[COULEURS JAZZ MONTH – THE BEST OF!]
On COULEURS JAZZ RADIO – www.couleursjazzradio.fr:
Paris-time: Monday 04:00pm, Wednesday 05:00pm, Thursday 06:00pm.
NYC time :at 08:00PM Tuesday and 10:00 PM Wednesday
12 Best albums releases of last month: January 2026, so:
Chantez sous l’appli !
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With :
- Baptiste Herbin & Minino Garay for “Los Arregladores“
- Alba Careta Group for “Panical”
- Georgelet – Zelnik – Chesnel Trio Feat. Lhiver for “Live For Gil”
- Marco Mezquida for “Táctil”
- Hugo Lippi Feat. Gaël Rakotondrabe for “Olha Maria”
- Roberto Magris & Denis Razz Quartet for “In Action”
- QOW Trio for “The Rule of Three”
- Etienne Guéreau Trio for “Fling”
- Nabou for “ Indigo ”
- Martin Wind for “Stars”
- Fraser Smith Quartet for “Lifeline!”
- Gil Livni for “All In”
Hugo Lippi – Olha Maria
One year after the acclaimed solo record Réflexions in B (reviewed here), Hugo Lippi returns with close collaborators for an album of elegant refinement. Between graceful dialogues with Gaël Rakotondrabe, luminous contributions from Stéphane Belmondo, and inspired exchanges with young Hugo Guezbar, the guitarist unfolds a warm tone in service of a timeless, melodic, deeply felt jazz.
👉Please read Thierry Quénum’s full review here.
Released in 1964 on Verve, The Individualism of Gil Evans is hailed as a masterpiece of jazz — revisiting that repertoire today was therefore both play and challenge.
The Georgelet/Zelnik/Chesnel Trio*, joined by trombonist Thierry Lhiver, tackles it with intelligence and sensitivity, adapting Gil Evans’s arranging craft to the compact quartet format.
Inspired dialogue, wide expressive freedom and a solid rhythmic foundation yield a invigorating, thoroughly modern reinterpretation.
Read Alain Tomas’s full review here.
(*) Also see the review published on the release of “La Septième Reine.”
Baptiste Herbin, Minino Garay – Los Arregladores
Behind the name Los Arregladores lies a project of rare artistic coherence, in which Baptiste Herbin and Minino Garay probe arrangement as the driving force of musical discourse. Far from mere display, the quartet builds a flowing jazz rooted in Latin American traditions yet firmly situated in a contemporary listening context. Propelled by a supple, shifting rhythm section, the music advances through color, texture and breath, letting familiar melodies emerge in a new light.
The constant dialogue between composition and improvisation gives the whole a distinctive depth, turning each piece into a space for collective exploration. The result is an inhabited, elegant and deeply musical album that affirms an open, generous vision of jazz.
Roberto Magris – In Action
With In Action, Roberto Magris delivers an album that lives up to its name: music in motion, fuelled by collective energy and a taste for risk. Surrounded by a tight Croatian quartet — Denis Razz on saxophone, Karlo Ilić on double bass and Rajko Ergić on drums — the pianist traverses a wide jazz spectrum, from bop tradition to more open, atmospheric territories flavored by sounds and inflections from the rich Balkan culture.
The repertoire, blending originals and inspired reinterpretations, is notable for its wide-ranging freedom of expression and constant collective listening. Magris asserts a personal, elegant and adventurous vision, guided by a strong sense of musical storytelling and an artful dialogue that gives the whole remarkable coherence.
A generous, ambitious record reflecting a musician deeply rooted in tradition yet always looking forward.
QOW Trio more than ever asserts on their last album, The Rule of Three, a collective identity forged through dialogue between generations, traditions and risk-taking.
Heir to the legendary piano-less trio format yet freed from its constraints, the group explores music in constant tension between swing, melody and free improvisation. Driven by Spike Wells’s ever-inventive pulse, the trio unfolds a flexible, narrative writing in which Riley Stone-Lonergan’s compositions become the playground for dense, organic interaction.
Balancing explicit references with unpredictable detours, the album moves forward with coherence and boldness, affirming a lively, sincere and forward-looking vision of jazz.
Nabou Claerhout – Indigo
In her striking album Indigo, trombonist Nabou Claerhout reaches a decisive new stage in her artistic journey.
Surrounded by a refreshed quartet, the Belgian composer and instrumentalist shapes a chiaroscuro music where the intimate and the collective advance hand in hand. The compositions unfold by gradual shifts, alternating suspended atmospheres, subtle grooves and rougher moments of tension. Guided by a trombone playing at once fragile and assured, often enriched with delicate sonic textures, the music treats transformation as a constant state.
Nothing is fixed: forms move, emotions circulate, revealing a sensitive, deeply embodied writing. Indigo thus stands as a mature, open, personal album firmly turned toward the future.
Take note of this name — already featured on Gaby Sachez’s Ladies First program on Couleurs Jazz Radio.
Martin Wind – Stars
With Stars, Martin Wind brings together an exceptional quartet (indeed, all stars!) around a simple idea: let the music speak, without emphasis or gilded nostalgia.
Sustained by remarkable collective listening, the album moves with natural elegance, balancing original compositions and freshly reimagined standards.
With figures like Kenny Barron at the piano, the record shines brilliantly. Anat Cohen and Matt Wilson add time, nuance, flexibility and lyrical breathing to the discourse.
Far from any show of virtuosity, Stars charms with its balance, warmth and that rare sense of inevitability, where every note feels perfectly earned.
A luminous record, rooted in tradition yet unmistakably contemporary and alive.
Fraser Smith Quartet– Lifeline
On his latest album Lifeline, tenor saxophonist Fraser Smith asserts a voice firmly rooted in the great tradition while rejecting any nostalgic stance. His playing—full-bodied and visceral—draws from the masters without dissolving into them, moving with controlled intensity and a keen sense of narrative.
Surrounded by a tight quartet, he develops a discourse where swing, lyricism and harmonic tension balance naturally.
The arrangements give the music room to breathe, allowing each phrase to settle, transform and leave its mark.
Lifeline thus emerges as a characterful record, driven by a confident tone and a mature vision of contemporary jazz.
Gil Livni – All In
On his latest album All In, the excellent guitarist Gil Livni situates himself in the great organ-quartet tradition while injecting a decidedly contemporary energy.
Propelled by a solid groove and constant interaction, the music moves between straight-ahead swing, gritty blues and searing hard bop without losing finesse. Livni’s guitar—both lyrical and incisive—takes the lead naturally, closely dialoguing with Amit Friedman’s saxophone and Yonatan Riklis’ organ, supported by Yonatan Rosen’s supple, committed drumming.
Original compositions and bold reinterpretations follow with clear coherence, giving the whole a strong, generous and vividly alive identity. An album that faces tradition squarely while moving forward without hesitation.
Another pleasant surprise: Fling!
Étienne Guéreau delivers a singular record here — a breath of fresh air in uncertain times, when the “anything goes” spawned in part by AI often prevails.
Surrounded by a solid rhythm section — Marc Buronfosse on double bass and Gautier Garrigue on drums — the pianist crafts music of subtle harmonies where melody remains central, never sacrificed to formal games or pointless virtuosity.
Through stylistic sidesteps, deliberate nods and finely honed writing, the trio moves with natural elegance, driven by a keen sense of interplay. Fling plays like a sensitive, free and deeply felt getaway — an enchanting parenthesis in the truest sense.
One might, however, be surprised that a man of such impeccable taste chooses to cover our national Johnny’s “Que je t’aime,” a track some may prefer to skip… “I am sure of my disgusts,” Jules Renard — Journal.
Note: Couleurs Jazz strongly recommends Etienne Guéreau’s blog, Piano Jazz Concept — a must-read for students of music, jazz enthusiasts and anyone who claims to tell us what to listen to (that includes us); and, ideally, the France Inter playlist curator, national broadcasters’ programmers, organizers and fans of atrocities and inanities like Eurovision… The list goes on.
Alba Careta Group – Panical
Catalan trumpeter Alba Careta pursues a long-term project where memory, land and identity become musical material. In her superb Panical project, she draws on her cultural heritage without ever yielding to folklore, shaping a contemporary, lucid and intensely collective writing with her band.
Her colorful jazz moves with contained energy, driven by direct melodies and a remarkably coherent ensemble sound. Inspired by free, resistant female figures, the album unfolds a quiet strength—sometimes rough, always sincere.
Blending originals and reinvented readings, Panical offers a very personal vision of today’s jazz: rooted, open and vibrantly alive, a project that finds its full intensity on stage.
Oh! Just a detail: the great Shai Maestro is the producer er of this album…
Marco Mezquida Trio – Táctil
After ten years of intense collaboration, Spanish pianist-composer Marco Mezquida unveils Táctil, the fourth chapter in a near‑fraternal partnership following Ravel’s Dreams and Talismán (2020), then Letter to Milos (2022), all featured on Couleurs Jazz Radio. On this new release Mezquida calls on long‑time collaborators Aleix Tobías (drums and percussion) and Martín Meléndez (cello) to reach a fresh, full sonic maturity where touch, sensitivity and the weight of past collaborations are fully realized.
At a time when sound often feels immaterial and fleeting—note the some 30,000 monthly fake creations (so‑called A.I.) on Spotify—Mezquida reminds us that music is embodied: skin, vibration and contact, formed by physical gestures—keys struck, strings plucked or bowed, membranes brushed. After a decade together the trio has become a singular musical entity, its shared experience forging a unified, accomplished voice. It shows.
Táctil is a declaration of love—for life, for skin, for the beautiful, for sound and for humanity. Born equally of radiant joy and profound sorrow, the album mirrors Mezquida’s intensity: “I have never loved so much. I have never cried so much inside. I have never lived so intensely,” he writes.
This record is a vibrant testament to brotherhood, light and shared feeling. We’re pleased you can hear it, along with the 12 other Best of the Month tracks, on Couleurs Jazz Radio.
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