NEW FALL SEASON ALBUMS & PERFORMANCES / NYC

AACM 50TH ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a groundbreaking institution for American experimental music, has been celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, with events both in and beyond Chicago, its city of origin. This concert series, presented by the association’s New York chapter on four consecutive Fridays in October, will feature avant-garde titans like the pianist Muhal Richard Abrams and the saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, in an improvised duet (Oct. 9); the trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, leading a quintet (Oct. 16); and the trombonist and electronic musician George Lewis, with an ensemble called Impromptus (Oct. 23).

AFRO-LATIN JAZZ ORCHESTRA Led by the pianist and composer Arturo O’Farrill, this powerhouse large ensemble has been focused on furthering a musical dialogue with Cuba in recent years, to excellent effect. The coordinates shift slightly for “Jazz Across the Americas: Venezuela,” which will inaugurate the orchestra’s fall season at Symphony Space Oct. 1-2. symphonyspace.org.

ALAN BERGMAN “Lyrically, the Songs of Alan and Marilyn Bergman”: The Hollywood songwriter may be his own best interpreter. Birdland, Oct. 12; birdlandjazz.com.

BRAD MEHLDAU In his justly celebrated solo concerts, the pianist Brad Mehldau often spirals outward from a theme, forming complex structures on the fly, with or without a clear tether to the given melody. This digressive, rhapsodic, trancelike approach illuminates the diverse body of music — originals, jazz standards and tunes by Radiohead, the Beatles and Brahms — on “10 Years Solo Live” (Oct. 16). It’s a boxed set culled from a decade of European concert recordings, to be released initially on eight LPs, and one month later in digital formats and on CDs. Nonesuch.

BRIC JAZZFEST The centerpiece of the first annual BRIC JazzFest, happening at the BRIC House complex in Downtown Brooklyn, is a two-day marathon of 16 overlapping sets, ranging from the vaulting ambitions of the tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington to the clockwork intricacies of Dawn of Midi. (You’ll want to buy tickets early, and use the same strategy with regard to your arrival on the scene.) A separate kickoff concert, on Oct. 11, will feature the august bassist Ron Carter with his Golden Striker Trio, in collaboration with the painter and poet Danny Simmons. And a free concert on Oct. 13 will spotlight Jaime Woods, an emerging singer-songwriter with a foothold in gospel and soul. Through Oct. 16; bricartsmedia.org.

CHRISTIAN SCOTT ATUNDE ADJUAH “Stretch Music” (Sept. 18) is the new album by this firebrand trumpeter from New Orleans, who now resides in Harlem. It’s also a set of aesthetic principles — at heart, involving the elasticity of genres, including the one most of us know as jazz — and a rallying cry for Mr. Adjuah’s fierce young band, which also appears Oct. 2-3 at Harlem Stage, harlemstage.org. Ropeadope.

FRED HERSCH On “Solo,” the album he just released, Fred Hersch works in a sumptuously familiar setting, engaging alone with a piano on a stage. He’ll turn 60 in October, around the time that he presents his ambitious new multimedia work — “Rooms of Light,” a song cycle inspired by the medium of photography, created with the poet Mary Jo Salter — at Montclair State University. Then Mr. Hersch will settle in for a week at the Village Vanguard with his working trio, featuring John Hébert on bass and Eric McPherson on drums. “Rooms of Light,” Oct. 15-18, Kasser Theater, Montclair, N.J. Village Vanguard, Oct. 20-25, villagevanguard.com.

JANE MONHEIT “The Songbook Sessions: The Music of Ella Fitzgerald”: From starting out as a jazz-pop vocal prodigy, Ms. Monheit has matured into a trouper and sensitive interpreter. Birdland, Oct. 13-17; birdlandjazz.com.

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA PLAYS MONK Thelonious Monk has been the subject of more than one repertory tribute by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra over the years, but this program — one of the organization’s few marquee events in the coming season, because of a scheduled renovation of Frederick P. Rose Hall — holds promise. Jazz at Lincoln Center’s artistic director, Wynton Marsalis, will host a concert of new arrangements by members of the ensemble; the featured guest is Joey Alexander, a preteen piano virtuoso whose appreciation of Monk’s music has been widely documented. Oct. 23-24, Town Hall.

JOHN SCOFIELD “Past Present” (Sept. 25) is an album title with more than one connotation for the guitarist John Scofield. For one thing, it’s a welcome reunion of his quartet of the early-to-mid 1990s, an elastic, swinging group with Joe Lovano on tenor saxophone and Bill Stewart on drums. (Larry Grenadier is the bassist for this go-round.) The deeper meaning, mostly implicit, is an elegy for Mr. Scofield’s son, who died of cancer two years ago — and whose outlook can apparently be credited for this music’s resolute lightness of spirit. (The quartet reconvenes Oct. 13-18 at the Blue Note Jazz Club; bluenote.net.) Impulse!/Universal Music Classics.

KARRIN ALLYSON The album “Many a New Day: Karrin Allyson Sings Rodgers & Hammerstein” (Sept. 18) tells you the main thing you need to know about Ms. Allyson’s new album, her first nonholiday release in four years. You should know at least a couple of more things: first, that she aces the tightrope walk of songbook reverence and jazz-vocal breeziness that often proves elusive on such an album; and second, that her sterling accompanists are the bassist John Patitucci and the pianist Kenny Barron. (She’ll appear with different partners Oct. 6-10 at Birdland.) Motéma.

KURT ELLING The formidable jazz singer swings Sinatra. Café Carlyle, Oct. 13-17.

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