THREE albums of 2020 are not only powerful jazz artefacts that challenge and break through many musical norms and genres but are also resonating commentaries on today — the year’s key moments expressed in raw and beautifully inventive sounds.

Pianist Lafayette Gilchrist is from Baltimore, a city steeped in resistance to racism, and that experience  is starkly intoned on his trio’s double album Now in such tracks as the rampaging Assume the Position.

“When you come to Baltimore,” he says, “you need to show some respect for the struggle within the town and how strong the people are on the ground here.”