Mondo Jazz

• Artist: Miguel Zenón
• Album: Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook
• Song: Olas Y Arenas

The alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon has made an exceptional album of standards. These aren't yet jazz standards, though; they began life as boleros and other popular songs generations ago, and they retain currency throughout Latin America today. They're all by Puerto Rican composers, many of whom — like Zenon — came to New York City to pursue music. In interpreting these melodramas and lingua franca anthems, Zenon has turned them inside out. The arrangements, for jazz quartet and 10 woodwinds, can be stunningly complex, but they only ever feel rich, supple, grand. And throughout, Zenon's quartet burns as if inspired by something deeper than the task of making pretty sounds. All available evidence seems to confirm this suggestion.

• Artist: Gretchen Parlato
• Album: The Lost and Found
• Song: Winter Wind

You may have heard, perhaps even from this website, that Gretchen Parlato is a "different," or "new" type of jazz singer. True, her featherweight, susurrant delivery isn't exactly that of the great divas. But that's an issue of craft, and not art. On The Lost and Found, her third and best album yet, she and her band marshal this original sound on sambas, singer-songwriterly duets, pop covers, tunes by peers, a remix, reconfigured jazz classics, head-bobbers, ballads and a healthy dose of original material. It's catchy, tuneful stuff with contemporary vibrations — especially those of the R&B defined by hip-hop soul. Happily, it also retains the real-time interaction and harmolodic richness native to an older black popular music, one at the dawn of its second century.

• Artist: JD Allen Trio
• Album: Victory!
• Song: Mr. Steepy

By jazz's long-winded standards, the trio led by tenor saxophonist JD Allen makes albums of miniatures. The band tries to say its piece in five minutes or less (usually less) and move on; that's more than enough time to establish a theme and go full-tilt boogie on it. On balance, Victory! is slightly mellower than the band's previous two records — more moments of zen, fewer all-out wind sprints — though an unassailable drum and bass hookup assures it swings as hard as there ever was. Whatever the setting, this collection is defined by a certain raw intensity. There's a well of triumphant feeling here, and it forces its way out, one three-minute burst at a time.

• Artist: Noah Preminger
• Album: Before the Rain
• Song: Quickening

The tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger plays ballads like an old guy, and that's a compliment. He's in his 20s, but on this collection of slow to mid-tempo tunes — his second album — he occupies melodies, inhabits their caverns and tight corners, and extracts their richest marrow. (Not surprisingly, his supporting cast is all some 15-ish years older than he is.) At the same time, Before the Rain also feels like a document of New York jazz today, something filtered through the long-tether compositions of Ornette Coleman and featuring a rhythm section which seems to fingerpaint around the beat. It's a record mining for beauty in new and old places, and often finding it.

• Artist: Bill McHenry
• Album: Ghosts of the Sun
• Song: La Fuerza

The tenor saxophonist Bill McHenry improvises like a child, and that's a compliment. Sometimes, there are guidelines to interpret; sometimes, the rules are there to be ignored. But usually, there is the anchor of a splendidly rough-hewn melody, as there often are on Ghosts of the Sun, his third album with this particular quartet. This collection, recorded in 2006 but misfiled for years in his mother's house, will also go down as one of the last released documents of the late drummer Paul Motian. Motian's mysterious ability to imply time, but float freely around it, is all over this record; it brings out the best in a group of kindred spirits half his age.