Marta Sánchez - For The Space You Left Released April 17, 2026 on Out Of Your Head Records

Listen/buy here on bandcamp

“Ms. Sánchez’s music is accessible and lovely, yet built on stark contrasts. One rhythm rubs against another. Multiple melodies coexist. Gentle passages get interrupted by sudden crashes” –Wall Street Journal

“The music Marta Sanchez writes gets intricate, but she also gets memorable effects using simple means.” –NPR Fresh Air

For The Space You Left the debut solo piano recording by Marta Sánchez, will be released on April 17, 2026 (LP/CD/digital) on Out Of Your Head Records. Sánchez is well known in the jazz and improvised music world, both for her albums as a leader (notably Perpetual Void from 2024 and SAAM (Spanish American Art Museum) from 2022), and for her work as an in demand sidewoman, as a regular member of David Murray’s Quartet and the Webber/Morris Big Band, among many others. She demands attention in any ensemble setting, her solos combining flowing narrative lines with uninhibited rhythmic bursts that are simultaneously surprising and engaging. While she is completely at home as a part of any band, a solo piano statement was an obstacle that long seemed out of reach. It wasn’t until she began experimenting with piano preparation in 2017 that she found her own voice in such an exposed setting, and For The Space You Left is the result of years of exploration and experimentation. In these nine pieces she has successfully distilled the signature compositional elements she utilizes for quintet and trio into a single instrument, and through entrancing rhythmic loops and melodic counterpoint has created something uniquely her own. Simply put For The Space You Left is a brilliant solo debut, and should add Sánchez to the conversation of monumental modern solo piano contributions alongside Craig Taborn and Matt Mitchell.

Marta Sánchez on the development of her solo piano work:

“This solo prepared piano record grew out of periods of isolation and solitude, shaped by two very different emotional landscapes. The music began in 2017 during a residency at MacDowell, where I applied with the intention of experimenting with piano preparation and confronting a long-standing fear: playing solo piano. I had always been uncomfortable exposing myself alone at the instrument, and creating a solo project felt like the most direct way to face that fear — and grow through it. At the time, I was interested in translating my compositional language — built around layers, interlocking rhythms, and counterpoint — into a single timbre. Preparation became the solution: by altering the piano’s sound, I could create multiple internal voices, transforming one instrument into a small ecosystem of contrasting textures. MacDowell was an intense and solitary experience. I lived alone in a remote cabin, surrounded by woods and snowstorms, often spending entire days without seeing anyone. That isolation, combined with a sense of vulnerability and self-doubt, deeply informed the music written there. The pieces from that period carry a quiet melancholy, fragility, and a raw openness.”

“After the residency, I became absorbed in writing for other projects — ensemble music, quintet work — and the solo pieces remained unfinished. It wasn’t until the beginning of the pandemic that this music truly resumed. In those first weeks of lockdown, I texted a close friend suggesting that this was the moment to finally focus on our solo projects. We challenged each other to write one piece a week, keeping one another accountable and creatively energized during an uncertain time. Once again, I was writing in isolation, but the emotional context had shifted: the music composed during this period reflects a more intense inner world, shaped by loss, love, uncertainty, and existential questions. If the MacDowell pieces emerge from loneliness and lack of confidence, the pandemic pieces come from emotional saturation — obsessive cycles, abstraction, and a heightened interior life. Together, the album traces two forms of solitude, processed through different emotional lenses. During the early stages, each piece was written with a highly specific and complex piano preparation. However, after performing the music live for the first time, it became clear that changing preparations between pieces was impractical, often requiring long pauses. In response, I re-imagined the setup and arrived at a simpler, flexible preparation that could serve most of the repertoire with only minimal adjustments. Out of respect for the instruments and the concerns of venues, all preparations use gentle, non-invasive materials such as paper, Blu-Tack, and tape.”

For The Space You Left track-by-track overview by Marta Sánchez:

Frost Bloom: Written during the MacDowell residency, Frost Bloom reflects both the physical environment and my musical influences at the time. I was listening extensively to African music — particularly marimba-based traditions and vocal polyphony — and those rhythmic sensibilities naturally found their way into the piece.
The composition features a clear three-against-two relationship, with a grounding bass melody supporting interlocking rhythmic layers above. There is a sense of emergence and persistence, mirroring the quiet resilience required to create in isolation. (At MacDowell, the first week was intensely productive, until my computer fell and the hard drive was lost. Having to start over reshaped the music — stress, loss, and renewal subtly embedded themselves into the process.)

Inward Loop: Composed during the pandemic, this piece marks a shift toward abstraction and obsession. A constant rhythmic figure runs through the entire piece, evolving harmonically while remaining structurally fixed. Around it, bass and high-register lines appear and disappear, forming a fragile melodic dialogue. Electronic music was a strong influence here — particularly the idea that subtle changes within repetition can generate tension and emotional movement. The piece reflects an inward spiral: focused, restrained, and emotionally charged.

Snowing in the Woods: Written at MacDowell, this piece is a direct reflection of the environment: long snowstorms, silence, and the stillness of being alone in a small cabin. The music is sparse, melancholic, and restrained, allowing space and resonance to speak as much as the notes themselves.

Estalagtita: A percussive piece composed in 2017, Estalagtita is driven by sharply defined layers: a rhythmic middle voice, a bass foundation, and a fragmented melodic line above. The preparation emphasizes attack and decay, creating a harsh, almost brittle sound world.
The piece was inspired by the striking natural formations I encountered during the residency — irregular, raw, and imposing.

Espejos: Written during the pandemic and performed without preparation, Espejos draws more openly from classical piano language. Arpeggios, polyrhythms, and contrasts between reflection and distortion shape the piece, which explores symmetry and fragmentation through touch rather than timbral alteration.

Echolord: Another pandemic-era composition, Echolord continues the exploration of electronic-music aesthetics within an acoustic context. Sustained rhythmic ideas coexist with sudden registral shifts, echoes, and interruptions. The piece plays with perception — what feels stable versus what feels fleeting — creating a sense of spatial depth within the piano.

The Regret: Performed without preparation, The Regret explores contrast not through abrupt shifts, but through unexpected resolutions. The music often moves toward moments of beauty, only to introduce a note that feels rough or “ugly,” subtly destabilizing the harmony. Rather than negating the beauty, this tension deepens it — allowing the resolution to feel more human, fragile, and real. The piece reflects a way of understanding life itself: beauty does not exist in isolation, but gains meaning through imperfection, discomfort, and contrast. Steadiness and unease coexist, shaping one another rather than competing.

Pygmora: Composed during the pandemic, Pygmora returns to African rhythmic influence, particularly marimba-based traditions. Built on a 12/8 subdivision and pentatonic material, the piece is less abstract than other pandemic works, grounding itself in pulse and repetition. The preparation transforms the piano into a resonant, percussive instrument with a strong sense of forward motion.

One for Blake: The final piece is dedicated to Blake, a longtime MacDowell staff member whose presence left a lasting impression. Blake would pick artists up from the station, already offering insight into the rhythms and energies of the woods — how it takes time to attune oneself to the place before the music can emerge.
He delivered lunch baskets to the cabins every day, always radiating warmth and care. His stories, generosity, and grounding presence created a deep sense of safety and belonging. This piece is a quiet tribute to that human connection.

Born and raised in Madrid, Spain, pianist and composer Marta Sánchez is actively working in the contemporary creative music scene in New York City and around the globe. Charting a significant path through her innovative and original music, she has reached an international audience and earned broad critical recognition. Marta’s main project, her quintet, was created soon after she moved to New York, and since then she has released four acclaimed albums: Partenika (2015), Danza Imposible (2017), El Rayo de Luz (2019), and SAAM (Spanish American Art Museum) (2022). The American press praised all the albums, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fresh Air, WBGO, DownBeat, All Music, All About Jazz, and many more. Two of her recordings (Partenika and El Rayo de Luz) were selected by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Albums of the Year (2015 and 2017). All of her records have appeared on numerous “Best of the Year” lists, including those of Slate, the Jazz Journalists Association, Bandcamp, PopMatters, and others.

In 2024 she released her trio album Perpetual Void on Intakt Records, with Christopher Tordini on bass and Savannah Harris on drums. The album received widespread praise, including 4½ stars in DownBeat. In 2025, Sánchez won the DownBeat Critics Poll in the Rising Star Pianist category, while also placing highly in the Pianist, Composer, Producer, and Album of the Year categories. She has also received prestigious commissions, including one from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). She has performed extensively across the United States and Europe at major festivals such as Vitoria-Gasteiz Jazz Festival, Madrid Jazz Festival, Eurojazz (Mexico City and Athens), Jazzaldia, Berlin Jazz Festival, Belgrade Jazz Festival, Winter Jazzfest (NYC), and festivals in Nicaragua and Guatemala. In the U.S., she has led projects at some of the most renowned venues, including Carnegie Hall, Dizzy’s Club, the Village Vanguard, Jazz Gallery, Roulette Intermedium, Smoke, Birdland, Blue Note, 55 Bar, Smalls, The Stone, Mezzrow, and also at institutions like 92NY and the Guggenheim Museum. Her work also extends to film: she received prizes for Best Soundtrack for a short film at the Alcalá de Henares, Curtficcion (Barcelona), and Palma de Mallorca festivals. She has been awarded two residencies at the prestigious MacDowell Colony (2017 and 2021), where she developed prepared piano repertoire. Beyond her work as a leader, Sánchez is an in-demand sidewoman. She tours and records with the David Murray Quartet — appearing on two of his albums, Francesca (Intakt, 2024) and Birdly Serenade (Impulse, 2025). She is also a regular member of groups such as the Oscar Noriega Quartet, the Maria Grand Duo, and the Webber/Morris Big Band, each of which has released an album featuring her. In addition, she has worked as a sidewoman with artists including Sara Serpa, Immanuel Wilkins, Emma Frank, Terri Lyne Carrington and many others. She is also a professor at NYU, where she teaches private jazz piano, ensemble, and piano skills courses for non-pianists.

Marta Sanchez website click here

Thank you to Out Of Your Head Records for sharing

Fearless is the captivating new album by Italian jazz singer Diana Torti, set for release on April 10, 2026 (Tambora Music).

Diana Torti on Bandcamp here

Listen/buy the first single Hawk's Hills here

Listen/buy the second single Montmartre Café here

Diana Torti is an internationally acclaimed performer, vocalist, and improviser, who’s deeply personal and inspired vision brings artistry and authenticity to the forefront. Her music explores intimate, versatile, and intense sound worlds, where improvisation is embraced as an expressive possibility beyond stylistic boundaries. Following the critical success of her albums On a Cloud (named among the best vocal jazz releases of 2019 by TNYCJR and Jazz Views) and It’s All We Have (2023) - both recorded as a duo with composer and guitarist Sabino de Bari, Torti now with her quartet, presents Fearless as both lyricist and interpreter. Featuring stunning original compositions by de Bari, along with a new and refreshing interpretation of Santamaria’s ‘Afro Blue’.

Through years of collaboration and musical explorations, the two artists have developed a distinctive sound, blending jazz, classical, and contemporary influences into a soundscape that is poetic, visionary, and surprising. Their music draws inspiration from Mediterranean culture and beyond, shaped by rich harmonies, refined melodies, and a broad palette of timbres.

At its core Fearless is inspired by the courage to express ourselves authentically, valuing our uniqueness and originality, in a contemporary world often shaped by stereotypes, imposed rules, and trends aligned with economic and cultural pressures that threaten individuality and freedom of expression. The album’s themes, mostly rooted in nature, humanity, and the outside world, are imbued with hope and the certainty that it is possible for everyone to “break the spell” and start to fly: like a hawk that transforms its limitations into driving force and vitality (The Hawk’s Hills); intimate landscapes reflecting our inner world and reclaiming the fullness of our connection with nature (Secret Places) and magical glimpses that have hosted revolutionary artistic creation despite cultural constraints (Montmartre Café).

Torti’s poetic writing traces the infinite dialectic contrasts of life, rendered as a magical and at times dazzling journey in Ups and Downs. The album also includes a new, darker and more minimal version of Whisky, a piece inspired by early blues lyrics and previously recorded by the artist. The recording closes with a striking interpretation of Afro Blue (Mongo Santamaria), where the original African-American roots of the piece metaphorically overlook the Mediterranean, revealing subtle cultural connections. Torti’s vocal melismas intertwine with de Bari’s fretless guitar in a fluid, dance-like dialogue. Diana’s voice and Sabino’s guitar are joined by outstanding Italian musicians, Andrea Colella (double bass) and Francesco De Rubeis, (drums), whose sensitivity and musicality enrich the album’s expressive depth.

The official album launch will take place on April 10, 2026, with a live performance at Arciliuto Jazz Club in Rome (Italy).

All tracks composed by Sabino de Bari except track 7 (music by Mongo Santamaria). All lyrics by Diana Torti, except track 7 (Oscar Brown Jr.) and track 3 (Sabino de Bari).

Diana Torti: vocals Sabino de Bari: classical guitar, fretless guitar Andrea Colella: double bass Francesco De Rubeis: percussions, drums

Recorded and mixed at La Strada Studios in Rome (Italy) in October 2024. Except for vocals and guitar solo on track 7, recorded at Westpoint Studios in London (UK) and mixed by Sabino de Bari in October 2025. Mastered by Sabino de Bari.

Photo by Monika S. Jakubowska Graphics by Antonella Zurzolo

Diana Torti website click here

Dynasty: Tia Fuller & Shamie Fuller-Royston: Fuller Sound Vol. 2

Release Date: April 3, 2026 Cellar Music Group

Purchase here

When sisters Tia Fuller and Shamie Fuller-Royston returned to the Fuller Sound name on their new album, Dynasty they formalized a musical history that long predates their individual careers.

Fuller Sound was the name of the saxophonist and pianist’s original family ensemble, led by their parents, vocalist/ mother Elthopia Fuller and bassist/father Fred Fuller — a working band built around shared repertoire, performance discipline, and nightly music-making rather than commercial recording projects. Dynasty frames that living history in recorded form for the second time (vol. 2), carrying the family’s musical lineage into the present.

Recorded as an intimate duo at Klavierhaus in New York on March 21, 2025, Dynasty pairs Fuller’s alto saxophone and voice with Royston-Fuller’s piano. The stripped-down setting draws directly from music the family played together for years alongside new compositions written in response to those formative experiences. Following their mother, Elthopia Fuller’s passing in 2022, the album also marks a personal shift: Tia’s decision to sing, bringing voice into the Fuller Sound language as a continuation of her mother’s artistry.

The material on Dynasty reflects lives shaped inside music from an early age. Shamie’s “Ode to Bach” traces a melody she first heard as a child through a playful Sesame Street ABC segment, long before she knew it was Bach — a tune that stayed with her and was often sung around the house.

“In This Quiet Place” was written for healing during troubled times, or for moments when silence itself becomes a place to escape. “Windsoar,” written years earlier, reflects the simple feeling of being able to soar through the sky — of enjoying life and freedom without complication are both compositions by Shamie.

Tia’s compositions place family directly at the center. “Dooty Baby” was written for their younger brother Ashton, a playful double meaning that nods to childhood games, sibling squabbles, and the unspoken duty to look out for one another. “Momma Said” celebrates the radiant, loving spirit of Elthopia Fuller, whose guiding words — “surround yourself with love and light” — served as a daily prayer of protection and optimism.

“Black Viking” was written after touring with pianist Leszek Możdżer and his Symphosphere Orchestra, reflecting the contrapuntal harmonies of that experience as seen through Tia’s perspective as a Black woman.

Standards appear not as repertoire choices but as inherited language. Sam River’s “Beatrice” was a favorite the sisters performed growing up as a trio with their father. Horace Silver’s “Summer in Central Park” recalls a tune Shamie loved playing with him while learning jazz, whether as a duo or with Tia.

Freddie Hubbard’s “Dear John” was a go-to melody learned sitting in at Denver’s El Chapultepec Lounge, often played over the changes to “Giant Steps.” The brief postlude “Descend to Barbados,” written while descending on a plane into Barbados, closes the album in motion.

Dynasty follows the Fuller Sound concept with greater focus and clarity. Fuller is a Grammy-nominated alto saxophonist whose album Diamond Cut earned a nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Album and whose career spans leading roles in jazz alongside global touring with Beyoncé.

Shamie, praised by The New York Times as “a rhythmic vanguardist,” is a composer and educator whose work appears on Terri Lyne Carrington’s Grammy-winning album The New Standard and whose commissions and teaching have shaped contemporary jazz practice.

Produced by Tia and executive produced by Cory Weeds, Dynasty is not a retrospective or a memorial. It is a present-tense document — music shaped by family, shared memory, and a lifetime of making music together.

Thank you to Lydia Liebman for sharing

March 2026 will mark the release of Realms, the new album by singer, songwriter and charismatic entertainer Rachel Sutton. Rachel’s emotive and uplifting performances filled with theatrical skill, humour and heartfelt expression, have enchanted audiences at leading venues and festivals across the UK and abroad. Now Rachel presents Realms: her best work to date, which captures the magic of Rachel and her band’s live show, while adding many subtle nuances and impressive techniques as part of the recording process.

“There is a thrill involved in the discovery of an amazing artist” - CABARET SCENE

Links here

Rachel’s vocal ability has landed her roles in award winning shows at the Edinburgh and New York Fringe festivals. Her theatrical training is at the core of every song, moreover her charming flair and easy rapport with her audience has gained her a first-class reputation across both theatre and music.

Rachel’s role in Lansky: The Mob’s Money Manat The Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank and Cadogan Hall received widespread acclaim, with UK Jazz News calling her a “stand out performer… a revelation”. Her debut album, A Million Conversations (released on 33 Jazz Records), received rave reviews, celebrated for its personal approach which saw Rachel reach poignant levels of self-expression. Realms continues along this path of deep emotion, adding some vibrant and captivating optimism, reflecting a new stage in Rachel’s journey as an artist and performer.

Photo by John Lyons

The album is further enhanced by a dream team of players consisting of Roland Perrin on piano, Curtis Ruiz on bass and Paul Robinson on drums – all longstanding collaborators and excellent musicians in their own right, who’s synergy with Rachel’s voice creates a magnetic quality to the recording, making Realms a sublimely engaging listen.

Speaking about the new album, Rachel says: This album has been a true labour of love for me in countless ways. Realms is a world made up of many parts, drawing on stories from different moments in my life, and as a result, each piece is entirely its own. Together, they form a landscape that is cross-genre by nature—an eclectic blend of emotions, sounds, and sensations. When I write, I don’t confine myself to a genre, I like to let what feels good guide me. Every song on this album tells its own story. Drawing on my theatrical background, I’ve woven in moments of drama and humour, and I hope the result is something deeply personal yet universally resonant—something listeners can find themselves reflected in.

Realms will be launched on 10th March 2026 at at Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho, London – don’t miss the chance to witness the magic of this project in a live setting tickets here

Thank you to Dynamic Agency for sharing with us

Rachel Sutton website click here

Award-winning jazz vocalist April Varner announces Ella, a vibrant tribute album to the First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald, arriving March 20, 2026 via Cellar Music Group. The recording finds Varner reimagining Fitzgerald classics through contemporary arrangements that honor the spirit of the original performances while forging an entirely fresh artistic path.

 Buy album here on Bandcamp

Varner's connection to Fitzgerald deepened significantly in 2023 when she won the International Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Vocal Competition. "I only just started singing jazz back in 2016," Varner explains. "The first vocalist I remembered listening to was naturally the First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald. Everything about her, her vibrant personality on stage, the ease in which she captured her audience's attention, and the effortless range of her voice—I knew she would be my biggest inspiration. I always knew I'd want to dedicate an album to her given all that her music has done for me in my career."

 Rather than attempting imitation, Varner captures Fitzgerald's essence while maintaining her distinctive vocal identity. The album features pianist and arranger Emmet Cohen, bassist Yasushi Nakamura, and drummer and producer Ulysses Owens Jr. on the small group tracks, with additional arrangements by trumpeter Brian Lynch for the big band selections. The ensemble also includes pianist William Hill III, trumpeters Nathaniel Williford and Michael Cruse, trombonists Jeffrey Miller and Jacob Melsha, and saxophonists Cleave Guyton and Bruce Williams.

The album opens with "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," Fitzgerald's 1938 breakthrough hit. Cohen's arrangement alternates between swing and Latin feels, with Varner offering a completely different perspective on the nursery rhyme adaptation. "A-Tisket, A-Tasket was Ella Fitzgerald's first major hit and her launch to stardom in 1938," says Varner. "I felt it was only fitting to kick off this album with this iconic tune."

Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin" showcases Lynch's tight big band arrangement with dramatic shifts between Latin and swing sections. Varner's sophisticated approach to melody and rhythm demonstrates her technical command without drawing attention to the craft itself. The album's second single, "Night and Day," strips away the brassy energy for an intimate reading of Porter's love song. "Night and Day has to be my top favorite Cole Porter composition," Varner notes. "I especially love the famous verse, and Emmet does a masterful job with the floating reharmonizations and lulling atmosphere."

According to liner notes writer Thomas Cunniffe, "This is the true mark of a great singer: the ability to sing softly while effectively communicating an intimate message." The ballad medley that follows includes "I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night" (a song Fitzgerald never recorded) and "In the Wee Small Hours," with Varner's warm delivery suggesting temporary separation rather than permanent loss.

"Cheek to Cheek" highlights the musical partnership between Varner and Nakamura, whose bass work pays homage to Fitzgerald's former husband, the legendary Ray Brown. Cunniffe writes that "April and Yasushi perform like a well-prepared dance team, each one doing their best to make their partner look good."

The deceptively complex arrangement of "Mr. Paganini" draws from the multi-tempo innovations of the Boswell Sisters, early influences on Fitzgerald herself. On "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," Varner takes a different approach than Fitzgerald's celebrated Rodgers and Hart Songbook version, featuring an extended spotlight for Cohen before closing with melodic variation. "Fly Me to the Moon" opens with the tender verse before settling into gentle swing, while "Undecided" concludes the album with blazing tempo and brilliant improvisations.

Varner came to jazz during her undergraduate years at Indiana University, initially training in the show choir The Singing Hoosiers before studying with noted jazz vocalists Sachal Vasandani, Tierney Sutton, and then Theo Bleckmann at the Manhattan School of Music. Her previous releases include the critically acclaimed April (2024) and Winter Songs Vol. 2 (2024), both on Cellar Music Group.

Born just one year after Fitzgerald's passing, Varner discovered the icon's expansive recorded legacy through careful study. Ella represents both a continuation of that legacy and a statement of Varner's own artistic voice. "I hope that inspiration shines through to those listening…and my twist on these timeless tunes," she says.

 Derived from Liner Notes by jazz journalist Thomas Cunniffe

 Thank you to Lydia Liebman for sharing with us

April Varner website

Vocalist and composer Aubrey Johnson crafts an experience of raw emotion and boundless artistry with her latest album: The Lively Air

Out March 20, 2026 via Greenleaf Music

Pre order here

Greenleaf Music is pleased to announce the March 20, 2026 release of The Lively Air, the second album from vocalist and composer Aubrey Johnson, featuring her six-piece jazz ensemble. An exquisitely crafted program of original arrangements and songs, the album marks Johnson's return to composing after several years focused primarily on recording and interpreting other artists’ music (notably, Lyle Mays, Billy Childs, Alex Sipiagin, Randy Napoleon, and more). The album serves as a brilliant companion to her critically hailed debut, the 2020 Outside In Music release Unraveled.

The album opens with two revelatory originals. Propelled by the elastic pulse laid down by bassist Matt Aronoff and texturally acute drummer Jay Sawyer, "Hope" is a delicately feathered but acrobatic ode to optimism in the face of tribulations. Written as part of a commission from the Portola Vineyards Summer Jazz series, it encapsulates many of Johnson's defining features as her liquid-mercury voice soars and swoops with breathtaking agility and she blends wordless vocal lines within the ensemble.

Moving into confessional mode, "The Words I Cannot Say" is a soul-bearing sojourn of emotional discovery, from wrath to rueful acceptance. Johnson wrote the piece at MacDowell and the arrangement makes brilliant use of her ensemble with Tomoko Omura's violin seeming to coax and anticipate the journey toward resolution, while Alex LoRe's bass clarinet evokes dark undercurrents of regret and dismay.

Writing for her ensemble, Johnson creates lush, shifting textural settings, favoring extended melodic lines whether she's delivering a lyric or a wordless passage. She credits a Chamber Music America-supported mentorship with pianist and composer Billy Childs with helping her hone the band's instrumental geography, creating arrangements where every instrument is calibrated around her voice.

"I like writing music that takes you on an emotional or dramatic journey, long-form pieces with an unusual number of sections or phrases," Johnson says. "I keep myself open to whatever I'm hearing, and resist the temptation to do melody-solo-melody, though of course I do that sometimes too. Alex's bass clarinet has such a beautiful, warm, round sound. I can have him doubling bass lines and low piano lines. And Tomoko can play arco or pizz, so I can almost write for two different instruments."

Omura also contributes "The Miracle Is In Us," an inventive piece that transforms text from Maggie Tokuda-Hall's children's book Love In The Library into an enthralling musical account of the author's Japanese-American grandparents falling in love while interned during World War II. Bisected by a passionate dance between Omura's violin and LoRe's flute in a long central passage, the song reaches an ecstatic plateau as Johnson's wordless vocals reach her upper register.

Aubrey Johnson photo by Lauren Desberg

Johnson's crystalline sound takes center stage with her reverent arrangement of Joni Mitchell's "Help Me," which ingeniously expands on the blueprint of the Court and Spark original. It's a performance that affirms her deep affinity for Mitchell's music (a relationship introduced with her liquid grace rendition of "Conversation" on her 2022 duo album with pianist Randy Ingram, Play Favorites). For sheer jaw-dropping fluidity, Johnson offers a joyous romp through "Chorinho," a piece written as a tribute to Brazilian composer Egberto Gismonti by her late uncle, the great keyboardist and composer Lyle Mays (1953-2020). It was conceived as an instrumental, but Mays "challenged me to learn it for some performances we did back in 2010, and it has been with me since," Johnson writes in the album's liner notes.

Kurt Elling's and bassist Rob Amster's setting for Theodore Roethke's poem "The Waking" is a duo tour de force for Johnson and Aronoff and provides fuel for its rise as a contemporary jazz standard. Her collaboration with her brother Gentry Johnson, "I'll Never Need To Know," is a strong contender for standard status itself. As part of the Portola commission she challenged herself to set someone else's text to music, and after a long fruitless search for an appropriate poem she recalled that her brother had sent her one during the Covid lockdown. "We collaborated on the first album, but that was a song we wrote years ago, so it was fun for us to work together again," she recalls. "The music was inspired a lot by Fred Hersch, a good friend and mentor whose music I've sung quite a bit."

The album closes with another gorgeous composition by Mays, "Quem é Você" (Close To Home). She had always loved the tune, but it was only after Mays was gone that Johnson discovered the song's Portuguese lyrics by Luiz Avellar, recorded by Milton Nascimento on his overlooked 1991 album O Planeta Blue na Estrada do Sol. It's a big, sublime performance by Johnson, and another compelling example of her group's powerful chemistry.

She arranged all the pieces, except Omura's "The Miracle Is In Us," but fmully credits her bandmates for their contributions. Omura and Aronoff have been part of the group since Johnson first assembled it for a residency at the lamented Cornelia Street Café. She has known Sawyer since they were undergrads together, and he took over the drum chair after the 2022 death of Jeremy Noller, to whom the album is dedicated. She knew LoRe from her graduate studies at New England Conservatory. Primarily an alto saxophonist, he stretched for the album. Pianist Chris McCarthy, who attended NEC after Johnson, rounds out the ensemble.

"The music is shaped around what they can do individually," she says. "Chris McCarthy went to NEC after me and he's brilliant. He can play anything. He had so much to add orchestrationally. Everything he plays is incredibly tasteful. I'm a pianist and I write from the piano, so finding him was a very important piece to making this happen."

As on her first album, The Lively Air was co-produced and edited by bassist Steve Rodby, who worked extensively with Mays in the Pat Metheny Group, and mixed and mastered by Rich Breen. It's the same production team she collaborated with on "Eberhard," Mays' 13-minute piece composed in homage to his mentor, the German composer and jazz bassist Eberhard Weber. Released the year after his death, the piece, which features Johnson on vocals, garnered Mays his 12th Grammy Award (for best instrumental composition).

"We're carrying forward my family legacy," Johnson says. "Lyle entrusted his estate to me and made it clear he wanted me to keep going. He was such a natural composer. He wrote all the time. It's less natural for me, but something I love. It was so cool to work with Steve and Rich again, they're the best team."

With The Lively Air, Johnson continues to define her own sonic space, a realm of startling and unapologetic beauty.

The Lively Air will be available on March 20, 2026, via Greenleaf Music.

Aubrey Johnson website click here

Thank you to Lydia Liebman Promotions for sharing with us.