You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Best New Jazz In February 2026

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

We're looking at the best jazz releases of February 2026! Listen with pianist Adam Maness as he breaks down and reacts to these great tracks.Start your free Open Studio trial for ALLLLL your jazz lesson needs: https://osjazz.link/yhi00:00 - Intro00:26 - In On It - Pat Metheny02:20 - Circlesz - GENA04:13 - Will You Walk A Little Faster - Holland, Stone, London Vocal Project06:31 - La Sentencia - Melissa Aldana08:55 - La Fiesta - Geoffrey Keezer & Tim Garland10:58 - Oo Long! - The Tomeka Reid Quartet13:18 - The Edge - Noah Stoneman15:40 - Shivaranjani - Ragini Trio

Hey everybody, welcome to another edition of Freshman Friday. My name's Adam Manna's. We've got some great tracks lined up for you. All of this is new music that was released here in February 2026. And let's start with a legend. The legendary guitarist Pat Mathini with his new album from his trio project, Side Eye. This is Side Eye 3 Plus. It's a sound that we know, we love. I feel like Pat Mathini has been the soundtrack for my entire life, just an incredible musician, always mixing it up, always something fresh. And this is with his trio with some younger musicians. It's Joe Dyson on the drums and Chris Fishman on the Keys. And this album has a ton of guest spots from people like Daryl Johns,

Brandy Younger, Louise Conti, and a vocal ensemble led by Mark Kimball of Take Six, among others. It's pretty awesome. So this is from Unequity Music, which is Pat's new label, and it's the first release of that new label. It's released today, February 27, 2026, and it's fantastic. Again, another installment from the Side Eye Trio, and that's Side Eye 3 Plus. Who knows what the plus stands for?

I assume it means it's even more extra special. Next up, let's listen to a new project from drummer and producer Kareem Riggins and vocalist and producer Live. This is from a new duo ensemble that they're calling Gina and a new album called The Pleasure is yours. Gina, by the way, stands for God Energy, naturally amazing. And this album is naturally amazing. Here's the track Circles.

What about this album? It's like it's of this world and it's not of this world. It's on earth and it's in outer space. It's kind of this amalgamation of all of these beautiful, almost spiritual sounds. I really, really love the vibe on that. That's Gina. And again, the new album is The Pleasure is yours. That's on the Lex Records label.

Next up, we got an album from Legendary Bassist Dave Holland. And vocalist Norma Winstone plus the London Vocal Project. This is a bunch of compositions by the late great Kenny Wheeler. And it's brought to life by arranger Pete Churchill. So there's this jazz ensemble, there's this choir, and then there's Norma who's singing. And Norma actually wrote lyrics to Kenny Wheeler's compositions. Here is a funny sounding tune called Will You Walk a Little Faster?

This features Mark Lockhart and Nikki Isles on the piano. The London jazz scene is in the house with this. We've got another one for the London jazz scene coming up. Just beautiful with that lush choral arrangement. Beautiful playing there too by Mark Lockhart and the saxophone. And of course, the master, Dave Holland laying it down for us. Also in the house is the country of Chile, represented by modern tenor titan, Melissa Aldana.

Melissa's got a new album out called Feelein. This is on the Blue Note record label. It is gorgeous, and it's a collection of ballads. It's romantic. There's a lot of, like, Bolero kind of vibes on it, and the band is actually unbelievable how good this band is. It's Peter Washington on the bass, already unbelievable. Gonzalo Rubalcaba on the piano, The Goat,

and then Cush Abidey on the drums. Just fantastic, fantastic band. there's some features with Cecil McClein-Slaw and Salvant on this album, too. This is La Sentencia from Feeling of Intimacy. It's so, so gorgeous. Go out and listen to Phelan right away. Next up is a new release from an old friend of ours, Jeffrey Kieser. We actually featured Jeffrey Kieser on a duo album in our year-end review a couple months ago.

That was a duo with vocalist Gillian Margot. He's got another duo album that, released this month. And that's with saxophone as Tim Garland. And this is an interesting one because Tim Garland is not playing a tenor saxophone. He's not playing an alto saxophone or a soprano saxophone or even a baritone saxophone. He's playing a mezzo soprano saxophone. So in between the alto and the soprano is the mezzo soprano. I've never actually seen one played live. I would love to see this duo in person. The album is called metzo. It's on the ECN. record label, and this is Jeffrey Kieser and Tim Garland playing Chick-Pheria's La Fiesta.

Just two masters go into work, Jeffrey Kieser and Tim Garland. Again, the album is METSO, and that is a METO soprano saxophone. Pretty cool. Okay, this next one is super exciting. This is from composer and cellist Tamika Reid. It is an incredibly beautiful and groovy collection of songs featuring Mary Halverson on guitar and a rhythm section of Thomas Fujiwark. and Jason Roakie. The album is called Dance Skip Hop. It's from Out of Your Head Records,

and we're going to listen to Ulong. So cool. So much plucking going on between the bass, the cello, pizocado, and Mary Halverson's guitar. And I love the cello in this context, and I love Temeca Reed's compositions, and the entire sound of the album feels like you're just sitting in the room with these four musicians. Just so cool. Again, it's called dance, skip, hop. Go check it out. Tamika Reed Portette. Next up is a new album from a now London-based pianist named Noah Stoneman. It's called Dance at Zero. Noah recorded this right after he moved back to London from New York City. And this also features James Madron, who is playing on the Dave Holland album that we checked out earlier. And it's got Freddie Jensen on the bass. This is beautiful. This is

called The Edge. Well, you can hear so many cool influences in there. That's Noah Stoneman with Dance at Zero. The track was The Edge. Just gorgeous trio playing. Last but not at least, it's a new album from the Rogany Trio. This features Nathan Dames on the saxophone, Lander and Gizelnick on the drums, and Marco Barda Skiya on the bass. The album's called Three, and this track is called Shiboranjani. With Shiva Ranjani, and that's their album, Thank you so much for listening to this great music. We're going to link to all the recordings of this so you can check it out for yourself.

And if I missed anything that was released here in February, that's your favorite new release, please don't hesitate to put it in the comments. We want to know. And if you have anything that you're excited about coming up, please leave that in the comments as well so we can put it on the show. My name is Adam Manas.

Thank you again for joining us for another Fresh Spend Friday. We'll be back next month with the best new music in March. Until then, you'll hear it. Thank you.