Well-produced recent jazz cd's - recommendations?


Hey all,

Apologies if this is a redundant question/thread; lemme know if it is. Anyhow, My system consists of Reference 3a de Capo i's powered by a YBA 201 integrated, fed by a Rotel 1072 cd player all connected by Clear Day cables and IC's. I use it for mostly well-produced modern folk and jazz - think Iron and Wine, the Bad Plus, Hank Dogs, Greg Brown, Jim Hall, Diana Krall, Innocence Mission, Marc Johnson/Eliane Elias, etc.

I'm looking for recommendations for similar, well-produced artists and cd's. No smooth jazz (though the Yellowjackets are wonderful!); group vocal, or cheese; but just good, musically -layered instrumental jazz made in the last 20 years.

Any ideas? And thank you.
128x128simao

Showing 2 responses by gz3827

Any Patricia Barber CD ... For my money, she's the reigning gold standard in both jazz creativity and production values, in a class of one. But (there's always a but)... her recent release "Smash" is not the best example of her work IMHO. I like most of it, but it's my least favorite Barber CD and I've listened to all of them many, many times. For anyone new to Barber, I'd recommend starting with Modern Cool, Cafe Blue, or A Distortion of Love.
I recently picked up a CD by Anat Cohen, who is mentioned above by Tomcy6. I bought her 2012 release "Claroscuro", which is my first exposure to her. The Claroscuro CD is fantastic. It has an unusually appealing selection of tunes, all wonderfully performed, and with very respectable sound quality. I've always liked clarinet, and for some strange reason it's not all that common in jazz. No doubt I'll be buying more Anat Cohen!