Trumpeter/composer Ambrose Akinmusire and guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson's album Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings is due June 12 on Nonesuch. It features four new compositions by each musician plus one collaboration; you can hear the track "Soundcheck" now. The duo, long admirers of each other’s musicianship, began playing together periodically back in 2009. They rehearsed the music on Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings in January 2025, just before performing it at the NYC club The Stone; they recorded the album the next day at Sear Sound. “I think it’s partly a shared aesthetic and an ease of communication. I feel comfortable to try whatever,” Halvorson says. Akinmusire concurs, “I think it’s rare to find an improviser that all goes and nothing has to go at all. It’s rare to feel like you don’t have to do anything and you can do anything. And that’s what I love about playing with Mary.”

Robert Plant and Saving Grace—vocalist Suzi Dian, drummer Oli Jefferson, guitarist Tony Kelsey, banjo and string player Matt Worley, and cellist Barney Morse-Brown—were on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to perform "Higher Rock," from their 2025 debut album, Saving Grace, and the Led Zeppelin tune "Ramble On" last night. You can watch both performances here. Plant was on the show on the release of Saving Grace last fall. He and the band, who concluded their US spring tour in NYC this week, head to Latin America in May and back to Europe in June. They release a vinyl EP, Saving Grace: All That Glitters..., on Record Store Day, Saturday, April 18. Plant is this year's Record Store Day Record Store Legend.