PopMatters

The astonishing career of composer, saxophonist, and flautist Henry Threadgill seems as strong and distinctive as ever in 2026. Just weeks ago, he released his first recording on Nonesuch Records with co-leaders Vijay Iyer and Dafnis Prieto (both MacArthur Fellows), and now his longstanding band Zooid has put out Cut You Where You Was on the independent label Pi Recordings, which was created in significant part to keep Threadgill‘s music in our ears.

A Night in New Orleans MoMojo Records Crescent City jump blues pianist Mitch Woods does it all by himself on his latest release, A Night in New Orleans, recorded live at the Snug Harbor club during the 2026 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. He sings, tells stories, and, most importantly, plays boogie-woogie piano to entertain the crowd. You can hear their enthusiastic response as he hits the keys, but they never throw him off his stride. Indeed, the opposite is true.

“Can’t help but wonder if I was well, would you still be here,” sings Joshua Bassett on the title track to his second studio album, Easier. While the streaming-age pop singer has always profited from the ability to release new music sometimes with only a week’s notice to the public, Bassett surprised his fanbase when he announced earlier this month that the new singles he had started to drop made up the track listing for a new LP, a follow-up to 2024’s The Golden Years.

Maybe you’ve read James Joyce’s story collection, Dubliners (1914). Maybe you’ve read his first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). Maybe you’ve dipped into neither of those classics but have wondered about his second novel, Ulysses (1922).

Who Loves the Sun The Flenser Oklahoma’s Chat Pile have made a name for themselves quickly over the past six years. Their debut, God’s Country, took hardcore and noise by storm, offering a pitch-black view of our lives and mixing everyday horrors with tracks inspired by their film-geek obsessions.

Colson Whitehead’s relationship with the crime fiction genre is complicated. Like Jonathan Lethem, another New York-centric writer who came out of less salubrious districts of literature before being accepted into the pantheon, Whitehead has long been one of America’s top-ranked practitioners of critically approved fiction (awards, good speaking gigs, New Yorker appearances). This is what makes his just-concluded “Harlem Trilogy” such a treat and surprise.

Take Leave Ruination Record Co. Since 2012, Sam Sodomsky has quietly released lyrically elegant, musically sophisticated albums under the moniker The Bird Calls. His Bandcamp page has nearly three dozen releases, including singles, EPs, and full-length albums. If his latest record, Take Leave, is any indication, he’s not slowing down and is making his best music yet.

Tess Clare has been putting out records since 2018. Two EPs, a run of singles, a couple of million streams, playlist support from Spotify and Apple, a festival slot in Atlanta on a bill with Billie Eilish and the 1975, by ordinary measures that looks like progress. What it did not look like, to her, was permission. She had convinced herself that a debut album required a threshold she had not crossed, a bigger following, a label, a tour behind her, and that making one before then would be a waste.

The wah-wah pedal. It’s the foot-stomping device guitarists used to add the signature spice, a taste of toe-tapping funk or cosmic psychedelic noodling, to a host of classics beginning in the 1960s. Isaac Hayes’ “Shaft”, Jimi Hendrix‘s “Voodoo Child”, Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain”, Cream’s “White Room”, Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4”, the Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”, Madrill’s “Fence Walk”, Rage Against the Machine‘s “Bulls on Parade”, and a dozen Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ offerings.

This trio of alto saxophonist and flautist Henry Threadgill, pianist Vijay Iyer, and drummer Dafnis Prieto has been an occasional working band for 15 years. However, they make their debut with this crisp and still adventurous album. Each member is a distinctive composer and listener, making Fifteen a recording of sympathy and design.