The five best jazz albums to listen to over the summer holidays, including Ethan Iverson's Technically Acceptable

Ethan Iverson: Technically Acceptable (Blue Note) Former Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson’s second Blue Note album finds him in typically and mischievously inventive form, leading two bass-drum trios, one with Thomas Morgan and Kush Abadey, the other with Simón Willson and Vinnie Sperrazza. Surprises abound. Read the full review here

John Surman: Words Unspoken (ECM) Is there another jazz reed voice quite like John Surman’s? As the Oslo-based English saxophonist approaches 80, there’s no let-up in his expressive and distinctively toned soundings, here in the assured and empathetic company of guitarist Rob Luft, vibraphonist Rob Waring and drummer Thomas Strønen. Read the full review here

Kenny Garrett & Svoy: Whi Killed AI? (Mack Avenue) Post-bop soprano and alto saxophone ace Kenny Garrett strikes up a surprisingly effective partnership with producer, pianist and electronica whizz kid Mikhail Tarasov, aka Svoy. Opening synth wallowings may invoke momentarily the wan ghost of prog rock before a skittering groove digs in with a vengeance for Ascendance, Garret’s sax signalling that the only way is indeed up. Read the full review here

Ethan Iverson PIC: Jazz Services/Heritage Images/Getty Images

Tim Garland: Moment of Departure (Ubuntu Music) The title of this immensely rewarding double album by saxophonist Tim Garland is informed not only by the nature of casting off as an improviser, but by vivid sleeve artwork by migrant artist Esra Kizir Gokcen. It also sees Garland cast aside saxophone to conduct the London Studio Orchestra in his beautiful suite The Forever Seed. Read the full review here

Tim Kliphuis Trio: Pictures at an Exhibition (Lowland Records) Masters of seamless jazz-classical crossover, violinist Tim Kliphuis and his trio with guitarist Nigel Clark and double-bassist Roy Percy give Mussorgsky’s masterpiece Pictures at an Exhibition an often dazzling swing-jazz re-imagining, augmented at times by a string trio. Here, Mussorgsky’s recurring Promenade motif glides rather than promenades, over slickly shifting rhythms. They bring a wonderfully stealthy tension to Gnomus and, amid the stately melancholy of The Old Castle, the troubadour plays a Spanish-inflected guitar. Apart from the Hartmann canvases which inspired Mussorgsky’s original, Kliphuis evokes other artworks including Georgia O’Keefe’s Ritz Tower, portraying Twenties New York with the kind of brisk gypsy swing in which the trio is rooted, while Hokusai’s Great Wave gathers pace and roiling mass to a breathless climax.