Take Five

Take Five goes international this week, with artists from South Africa, Germany, Cuba, Spain, Israel and the UK.

Also: new music by Nicholas Payton, Michael Dease, Nels Cline with Yuka Honda, and Big Band of Brothers.

Along with two other recommended albums — a total of six. (We’re feeling generous.)

New music that falls just outside the jazz sphere, in one way or another.

And a smooth new groove from David Benoit and Friends.

Along with the latest from the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Buika, and Bushman’s Revenge.

Along with gripping new music by the avant-garde super trio Alcorn / McPhee / Vandermark, pianist Victor Gould, and the late alto saxophonist Art Pepper.

Also: new music by Al Foster, Jeremy Udden, Aaron Novik and Keiko Matsui.

Plus: new music by Nature Work, ¿Que Vola? and Melissa Gardiner.

(And by "other gifts," we mean an irresistible groove from Avishai Cohen; a mysterious swirl by Ben LaMar Gay and JayVe Montgomery; and a choice morsel of Andy Summers playing Thelonious Monk.)

Plus: Wynton Marsalis airs symphonic ambitions and Andrew Cyrille receives his due.

Along with the latest by Kneebody and Sarathy Korwar.

Along with Wadada Leo Smith’s salute to Rosa Parks, Wynton Marsalis’ soundtrack to Bolden, and Tom McDermott’s take on a Joplin rag.

Stretch your horizons this week in Take Five.

The National Endowment for the Arts inducts its 2019 Jazz Masters on April 15.

In advance of the main event — a tribute concert at the Kennedy Center, which we’ll livestream here at WBGO — we’re celebrating the new class of honorees in Take Five.