We Speak Jazz

Stella Cole Celebrates the Great American Songbook on Imagination

Published

2 hours ago

November 1, 2026

Stella Cole. Photo via @stellakcole.

Jazz vocalist Stella Cole has released her third studio album, Imagination, on October 30, 2026 on Decca Records US, a celebration of the Great American Songbook from one of the most distinctive young voices in the music.

Cole is backed by her regular trio, Michael Kanan on piano, Michael Migliore on bass and Hank Allen-Barfield on drums. The programme leans into the standards that shaped her, including As Time Goes By and Polka Dots and Moonbeams, alongside the title track Imagination, It Had to Be You, I’m Old Fashioned, Soon It’s Gonna Rain, Til There Was You and That’s All. Her phrasing stays sincere and unhurried, letting the melodies and the words do the work.

The Illinois native built her audience in an unusually modern way, cultivating a large social media following through her interpretations of classic jazz pieces, then converting that attention into concert stages including Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden and appearances on national television. Last year she was named an Amazon Breakthrough Artist to Watch. Following her debut album It’s Magic and the subsequent Live at Café Carlyle, Imagination is her third album.

The release lands in the middle of a remarkable autumn for Cole. She is currently making her Broadway debut in the Tony winning musical Maybe Happy Ending at the Belasco Theatre, playing a limited engagement as Gil Brentley through November 15 while covering for original cast member Dez Duron.

A singer who found her audience one standard at a time now holds a Broadway stage and a new Decca album in the same season. Imagination is available now on all formats.

We Speak Jazz

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Honors John Coltrane With ANANTA: Spirit of Coltrane

Published

34 minutes ago

November 1, 2026

We Speak Media

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. Photo via @miguelatwoodferguson.

Composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson has released ANANTA: Spirit of Coltrane, a tribute album honoring John Coltrane in the centennial year of his birth. The record arrived on October 30, 2026 through Impulse! Records, the label known as the house Trane built.

For the project, Atwood-Ferguson leads a 21 piece collective of musicians working at the top of their craft, including Brandee Younger, Jeff Parker, Flying Lotus, Immanuel Wilkins, Shabaka Hutchings, Azar Lawrence, Joel Ross, Marcus Gilmore, David Virelles and Elena Pinderhughes. The album reimagines eight Coltrane compositions spanning 1959 to 1964, among them A Love Supreme, Pt. II (Resolution), Central Park West and My Favorite Things, and adds one original piece, A Force, written with poet Aja Monet. The singles told the story in advance: Compassion pairs Flying Lotus, Immanuel Wilkins and David Virelles, while Naima brings together Brandee Younger and Joel Ross.

Coltrane has inspired Atwood-Ferguson for more than three decades, and ANANTA is built as a celebration of both the musical and the spiritual legacy. It is a natural homecoming for the arranger, whose career includes the orchestral J Dilla tribute Suite for Ma Dukes, performances alongside Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones and Smokey Robinson, and his 2023 solo debut Les Jardins Mystiques Vol 1 on Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder label. With ANANTA, he turns that lifetime of study toward the source, and invites a new generation of masters to speak Coltrane’s language with him. The album is streaming now, and it stands as one of the essential jazz releases of the year.