In jazz, as in most other forms of popular music, it's women who are bringing the new and much needed energies to the cause of keeping the music relevant and important. Three recent releases, all of which vaguely fit under the moniker of jazz, are striking examples of the artistry and ideas that women are bringing to music today. In 1979, singer songwriter Joni Mitchell famously collaborated with jazz-bass visionary Charles Mingus just prior to his death on a record she called simply: Mingus. Filled with compositions written by Mingus for Mitchell, it remains a highlight of the more experimental phase of her long career. Mitchell herself has long been a frequent source of material for female jazz singers, including Diana Krall, Jane Monheit, Dianne Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, and Holly Cole. The genesis of Both Sides of Joni began in rehearsals in the late Janiece Jaffe's barn in southern Indiana between the singer and her longtime friend, Monika Herzig, both faculty members at Indiana University's world renown music school. After sufficient time to work on the new arrangements by Herzig, the pair played the material live in March 2021 before heading into Airtime Studios in Bloomington, Indiana, to cut these…