Kevin Whitehead

Pilgrimage is the posthumously issued recording from tenor sax player Michael Brecker, who died earlier this year due to leukemia. The album features jazz greats Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny.

The new album 3 showcases Lafayette Gilchrist's maximalist jazz piano in a trio setting rather than with his seven-piece New Volcanoes band. Even in the more intimate arrangement, Gilchrist isn't afraid to make the box shout; this is jazz from artists influenced by everything from hip-hop to the D.C. area's distinctive go-go sound.

Saxophonist and clarinetist Ned Rothenberg has always been a musical cosmopolitan.

Early on, he studied jazz with George Coleman and shakuhachi flute in Japan. Later, Rothenberg put together his North African-influenced Double Band, and toured in duos with the Tuvan throat singer Saimkho Namtchylak, the shakuhachi virtuoso Katsuya Yokoyama and English saxophone improviser Evan Parker.

Rothenberg's new album, Inner Diaspora, sends him back to his roots.