It seems fitting that the propulsive playing of drummer Anton Eger is the first sound you hear on this latest studio recording by the Scandinavian/British jazz trio, Phronesis. While there’s plenty of warm-hearted lyricism and vibrant harmonic writing on the group’s sixth CD (their fourth for Edition Records), what’s really striking about Parallax is the absolute primacy of rhythm.

The youthful old master of European jazz raps on the Doors of Perception for his latest album, Beauty & Truth, with his piano trio of drummer Eric Schafer and bassist Chris Jennings. Their subject for analysis is The Doors’ “The End” and “Riders on the Storm”, delivering distilled and deconstructed versions of the band’s music and the singer’s intent – both dark, apocalyptic Sixties tone poems of dread and release, and both led by Shafer’s superb drumming, with Jennings’s supple double bass tacking between that and Kühn’s finely fractured piano lines.

Masterly improvising, outstanding compositions, a complete understanding between the musicians. On every count this was an exceptional set, as emotionally engaging as it was lovingly delivered.

“If we want to keep this free and democratic Europe of ours free and democratic, we must enlist ourselves, our skills and our commitment to liberty and justice. The problems we face are too great to simply say let the politicians do it.

Gregory Porter’s singing pedigree is impeccable. With a performing history in the American Church of God in Christ, where his mother was a minister, honed by several years before his breakthrough living in hipster-jazz heaven Brooklyn, and performing Off-Broadway, he’s in many ways the ultimate heritage act. He allies the gorgeous brassy timbres of 1970s R&B with a humane, secular spirituality that wears its heart on its sleeve, and recalls an era when jazz campaigned (more openly than it usually does now, at least) for social justice.

Is greatness there from day one, does it evolve or suddenly strike? Do artists – in any discipline – develop in steps or arrive fully-formed? How does the quotidian become exceptional? With the new triple-CD set Highlife-Jazz and Afro-Soul (1963-1969), the man who would be dubbed the Black President has what amounts to 39 musical baby pictures made easily available for the first time. As to how this release answers any of these questions, it is a question of degree.

Free improvisation has been part of the jazz scene since the 1960s, and you would have to look long and hard to find anyone who would be shocked by it these days. So it takes a special kind of imagination to make improvised music sound as fresh as this debut from the young band led by Welsh double bassist and composer Huw V Williams. It’s not, to be fair, completely improvised – Williams can even write tunes – but there’s a rare vivacity about the composition and orchestration.

According to the May 1979 issue of the New York art-paper East Village Eye, James White “is treated [everywhere] with awe and the special consideration lacking in most people's lives.” The adoration was boundless. White is “the star, the proof of the divinity that can be had by those who strive for a life beyond the schemes of men, James White is not an animal creature, James White is one of the breed called God in older times.”

Swedish drummer Magnus Öström is best known as part of the Esbjörn Svensson Trio, which became a successful jazz-rock crossover act until Svensson’s tragically early death in a diving accident in 2008. Since then Öström has pursued a solo career (with supporting band), and this, his third album, shows him exploring similar generic territory to e.s.t. Yet the mood is very different: e.s.t. had a knack of creating slow-burning, melodic hits that lingered in the memory like a favourite aroma. They were subtle and complex, but accessible to many outside the usual jazz crowd.

“I can’t believe it. Free jazz in Old Street tube, how cool is that?” It’s a relief to hear this kind of thing from passersby, because Empirical’s attempt to bring jazz to the people, to reach new audiences and develop their music through an experimental, week-long residency in a London tube station, could so easily have gone wrong.