Detroit-born, Scandinavian-based jazz vocalist Ella Fitzpatrick has officially unveiled her latest album, "Big Band Reflections", delivering a lush, ambitious tribute to the golden era of jazz orchestras. Honing her craft by blending raw American soul with a sharp Nordic sophistication, Fitzpatrick uses this project to transform the colossal, moving parts of a swing ensemble into a functioning metaphor for human survival. The tempos inevitably...

A rubber band ball, meticulously constructed and then unceremoniously dropped, that's what Outside Pedestrian's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" feels like. Not the ball itself, mind you, but the brief, elastic snap of unexpected order being momentarily... let go. We know the Bach tune. It’s a holiday staple, often served up with a side of polite reverence. But here, Anthony Fesmire’s guitar, David Lockeretz’s...