Can an artist of one race pay homage to the art of another? On one side of the debate is disrespectful appropriation—on another, racial essentialism. On her new album of songs—many of them important to Black communities—from the 20th-century pantheon, American Quilt, Paula Cole walks the middle course with dignity and respect.

Among its mélange of Americana staples, like "Shenandoah" and "Wayfaring Stranger," American Quilt, which arrives May 21, does contain one original—"Hidden in Plain Sight (I Dream)," which premieres exclusively below via GRAMMY.com. That song illuminates the role of quilts as coded guides for fleeing slaves during the Underground Railroad. As a white woman, Cole is fully aware that she's not the representative for this subject. But unlike politicians, artists can swim between these boundaries at will.

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"I just felt that even though it's not necessarily my story to tell, being a white person, it's important that we remember," the GRAMMY winner and seven-time nominee most famous for 1996's smash hit "I Don't Want to Wait" tells GRAMMY.com. "I created the song to reflect that because there isn't very much out there, and a lot of people don't know about them. They're mind-bogglingly ingenious." That last description could just as easily apply to Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and John Coltrane—Black innovators that Cole highlights on American Quilt and enthusiastically praises through the course of the interview.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Cole over the phone from Massachusetts about her all-over-the-place cultural roots, what compelled her to make this patchwork of American tunes and why music can help bridge the gaps between races and cultures.

Paula Cole. Photo: Ebru Yildiz

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Nice to meet you, Paula. Where are you located?

At the moment, I'm in Rockport, Massachusetts. I'm visiting my parents quickly, so I'm conducting the interview from my childhood home, which is pretty interesting for me.

How does that feel?

It feels great. I love my parents so much. I had decided to move back to the North Shore of Massachusetts to raise my daughter nearer, so she could know them and the generations would be unified. That was more important to me than other things, like living in an industry city.

Is your childhood bedroom just how you remember it?

[laughs] No, it's different now. They changed it. We grew up in a Georgian house that was built in the 1600s. We're talking about a colonial New England house. George as in King George, you know? It's very small and poky and yet beautiful and historic.

What compelled you to see the American experience as a patchwork quilt?

It was accidental. The music informed the process. Having recorded 31 jazz standards in five days for my Balladsalbum—I should requalify that. They weren't all jazz standards. "God's Gonna Cut You Down" was actually recorded in 2016 in the Ballads sessions.

I was so pent-up as a lover of these standards that we recorded so much music. I released a double album, Ballads, and yet all these wonderful tracks were remaining and I had to shape them up. But I wanted to honor my roots and my roots are so diverse. Genetically, I'm so mixed, and musically, I'm so mixed.

I grew up with a father who was a professional bass player on weekends when I was a small child. He could play Duke Ellington songs on the piano and then folk songs on the guitar or harmonica and upright bass. We listened to country music records and everything. There was no classification or boxing-in of genre. It was meant to be self-made and fun. 

Non-musicians were the ones who classified the music, and they usually did so by gender and race and age. Which still happens to this day, based on algorithms through platforms on which we listen to music. We're classifying and dividing music for all the wrong reasons. And here I am, a mixture. I'm such a mixture. Loving all music. It's a patchwork.

My mom's a visual artist. She's a quilter, too. It just came to me that it was a quilt. That's when I needed to go back into the studio, and I recorded some more folksy Americana songs which reflect all of who I am. That's when I had the "A-ha!" moment that it's a quilt.

I needed to represent the sad parts of history and the honest part of our history. We wouldn't be who we are without the African experience. Slave quilts were these ingenious creations helping slaves flee to the Underground Railroad, to find the clues in the quilts.

The more I researched slave quilts, the more I realized that people didn't know about them. There isn't very much out there about them. Certainly, there was no music, no song I could sing to reflect them, even though there are Christian spirituals that double as protest songs, like "Steal Away." There wasn't anything about the quilts, so I wrote something into that vacancy to reflect a more full and diverse experience of America and our history.

We are a patchwork. We're all part of this diverse culture. Whether our music comes from Scotland or Africa or the cities or the mountains, it's all this American melting pot. That's our strength. [The album] coalesced intuitively. I didn't go about trying to make a concept album. It made itself.

Tell me more about "Hidden in Plain Sight."

That's the one original song I wrote for the album. "Hidden in Plain Sight" is all about the quilts. It's the cautionary tale and the advice from the quilter to the traveler. Each verse of "Hidden in Plain Sight" is a quilting square.

For instance, flying geese is a quilting square. It's a pattern used in quilts to this day. Flying geese in the context of slave quilts meant "Follow geese in spring. They lead north." Or a bear trail, which is a quilting pattern, means to the follower, "Follow the tracks of animals. They take you to water. They take you to safe places to hide."

So on and so forth. Each verse is advice to the traveler from the slave quilt. I created the song to reflect that because there isn't very much out there, and a lot of people don't know about them. They're mind-bogglingly ingenious. I just felt that even though it's not necessarily my story to tell, being a white person, it's important that we remember.

I'd like to explore your connections with all these traditional songs, too.

Sure. Sometimes, it's just because I like them!

That's as good an answer as any! That being said, what attracted you to "You Don't Know What Love Is"?

Oh, that's mostly my love for John Coltrane. I listened to so much from his Ballads album and I really feel the band channeled Coltrane on that recording. The form is the same. How it moves into double-time for the solo. The piano player, Consuelo Candelaria, just branches out so beautifully in her jazz solo. Then, we bring it back down to this very moody, almost spiritual, solemn feeling.

I just wanted to honor him. He was such a gentle giant and spiritual being.

He could play the hell out of a ballad, too.

[chuckles] Yeah. He's a hero to so many.

Paula Cole performing at Lilith Fair in 1997. Photo: Bob Berg/Getty Images

How about "Wayfaring Stranger"?

See, I'm bowing to the masters here. I'm bowing to Coltrane and I'm bowing to Emmylou Harris, who I think is one of the great American voices. We shouldn't forget her. We should be talking about Emmylou Harris more. I learned "Wayfaring Stranger" from her Roses in the Snow album.

Emmylou is very dear to me. We sang on each other's sets when we were both at Lilith Fair. When I was taking my hiatus from the music business—totally disenchanted with the music business, hating the music business and wanting to leave the music business—it was Emmylou who told me in a very motherly way, "You can't. It just happened too fast."

For me, she said I'm lucky. That I've had a nice, long plateau of a career. It's true; that's the healthier way. That's the way of the proverbial tortoise, and she helped me see that. I love her so much for giving me the right spiritual advice when I wanted to leave the music business. 

I'm honoring that traditional song. Life being hard for early settlers. Life being hard and thinking about death as a place that can be beautiful, where you meet your loved ones again. People would sing these songs to console themselves, to pass time. 

And they span hundreds of years! It's so amazing! But I'm also honoring Emmylou Harris because I associate that song with her.

What made you want to quit the biz once and for all?

Like she said, it happened too fast for me. I'm very much a live performer and a catalog, legacy artist. That's how I see myself. I don't see myself as a hit-pop-song artist. My hits were so huge and there was so much attention. I was terribly introverted, so I didn't deal with it very well, and I just felt I was overexposed. I wasn't being known for what I actually was.

I wanted to have a reset and have my personal life back. I wanted to have a child and I wanted to live a sincere life and make great art. So, I just needed to shed an ill-fitting skin. It ended up, then, that I wasn't going to leave the business. I was just going to reinvent myself, reset and embark upon a more authentic second career.

How does "God's Gonna Cut You Down" speak to you?

I heard that from Odetta and from Johnny Cash. I don't have much to say about it other than it's a traditional song and it's a morality tale. It's nice to have a morality tale right now, especially told from a woman's point of view.

And how about "Shenandoah"?

It lives somewhere in our collective unconscious, right? That one's really profound because it has a lot of American history in it. From fur traders heading west to the Oneida tribal chief. These lonely fur traders going up and down the St. Louis River. Very often, they would marry Native American women and blend with tribes. And, again, people are singing these songs to keep themselves company, going up and down rivers and across oceans. So, the song lives on in an oral history, preserving this culture. The singer is singing to the Oneida chieftain about loving his daughter and wanting to marry her.

I love the melody. It's so haunting and so beautiful. I was kind of possessed by it. I made this very long arrangement that includes the journey of the song. It goes across the ocean in clipper ships to the U.K. by including the pennywhistle, coming back to American soil, and by including the voices of the gospel churches.

That's Darcel Wilson singing with me and also Peter Eldridge. They're both such brilliant artists in their own rights. When Darcel sings at the end, I'm completely transfixed and the hair stands up on my arms. It is so moving to me what she does in her performance. She takes over from the lead singer. It feels prescient. The Black voice taking over the white voice.

What can you tell me about "Black Mountain Blues"?

"Black Mountain Blues," I heard from worshipping at the altar of Bessie Smith. I love her lyrics. Bessie Smith was Janis Joplin's favorite singer and also Billie Holiday's favorite singer. Bessie Smith is so influential to modern music. I don't think we quite understand that.

I like it because it's strong. It's not so much a woe-is-me blues; it's a fierce blues. It's a power-of-woman blues. I'm honoring those masters, like Janis and Bessie. 

Have you read Angela Davis's book Blues Legacies and Black Feminism?

I have it on my shelf and I've poked around in it! I haven't read it cover-to-cover. But, yes, I know what you mean. The feminism in [the music of] Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Ma Rainey.

"Good Morning Heartache." What's your connection to that one?

That's in the book of standards. I literally have a book of standards on my piano that I go to as a place to grow, learn and relax. I always have. I love that song. 

I just wanted it to sound spooky. I produced it in a way that was mournful and spooky. I layered my clarinets, and my clarinet is like my Alfred Hitchcock cameo appearance. I put it on every album I make, somewhere. I put an underwater reverb on it and it gave it a real mood to evoke that sadness.

"Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out" is also Bessie, right?

Absolutely; that's where I learned it. Bessie. The queen. The Empress of the Blues.

What's the title mean to you?

When you're down and out, nobody gives you a break. Nobody wants to hear from you. Most people are fairweather friends. Fairweather fans. Fairweather business. Fairweather everybody. It's when you're down and out that you know the truth in people. That's why she says "Nobody can use you when you're down and out," because people are going to act truthfully when you're down and out.

What a weird part of human nature.

I know! When you're high and mighty and on your high horse and successful, everyone is obsequious. Everyone is trying to get your business and placate you and lie and be two-faced and be sweet and ingratiate so they can be associated with you. When you're nobody, they couldn't care less.

You're back to jazz with "Bye Bye Blackbird." Obviously, Miles had such a beautiful version.

Miles taught me so much about space and being a bandleader. Honoring the rhythm section to be part of your sound. I wanted to vocally improvise on something simple and keep it very sparse and honor Miles, too. And then, "What a Wonderful World." We think of Louis Armstrong, and he was a genius. I don't like to use that word, but there are a few in the world, and he was one. When you listen to all of his recordings, his vocal improvisations, his ears are just astounding. He unified Black and white audiences. He's a beautiful example of someone who was positive and loving and unified people. This song was written specifically for him, so it appeals to Black and white audiences.

Somehow, in my life, that has become part of my mission. To talk about race and to mix genres.

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Joe Farnsworth couldn’t believe what he was watching. The leading straight-ahead drummer was sitting with the revered tenor saxophonist George Coleman, and a Miles Davis documentary happened to come on TV.

“This documentary went from Coltrane straight to Sam Rivers,” Farnsworth told LondonJazz News in 2023 — referring to the tenormen the eight-time GRAMMY winner and 32-time nominee employed in his so-called First and Second Great Quintets, respectively.

“What happened to ‘Four’ & More? What happened to My Funny Valentine? What happened to Seven Steps to Heaven?” Farnsworth remembered wondering. “Not a mention, man.”

Granted, Coleman’s tenure represented a transitional period for Davis’s group; his choice of tenorist would solidify in 1964 with the arrival of the 12-time GRAMMY winner and 23-time nominee Wayne Shorter. With pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams as the rhythm section — 18 GRAMMYs between them — the result was one of jazz’s all-time classic groups.

But Farnsworth’s point is well taken: in the recorded canon, jazz tends to lionize the rulebook-shredders and boundary-shatterers, at the expense of merely excellent work. But there’s not only room for both; in order to exist, the former requires the latter, and vice versa.

And given that Davis is, in many respects, the quintessential jazz musician, this wholly applies to him and his formidable discography — where the capital-P pivotal ones, like Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew, get the majority of the ink.

After you check out Seven Steps to Heaven and the like — and absorb Coleman’s important contributions to Davis’s story — take a spin through five more Davis albums that deserve more attention.

Water Babies (rec. 1967-1968, rel. 1976)

Axiomatically, anything Davis’ Second Great Quintet — and keyboardist Chick Corea and bassist Dave Holland, to boot — laid to tape is worth hearing.

But Water Babies should be of interest to any serious Miles fan because  it reveals the connective tissue between Davis’ acoustic and electric eras.

The first three tracks, “Water Babies,” “Capricorn” and “Sweet Pea” — Shorter compositions all — were retrieved from the cutting room floor circa 1968’s Nerfiti. (Tellingly, that turned out to be Davis’ final fully acoustic album.)

Tracks four and five — “Two Faced” and “Dual Mr. Tillman Anthony” — add Corea and Holland to the mix; on electric piano, Corea adds a celestial drift to the proceedings. For reasons both

Miles in the Sky (1968)

Miles Davis and George Benson on record? It happened — lucky us. The 10-time GRAMMY-winning, 25-time nominated guitar genius can be found on two tracks from the 1979 outtakes compendium Circle in the Round, and on “Paraphernalia” from Miles in the Sky.

While Water Babies is something of a dark horse for the heads, Miles in the Sky — also featuring the Second Great Quintet —is a fleet, aerodynamic stunner and one of the most unfairly slept-on entries in his discography.

Outside of the Shorter-penned “Paraphernalia,” Miles in the Sky features two Davis tunes in  “Stuff” and “Country Son,” and a Williams composition in “Black Comedy.”

It’s sterling stuff, right at the tipping point for fusion — and its obfuscation says nothing about its quality, but speaks volumes as to the volume of masterpieces in Davis’ discography.

Agharta (1965) and Pangaea (1976)

Two primo dispatches from Davis’ experimental years, capturing two concerts from the same evening in Osaka, Agharta and Pangaea are amoebic, undulating wonders.

Across the nearly 100-minute Agharta and 88-minute Pangaea, Davis and company — including alto and soprano saxophonist Sonny Fortune, and guitarists Reggie Lucas and Pate Cosey — conjure everything we expect from electric Miles.

Abstracted drones, worldbeat textures, Davis’ trumpet funneled through twisted wah-wah: check, check, and check. One critic characterized the music as “ambient yet thrashing,” compared it to “Fela Kuti jamming with Can,” and identified hints of Stockhausen, and nailed it on all three counts.

Fans of thick, heavy, electrified Miles typically reach for Bitches Brew or On the Corner first. But if those don’t completely whet your thirst, there’s a whole lot where that came from.

And given that Davis put down the horn, ravaged by illness, for six years afterward, Agharta and Pangaea represent something of a culmination of Davis as the intrepid deconstructionist.

We Want Miles (1982)

Despite what you may have heard, ‘80s Miles — his final full decade on earth, and the one where he drew heavily from pop sounds and songs — is nothing to sniff at.

From 1981’s The Man with the Horn to 1983’s Star People to 1989’s Aura, Davis produced a number of rough-hewn gems. And despite Davis’ bulldozed health during its recording, the live We Want Miles, recorded in ‘81, is among them.

Despite requiring oxygen between songs and wearing a rubber corset to keep playing, Davis is in fine form.

Plus, he’s flanked by heavyweights, from saxophonist Bill Evans (no, not that Bill Evans) to six-time GRAMMY-nominated guitarist Mike Stern and two-time GRAMMY-winning bassist Marcus Miller.

We Want Miles proves that Miles never lost his ability to produce inspired, inspiring work — no matter what his failing body or, erm, ‘80s textures threw at it.

Davis passed away in 1991, and we’ll never see his like again — so savor everything he gave us, whether illuminated or obscured by shadow.

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Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly. Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

Looking for more GRAMMYs news? The 2024 GRAMMY nominations are here!

He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly.

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube. This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic, this is for Nas. We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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A year and change before his 2022 death, the eminent saxophonist Pharoah Sanders released one final dispatch. That album was Promises, a meditative, collaborative album with British electronic musician Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Promises swung open the gates for jazz and electronic music's convergence.. Not only was it an out-of-nowhere critical smash, earning "universal acclaim" as per Metacritic; it acted as an accessible entrypoint for the hipster set and beyond. 

As Pitchfork put it, "One of the year's most memorable melodies consists of a seven-note refrain repeated, with slight variation, for more than three quarters of an hour." (They declared Promises the fourth best album of the year; its neighbors included Turnstile; Tyler, the Creator; and Jazmine Sullivan.)

Since then, jazz and electronic music have continued their developments, with or without each other. But Promises struck a resonant chord, especially during the pandemic years; and when Sanders left us at 81, the music felt like his essence lingering in our midst.

Whether you're aware of that crossover favorite or simply curious about this realm, know that the rapprochement between jazz and electronic idioms goes back decades and decades.

Read on for 10 albums that exemplify this genre blend — including two released this very year.

Miles Davis - Live-Evil (1971)

As the 1960s gave away to the '70s, Miles Davis stood at his most extreme pivot point — between post-bop and modal classics and undulating, electric exploits. Straddling the studio and the stage, Live-Evil is a monument to this period of thunderous transformation.

At 100 minutes, the album's a heaving, heady listen — its dense electronic textures courtesy of revered keyboardists Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Joe Zawinul, as well as the combustible electric guitarist John McLaughlin. The swirling, beatless "Nem Un Talvez" is arguably Live-Evil's most demonstrative example of jazz meets electronic.

For the uninitiated as per Davis' heavier, headier work, Live-Evil is something of a Rosetta stone. From here, head backward in the eight-time GRAMMY winner and 32-time nominee's catalog — to In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew or Jack Johnson.

Or, move forward to On the Corner, Get Up With It or Aura. Wherever you move in his later discography, plenty of jazz fans wish they could hear this game-changing music for the first time.

Herbie Hancock - Future Shock (1983)

In the early 1970s, Herbie Hancock delivered a one-two punch of fusion classics — 1973's Head Hunters and 1974's Thrust — to much applause. The ensuing years told a different story.

While the 14-time GRAMMY winner and 34-time nominee's ensuing live albums tended to be well-regarded, his studio work only fitfully caught a break from the critics.

However, in 1983, Hancock struck gold in that regard: the inspired Future Shock wittily and inventively drew from electro-funk and instrumental hip-hop. Especially its single, "Rockit" — shot through with a melodic earworm, imbued with infectious DJ scratches.

Sure, it's of its time — very conspicuously so. But with hip-hop's 50th anniversary right in our rearview, "Rockit" sounds right on time.

Tim Hagans - Animation • Imagination (1999)

If electric Miles is your Miles, spring for trumpeter Tim Hagans' Animation • Imagination for an outside spin on that aesthetic.

The late, great saxophonist Bob Belden plays co-pilot here; he wrote four of its nine originals and produced the album. Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, synthesist Scott Kinsen, bassist David Dyson, and drummer Billy Kilson also underpin these kinetic, exploratory tunes.

The engine of Animation • Imagination is its supple and infectious sense of groove, whether in breakbeat ("Animation/Imagination"), boom bap ("Slo Mo") or any other form.

This makes the drumless moments, like "Love's Lullaby," have an indelible impact; when the drums drop out, inertia propels you forward. And on the electronics-swaddled "Snakes Kin," the delayed-out percussion less drives the music than rattles it like an angry hive.

Kurt Rosenwinkel - Heartcore (2003)

From his language to his phrasing to his liquid sound, Rosenwinkel's impact on the contemporary jazz guitar scene cannot be overstated: on any given evening in the West Village, you can probably find a New Schooler laboriously attempting to channel him.

Rosenwinkel's appeared on more than 150 albums, so where to begin with such a prodigious artist? One gateway is Heartcore, his first immersion into electronic soundscapes as a bandleader.

Throughout, the laser-focused tenor saxophonist Mark Turner is like another half of his sound. On "Our Secret World," his earthiness counter-weighs Rosenwinkel's iridescent textures; on "Blue Line," the pair blend into and timbrally imitate each other.

Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest co-produced Heartcore; it's as unclassifiable as the MC's most intrepid, fusionary works. "This record — it's jazz," Rosenwinkel has said. "And it's much more."

Graham Haynes - Full Circle (2007)

Cornetist, flugelhornist and trumpeter Graham Haynes may be the son of Roy Haynes, who played drums with Bird and Monk and remains one of the final living godfathers of bebop. But if he's ever faced pressure to box himself into his father's aesthetic, he's studiously disregarded it.

Along with saxophone great Steve Coleman, he was instrumental in the M-Base collective, which heralded new modes of creative expression in jazz — a genre tag it tended to reject altogether.

For Haynes, this liberatory spirit led to inspired works like Full Circle. It shows how he moved between electronic and hip-hop spheres with masterly ease, while being beholden to neither. Featuring saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, bassist Shahzad Ismaily, drummer Marcus Gilmore, and other top-flight accompanists, Full Circle is wormholes within wormholes. 

Therein, short-circuiting wonders like "1st Quadrant" rub against "Quartet Circle" and "In the Cage of Grouis Bank," which slouch toward ambient, foreboding kosmische.

Craig Taborn - Junk Magic (2004)

Steeped in brutal metal as much as the AACM, the elusive, resplendent pianist Craig Taborn is one of the most cutting-edge practitioners of "creative music." Some of his work resembles jazz, some is uncategorizably far afield.

Strains of electronic music run through Taborn's entire catalog. And his Junk Magic project, which began with his 2004 album of the same name, is a terrific gateway drug to this component of his artistry.

Junk Magic has a haunted toyshop quality; tracks like "Prismatica," "Bodies at Rest and in Motion" and "The Golden Age" thrum with shadowy, esoteric energy.

If these strange sounds resonate with you, 2020's sinewy Compass Confusion — released under the Junk Magic alias — is a logical next step. So is 2019's Golden Valley is Now, an electronics-inflected work of head-spinning propulsion and kineticism.

Flying Lotus - You're Dead! (2014)

Spanning spiritual jazz, devotional music, the avant-garde, and so much more, Alice Coltrane has belatedly gotten her flowers as a musical heavyweight; she and her sainted husband were equal and parallel forces.

Coltrane's grandnephew, Steven Bingley-Ellison — better known as Flying Lotus — inherited her multidimensional purview.

In the late 2000s, the GRAMMY-winning DJ, rapper and producer made waves with envelope-pushing works like Los Angeles; regarding his synthesis of jazz, electronic and hip-hop, 2014's You're Dead marks something of a culmination.

Flying Lotus was in stellar company on You're Dead!, from Kendrick Lamar to Snoop Dogg to Herbie Hancock and beyond; tracks like "Tesla," "Never Catch Me" and "Moment of Hesitation" show that these forms aren't mutually exclusive, but branches of the same tree.

Brad Mehldau - Finding Gabriel (2019)

As per the Big Questions, pianist Brad Mehldau is much like many of us: "I believe in God, but do not identify with any of the monotheistic religions specifically." But this hasn't diluted his searching nature: far from it.

In fact, spirituality has played a primary role in the GRAMMY winner and 13-time nominee's recent work. His 2022 album Jacob's Ladder dealt heavily in Biblical concepts — hence the title — and shot them through with the prog-rock ethos of Yes, Rush and Gentle Giant.

Where Jacob's Ladder is appealingly nerdy and top-heavy, its spiritual successor, 2019's Finding Gabriel, feels rawer and more eye-level, its jagged edges more exposed; Mehldau himself played a dizzying array of instruments, including drums and various synths.

The archetypal imagery is foreboding, as on "The Garden"; the Trump-era commentary is forthright, as on "The Prophet is a Fool." And its sense of harried tension is gorgeously released on the title track.

All this searching and striving required music without guardrails — a marriage of jazz and electronic music, in both styles' boundless reach.

Caroline Davis' Alula - Captivity (2023)

Caroline Davis isn't just an force on the New York scene; she's a consummate conceptualist.

The saxophonist and composer's work spans genres and even media; any given presentation might involve evocative dance, expansive set design, incisive poetry, or flourishing strings. She's spoken of writing music based on tactility and texture, with innovative forms of extended technique.

This perspicuous view has led to a political forthrightness: her Alula project's new album, Captivity, faces down the horrific realities of incarceration and a broken criminal justice system.

Despite the thematic weight, this work of advocacy is never preachy or stilted: it feels teeming and alive. This is a testament not only to jazz's adaptability to strange, squelching electronics, but its matrix of decades-old connections to social justice.

Within these oblong shapes and textures, Davis has a story to tell — one that's life or death.

Jason Moran/BlankFor.ms/Marcus Gilmore - Refract (2023)

At this point, it's self-evident how well these two genres mesh. And pianist Jason Moran and drummer Marcus Gilmore offer another fascinating twist: tape loops.

For a new album, Refract, the pair — who have one GRAMMY and three nominations between them — partnered with the tape loop visionary Tyler Gilmore, a.k.a. BlankFor.ms.

The seed of the project was with BlankFor.ms; producer Sun Chung had broached the idea that he work with leading improvisational minds. In the studio, BlankFor.ms acted on a refractory basis, his loops commenting on, shaping and warping Moran and Gilmore's playing.

As Moran poetically put it in a statement, "I have always longed for an outside force to manipulate my piano song and drag the sound into a cistern filled with soft clay."

The line on jazz is that it's an expression of freedom. But when it comes to chips and filters and oscillators, it can always be a little more unbound.

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From Post Malone to Peppa Pig vinyls, record stores around the world are stocking up on limited exclusive releases for Record Store Day 2023.

Held annually every April since 2007, the event honors independently owned record stores and the unity of fans and artists. This year, many stores will globally welcome more than 300 limited, exclusive records ranging from rock to jazz to rap on April 22.

With former official ambassadors including Taylor Swift, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Jack White, Chuck D, and St. Vincent, Record Store Day celebrates music of all genres. And that's exactly the case with this year's lineup of special releases, spanning from Miles Davis to Beach House.

In honor of Record Store Day 2023, get excited about these 10 limited, exclusive releases dropping in your local participating store.

The 1975 — I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it: Live With The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Serving as the official Record Store Day UK Ambassadors this year, the 1975 take us back to 2016 with their second LP, I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it — this time, along with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Available for the first time on double clear vinyl, this orchestral version of the British rock band's second studio album also features a version of their breakout hit, "Chocolate."

Miles Davis — TURNAROUND: Unreleased Rare Vinyl from On the Corner

Miles Davis' album On the Corner celebrated its 50th birthday last October, and its innovation takes yet another turn on Record Store Day. Titled Turnaround, this sky-blue vinyl features four cuts from the expanded 2007 album The Complete On The Corner Sessions, also offering appearances from Herbie Hancock, Dave Liebman and Bennie Maupin.

Björk — the fossora remixes

Fill your record collection with some flora and fauna — natural, eccentric scarlet and green patterns adorn each vinyl sleeve of Björk's exclusive the fossora remixes. The release features two dynamic songs: A1 Ovule featuring Shygirl (Sega Bodega remix) and A2 Atopos (sideproject remix).

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Beach House — Become

Fourteen months after psychedelic pop duo Beach House unveiled their eighth studio album, Once Twice Melody, they continue the story with a new EP. Titled Become, the five-song project — which is available on crystal-clear vinyl on Record Store Day — features five formerly unreleased songs from their 2022 LP.

Nas — Made You Look: God's Son Live 2002

Just over 20 years ago, Nas gave a spectacular performance at Webster Hall in New York City, further solidifying his status as a legend of East Coast hip-hop. The spirited 20-song concert now appears on vinyl for the first time, with familiar artwork calling back to its original DVD release in 2003.

Dolly Parton — The Monument Singles Collection 1964-1968

More than six decades into her career, Dolly Parton joins the Record Store Day fun with a celebration of her early years. The country legend's remastered singles from the 1960s are hitting record store shelves, and the special first-time collection also features liner notes from two-time GRAMMY nominee Holly George-Warren.

The Rolling Stones — Beggars Banquet

As the Rolling Stones sang of "a swirling mass of grey, blue, black, and white" on "Salt Of The Earth," the rock band's upcoming limited vinyl for Beggars Banquet will be pressed with a swirl pattern of the same four colors in tribute. The group merges classic rock with their blues roots on Beggars Banquet, and the vinyl of their 1968 critically-acclaimed album features the original artwork and window display poster.

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Taylor Swift — folklore: the long pond studio sessions

In September 2020, Taylor Swift's GRAMMY-winning album folklore was reimagined at New York's Long Pond Studio with a pair of the singer's closest collaborators, Aaron Dessner (The National) and Jack Antonoff (fun./Bleachers). And in November that year, fans got to witness those sessions in a Disney+ documentary. Now, more than two years later, the serene album's acoustic studio sessions are available on vinyl for the first time, including four sides and bonus track "the lakes."

'Ol Dirty Bastard — Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version

ODB's memory lives on in the vinyl rerelease of his iconic 1995 debut album, Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version. Featuring the 2020 remasters of 15 tracks, this drop is the first posthumous release from ODB since 2011, but not the first time fans have heard his voice since then: SZA's SOS track "Forgiveless" concludes with a previously unreleased verse from the late rapper.

Donna Summer — A Hot Summer Night (40th Anniversary Edition)

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Donna Summer's momentous Hard For The Money Tour. This exclusive vinyl celebrates the Queen of Disco in all her glory, capturing her live concert at Costa Mesa's Pacific Amphitheatre from August 1983. The vinyl offers performances by special guests Musical Youth, her sisters Dara and Mary Ellen, and her eldest daughter Mimi.

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