like beats against vintage analogue synthesisers, immersive sound collages and melodic writing. Drawing on jazz, ambient electronica and dance music, it recalls Aphex Twin, Caribou and Boards of Canada while retaining Gall’s deep harmonies, spiritual atmosphere and compelling grooves.
Available format: CD
Some Small Fortune
corto.alto
Now signed to Ninja Tune, Glasgow-based multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer Liam Shortall returns as corto.alto with SOME SMALL FORTUNE. Following the Mercury Prize-nominated Bad with Names, the album expands his restless, jazz-rooted sound through electronic, classical, pop and indie influences. Guests including Mick Jenkins, anaiis, Oscar Jerome, Jacob Alon and BINA. join Shortall’s regular collaborators Graham Costello, Fergus McCreadie and Mateusz Sobieski, creating his most ambitious and unpredictable record to date through vibrant ensemble interplay.
Available format: CD
Novelties
Emil de Waal Old News
Following the death of clarinettist Elith ‘Nulle’ Nykjær in 2023, Emil de Waal’s Old News returns with a fourth album that balances tribute with renewal. Longstanding collaborators Jacob Anderskov and Gustaf Ljunggren are joined by clarinettist Henriette Groth, while vocalist Randi Laubek makes a guest appearance. Unlike the group’s earlier releases, Novelties consists entirely of original compositions, with two pieces from each member moving freely between tradition, improvisation and the ensemble’s distinctive new musical identity.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 44.1 kHz, 24 bit)
Bloque 6
Juan Carlos Calderón
Recorded in 1968, Bloque 6 captures pianist Juan Carlos Calderón at the beginning of his jazz career, before the funk, disco and flamenco influences of his later work. Joined by Pedro Iturralde, Vlady Bas and Pepe Nieto, Calderón mixes originals such as ‘Sambando’ with pieces by Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Oliver Nelson. Named Best International Jazz Album in the US in 1969 and reissued on CD by Blue Note, it receives its first vinyl reissue.
Available format: Vinyl Record
Dimensions & Extensions (Tone Poet)
Sam Rivers
Donald Byrd steps well outside his usual hard-bop territory on Dimensions & Extensions, joining saxophonist Sam Rivers for a searching programme of original compositions. Trombonist Julian Priester, alto saxophonist and flautist James Spaulding, bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Steve Ellington complete the adventurous sextet. Rivers’ final Blue Note album of the 1960s is produced for Tone Poet by Joe Harley, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original tapes and pressed at RTI on 180g vinyl.
Available format: Vinyl Record
