Kevin Whitehead

Sanchez's latest album, Night Creatures, features music for nine instruments that variously contrast, blend or clash — channeling the open-air feeling of the pitch-dark woods at night.

Composer Darcy James Argue runs a jazz big band — but imagines its sound as if big bands had stayed current rather than faded away. The music's clarity, contrasts and rhythms are all impressive.

The tenor saxophonist, who died in 2012, would have been 100 on Oct. 3. Freeman's weekly jam session at the New Apartment Lounge on Chicago's South Side became an international pilgrimage site.