Pioneering vocalist/composer/producer Claire Dickson explores new pathways of song on her adventurous third album Balance

Due March 13, 2026 on New Amsterdam Records, Balance features guest artists Zoh Amba, Lex Korten, Lesley Mok, Maya Keren, Cleek Schrey, Jon Starks, and Kitba Album release concerts at Currents Festival in Zurich, Switzerland (March 4) and Birds of Paradise Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands (March 21)

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"A composer of enchanted, majestic soundscapes; a daring songwriter unafraid to break form, time, and harmony in pursuit of new truths; a poet full of mysterious yearning; an intensely subtle vocalist who can soar, glide, hover, shapeshift, and dive into the abyss — Claire is somehow all of these geniuses at once.” – MacArthur Fellow Vijay Iyer

Berlin-based vocalist, composer, and producer Claire Dickson, lauded for her “striking – at times, wordless – lyricism and melody-driven sound chambers within shapeshifting ambience” (DownBeat), releases Balance, due March 13, 2026 via New Amsterdam Records (digital only), showcasing the fruits of what Dickson calls “emergent songwriting,” a process where songs grow organically through her daily improvising practice. Balance follows Dickson’s 2022 debut Starland, her acclaimed 2024 second album The Beholder, and her 2025 EP Through.

How does one achieve balance in a disordered world? The songs on Balance, all written and produced by Dickson, explore this question and its themes of order and chaos as reflected in personal growth, safety, and the growing pains of living a fulfilled life. Dickson’s singular vocals are featured alongside an all-star group of forward-thinking musicians including saxophonist Zoh Amba, percussionist Lesley Mok, fiddler Cleek Schrey, harpist Kitba, pianists Lex Korten and Maya Keren, and drummer Jon Starks.

Dickson’s artistic approach embraces cultivation of all aspects of her creative process, including writing and producing her own music and using her voice as a pure instrument of expression. Whether delivering hushed lyrics, creating otherworldly sonic landscapes, or laying down riveting percussive sounds, her voice “[draws] the listener into a world complex and jostled, where everything seems possible, loaded with…fascination and mystery” (Silence and Sound).

“I've been working on this album for about three years and its creation was a very detailed, intricate, and multi-phase process,” says Dickson. “While I was making the album, this conceptualization of my process as emergent and embodied started to come together.” The resulting songs became “little homes” for Dickson’s voice and lyrics. “I would wake up at the crack of dawn and record vocals when I was in a dreamlike state,” she says. “I used airplane earbuds for tracking the vocals so I could only hear these really low-fi shapes of the music.” This process of selective hearing while tracking became the central pillar for the production and recording of Balance.

In 2024, when Dickson lived in Brooklyn, her recording was interrupted by a fire in her apartment. Much was lost, but the music was saved. Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of the Brooklyn music community, Dickson was able to finish tracking vocals at Shahzad Ismaily’s studio, Figure 8. It was then that she invited in Korten, Mok, Amba, Schrey, Kitba, Keren, and Starks. “Having the studio space gave me the option to bring in other people from my community to play on the album,” she says. “This was a really amazing opportunity for me to work with my colleagues as both a performer and a producer.”

During a marathon series of 30-minute recording slots, Dickson broke down her tracks into three categories: “bones” (rhythm and structure), “flesh” (ambient and harmonic layers), and her vocals. These were then presented to the musicians in different layered combinations with an ask for them to “be a protagonist in the music they were hearing.” Dickson later took these recordings and threaded them into the existing song worlds of Balance.

The title track boldly opens the record with large pockets of silence within the opening phrases, inspired by a technique she calls “tunneling” that she noticed while reading Clarice Lispecto’s The Passion According to G.H. The author, Dickson explains, “unpacks her sentences. She'll be describing something, then take out a magnifying glass and go way deeper into this detail of the previous sentence that you didn't even think was relevant.”

Doors the album’s first single (out Jan. 20), showcases Dickson’s one-of-a-kind vocals alongside Amba’s visceral saxophone, Mok’s subtly dynamic drumming, and Korten’s lush piano. “Sign” explores one of the record’s recurring themes, breaking out of established cycles into new spaces. Dickson calls “Waterfeel” the comfort song on the album: “It represents this safe, close, comforting feeling. That's also why it's in the middle of the album. It's protected by the other tracks.” The infinite upward spiral of “Stair” explores relationship questions through the lens of Dickson’s hyper detailed production. Small pings, string plucks, bird sounds, and melodic fragments create a tapestry for Dickson's dreamlike world building. What began as an exploration of the Velvet Hand Phenomenon (a tactile illusion where rubbing your palms across two parallel moving wires makes one feel a smooth, velvety, or even oily surface) became a platform for Dickson to express bold production choices on tracks like “Hurt Me” (the album’s second single, out Feb. 19), framed by an infectious drum groove while Dickson’s lyrical fragments explore themes of vulnerability and hurt. “Eyelid” closes the album, gathering all its themes with a knowing wink. “It is,” says Dickson, “a conclusion to all of these ideas:

being intense and vital, playing the game of life, going in circles and returning to where I found comfort before, and reaching again for that elusive ‘white hot feeling’ we all crave.”

Claire Dickson is a vocalist and producer composing emergent, embodied songs. She considers song to be an artistically flexible modality and is inspired by ancient song practices embedded in everyday life. Her work utilizes microphones, pedals, synthesizers, field recordings, acoustic instruments, and draws from lineages of improvisation, extended vocal technique, sampling, and deep listening. Her two solo albums, Starland (2022) and The Beholder (2024, New Amsterdam Records), have been praised as “enticingly atmospheric… growing in depth and substance on return visits,” by The Wire. DownBeat highlighted her “striking – at times wordless – lyricism.” Her work has also appeared in Bandcamp New & Notable, Harvard Magazine, Dummy Mag, Digital in Berlin, New Sounds (WNYC), and All Songs Considered (NPR). Her recent EP Through (2025) uses electromagnetic microphones to capture the hidden language of city electronics, weaving ATM hums, router ticks, and synthesizers into songs. As a collaborator, she co-leads the experimental songwriting duo Myrtle and is part of Lex Korten’s Canopy. Some of her recent collaborations in creative music include the Emmanuel Michael group, Careful in the Sun, Joanna Mattrey and Vinicius Cajado, and Camila Nebbia, Julius Windisch, and Elias Brown. She has performed across the U.S. and Europe, at venues including NYC Winter JazzFest, The Jazz Gallery, DC Jazz Festival, San Teodoro Jazz Festival, and KM28. Claire is a Metropolis Ensemble commissioned composer and has been recognized by the Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Awards. A U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, Claire studied with esperanza spalding, Vijay Iyer, Yosvany Terry, and Claire Chase at Harvard (BA, Psychology and Music, 2019) and completed a Master’s in Creative Production at Catalyst Berlin in 2025.

All songs on Balance composed, produced, and sung by Claire Dickson with additional performers: Zoh Amba, tenor sax (tracks 1,2) Lesley Mok, drums (tracks 1,2) Cleek Schrey, violin (tracks 4, 5, 7) Lex Korten, piano (tracks 1, 2, 3) Maya Keren, piano (tracks 4, 5, 6, 7) Jon Starks, drums (tracks 5, 6, 7) Kitba, harp (tracks 4, 5)

Recorded by Claire Dickson with additional recording and engineering support from Figure 8 Recording and Varun Jhunjhunwalla. Mixing and mastering by Lee Meadvin. Cover photography by Aaron Eidman of an artwork by Nina Blass.

Claire Dickson – Balance New Amsterdam Records – March 13, 2026

TINA CARR Presents: MOON OVER MILDMAY Released: 6th March 2026

Moon Over Mildmay is the enchanting new album by British jazz singer Tina Carr. Though still a relative newcomer to the international scene, Tina Carr has been swiftly building a reputation as a vibrant and charismatic vocalist. Her 2023 debut album ‘Songs For Curly’ received universal praise, culminating in a sell-out headline show at London’s Hoxton Hall as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival. Having honed her craft on the live circuit, collaborating with many notable musicians, Tina now presents her best and most personal work to date.

Tina Carr is holding the torch for the great jazz vocal tradition, but also casts a unique take on proceedings with her distinctive and instantly recognisable voice. Moon Over Mildmay has everything that fans of classic jazz singers could wish for, but Tina also provides a distinctive edge, by carefully curating the material so as to perfectly suit her voice, while interpreting the repertoire in her own inimitable way.

Commenting on the album, Tina says: "I didn’t realise this when I was making the album ‘Moon Over Mildmay’, but somehow it has turned out to be a very personal piece of work. There's love, of course. But it’s also about otherness, where I am, who I’ve been - and about life still being an utter puzzle, and trying to find meaning and beauty in it all. Most of all, it’s about re-discovering my love of music, and what it means to me. After many years doing different things and being different people – and being different things to different people, I am, finally, being true to me.

Photo by Tatiana Gorilovsky

The title track has Tina’s lyrics, and is based on the instrumental theme tune ‘Love Song from Apache’. ‘The Crazy Woman’ is Tina’s musical treatment of a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, while ‘Ouve o Silencio’ is a beautiful classical piano piece by the renowned Brazilian composer , conductor Claudio Santoro. It’s a short piece, part of a group of compositions “12 Preludes” that was turned into a lyrical song. But as Tina listened, she heard her own words. A plethora of magical songs continue as the album unfolds.

Joining Tina Carr on Moon Over Mildmay are Miguel Gorodi (trumpet) Oli Hayhurst (Bass) Kieran McLeod (trombone) Sam Newbould (alto-sax) Tom Ollendorf (guitar) Rod Oughton (drums) Àánú Sodipe (violin) and Matt Robinson (piano) – all respected musicians in their own right, who gel seamlessly as a unit, but also all provide their own spectacular contributions to the recording. Moon Over Mildmay is a delightful listen and an early contender for vocal jazz album of the year. For a live experience, don’t miss Tina’s album launch at The Mildmay Club on 18th February 2026. Tickets available here

Tina Carr website

Thank you to Dynamic Agency for sharing with us

SARAH JANE MORRIS RETURNS WITH NEW ALBUM: ‘THE SISTERHOOD 2’

OUT 6TH MARCH ON CD & DOWNLOAD

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Acclaimed UK vocalist Sarah Jane Morris and guitarist Tony Rémy unveil ‘The Sisterhood 2’, arriving on 6 March ahead of International Women’s Day with nine new tracks celebrating the most influential female singer-songwriters of our time.

Many will be aware of The Sisterhood, the project Sarah Jane Morris and Tony Rémy unveiled in 2024, in which ten of the most notable female singer-songwriters of the Twentieth Century were the subjects of a unique song cycle. Morris and Rémy were already aware that ten was insufficient – others had to be included.

The momentum of writing and creating did not falter, and by the time of its earliest performance The Sisterhood had become twelve, with ink-undried songs for Patti Smith and the then so recently and so tragically departed Sinéad O’Connor being added to the ten originals. Since then, another nine have been written. Peggy Seeger, Etta James, Joan Baez, Dolly Parton, Bonnie Raitt, Joan Armatrading, Janis Ian, Tracy Chapman and Amy Winehouse have become part of the project, brought together in a second volume of unsurpassed quality.

Morris says that there are three qualifying factors for a singer to be included in the sisterhood. First, all must be artists of excellence and originality. Next, they must be writers as well as interpreters. Lastly, almost all have understood that talent and success give them voices to communicate on subjects of conscience. They have accepted the responsibility which goes with opportunity, to act as witnesses, spokeswomen and champions for those whose voices are unheard. All possess courage and lead by example.

Longing To Be Free (for Peggy Seeger) is a powerful feminist anthem and biographical narrative of the events, relationships and causes of a legendary life in musical activism. For Sinéad O’Connor, Oh Mother My Mother is both Celtic elegy and Ovidian dream, in which Sinéad and her mother are reunited as birds beside an imaginary lake and attempt non-temporal reconciliation. For Tracy Chapman, I Can Hear Jesus Weeping, melodically enchanting, expresses a bitter reproach for the abandonment of those most in need of protection: ‘Pity us and pity those who cannot hear the children cry’. For Amy Winehouse, The Edge is Where the Magic is Found is a jazz ballad in which Amy herself would have delighted, and which focuses on the young singer’s artistry touching lightly on the tragedy of her fall. Love Wit & Stardust (for Dolly Parton) pays tribute to the woman who, perhaps more effectively than any other, communicates universal human values of inclusion, generosity and moral clarity to everyone, ‘from Heaven to the Grand Old Opry’. Joan Baez’s song, Always Both and Never, describes the paradox that militant non-violence risks deadly reprisal; this song recalls the heroism and sacrifice that co-existed with the hedonism of the Sixties. Sweet Mama Raitt (for Bonnie Raitt) is adorned with a perfectly fashioned vocal tribute: ‘Your songs make me feel like I’ve been talking with you’ – and pays special regard to Raitt’s extraordinary song about organ donation. The song for Joan Armatrading, Let Only Love Remain is a musical tour-de-force which displays subtle understanding of Armatrading’s art, while wrapping the enigma of her fiercely guarded privacy. The song for Patti Smith, Crazy Angel, is a beautifully sustained piece of performance poetry which owes quite a lot to Patti herself, but which is sharply expressive of intention. Patti’s art, in Morris’s hand, becomes a mirror of Smith’s own magnificence Also Known as Etta James (for Etta James) is a dark, pulsing number full of the atmosphere of danger which characterised the life of an uncompromising black artist in the America of her time.  Janis Ian’s story, The Dignity of Love, artfully proclaiming human love in all its diversity, plays the album out with a gloriously sustained finale lasting over nine minutes, leaving the listener aching for more.

Sarah Jane Morris is aware of the power and quality of her vocal instrument, undiminished as she commands the stage through her fifth decade as an internationally acclaimed singer. Her intelligence, range and command of narrative structure and emotional truth are at their height. Her dramatic training enables her to deliver extended, super-demanding lyrics with flawless intelligibility. ‘The Sisterhood 2’ provides startling new material such gifts demand. With Tony Rémy (a friend and colleague since the nineteen eighties) she has  found the ideal creative partner. They know each other so well, a mutual recognition of superlative standards and world-class practice, that their work proceeds with smooth understanding and absolute trust. Tony has long been regarded as one of the leading and most versatile guitarists anywhere in the world; he once replaced Clapton in Jack Bruce’s band, is a master of Soul, Jazz, Funk and African Blues and a composer of invention and originality. His role in The Sisterhood as co-writer and co-producer is the other half of a magical equation – the voice, the words, the guitar, the shared expertise, the endless knowledge of what is needed, and where to go for the answer to that need – Morris and Rémy have it all, and ‘The Sisterhood 2’ is their latest masterwork.

According to Sarah Jane, The Sisterhood is all about the passing of the torch from sister to sister. As we listen to these wonderful songs, we are quickly convinced of Sarah Jane as a bearer of that torch, and that this project is the definitive evidence of her rightful place among the very best.

Sarah Jane Website here

Thank you to Measure PR for sharing with us

Ingrid Jensen Takes Flight on Landings — A Thrilling Quartet Release from Newvelle Records 10th Anniversary Collection

Newvelle Records proudly presents Landings, the brilliant new album from acclaimed trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, available February 27, 2026 as part of the Newvelle Ten Collection. Jensen’s career has been defined by her luminous tone, fearless improvisation, and broad acclaim. With Landings, she opens a new chapter with music of astounding color, intimacy, and swing.

Joining Jensen are three masterful collaborators: Gary Versace (organ), Marvin Sewell (guitar), and Jon Wikan (drums). Together, they form a quartet that can go from 0 to 60 at the drop of a hat, delivering music that is at once composed and free, intricate yet never rigid, swinging as hell and always searching.

The album includes a thrilling moment of living history: at 89 years old, tenor titan George Coleman joined the band to revisit his classic “Amsterdam After Dark.” His appearance is electric — a burst of energy and soul from one of jazz’s great elders, whose sound brings both authority and joy to the session. Recorded February 7–8, 2025, at EastSide Sound in New York, Landings balances originals by Jensen (“New Body,” “Handmaidens Tale,” “Landings”) with contributions from Sewell (“The Workers Dance”), Versace (“Many Homes, Many Places”), and a classic by Carla Bley (“Ida Lupino”). Each track reveals new shades of the ensemble: fiery grooves, luminous ballads, and expansive improvisations that embody the band’s unique chemistry.

With Landings, Ingrid Jensen affirms her place among today’s most vital trumpet voices, leading a band that transforms composed material into something fluid, surprising, and deeply alive — and welcoming a living legend into the fold for a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration. There’s an openness and generosity in the way this group plays together. Every track feels like a new discovery, every second alive in the moment. Landings was recorded and mixed by Marc Urselli, mastered by Matthew Lutthans, and pressed at QRP, ensuring the record’s sonic brilliance translates beautifully to vinyl.

As part of the Newvelle Ten Collection, Landings is one of five albums celebrating the label’s tenth anniversary. Each release in the series features new artwork by internationally celebrated artist Ragnar Kjartansson, highlighting Newvelle’s dedication to pairing music of depth and daring with striking visual art.

The full Collection includes:

• Stars — Martin Wind with Kenny Barron, Anat Cohen, Matt Wilson (Jan 30) • Landings — Ingrid Jensen with Gary Versace, Marvin Sewell, Jon Wikan + guest George Coleman (Feb 27) Catalog# NV037 • Renee Said — Elan Mehler with Loren Stillman, Scott Robinson, Ben Monder, Tony Scherr, Francisco Mela, Matt Wilson (Mar 17) • Seer — Loren Stillman with Craig Taborn, Thomas Morgan (Apr 24) • For All Your Flowers — Skúli Sverrisson with Bill Frisell (Aug 1)

Newvelle-Records.com

Ingrid Jensen website click here

Thank you to Ann Braithwaite for sharing with us

Sara Colman and Rebecca Nash, the compelling vocalist-songwriter and pianist-composer duo, are to release their absorbing new collaboration Ribbons in February 2026 with Stoney Lane Records – an album of poignant original writing, improvisations and new artistic directions.

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“… Colman’s exquisite vocals and Nash’s own penchant for blindingly beautiful chord structures ... the resulting music is simply stunning.” - UK Vibe

Featuring a host of notable guest artists, the album is built around a jazz sensibility, with Colman and Nash's evocative ‘story-songs’ forging threads from the folk, classical, improvised and songwriter worlds, with influences as diverse as Rickie Lee Jones, Quercus, Joni Mitchell and Debussy.

Drawing inspiration from the creative partnership of Ellington and Strayhorn, the harmonic language of John Taylor, and the artistry of lyricist/vocalist Norma Winstone, the long-term collaborators’ strong bond as both friends and artists was central to the album’s creation.  During the summer of 2020, when the world was turned upside down, Sara and Rebecca took up residence in a house in a forest with only each other and some chickens for company, and set about writing. Founded on a song they wrote together - Ribbons - the resulting collection of new works celebrates the joy of musical partnership, friendship and collaboration.

The opening track, Noble Heart, featuring acclaimed saxophonist Iain Ballamy, is at the centre of the album’s spirit for Colman.  “I was working on melody and lyrics for Palladium, one of Rebecca’s compositions, whilst at the same time, helping a close friend clear out and say goodbye to her partner’s house in southern Spain for the last time. The prevailing sense of loss reminded me of a feeling of searching for something that you know is already lost or that you’ve not yet found: a deep yearning.  I discovered that the precious noble metal Palladium has an ash-like quality, and needs to be deeply mined. This track represents the inner light that exists at the heart of all of us - a light that can sometimes feel hidden or difficult to access.”

Pianist Rebecca, cited by Downbeat Magazine as being “at the vanguard of innovative and compelling new music”, has released two albums under her own name - Redefining Element 78 (2022), and Peaceful King (2019) - from which the instrumental track Little Light is now reimagined for Ribbons Vol. 1.  Featuring Trish Clowes on tenor saxophone, Sara’s lyrics for the track are inspired by revival and awakening from a darker place, opening with a moody dissonant multilayered harmony passing between the trio.

A more playful moment is felt in Sophie’s Song, a reworking of Night Dreamer by Wayne Shorter, and the only ‘borrowed’ idea on the recording.  Inspired by multiple late-night dashes here and there to try and catch the Northern Lights with their Aurora-hunting friend Sophie Bancroft, this image is virtuosically perceived in Rebecca’s extraordinary piano solo which plays out to the end of the track.

Bristol-born Colman has worked with some of the leading lights in British music, including Laura Mvula, Liane Carroll and Mahalia, performing at the BBC Proms and Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage in recent years, with her two previous albums on Stoney Lane - What We’re Made Of (2018) and Ink On A Pin: A Celebration of Joni Mitchell (2021) - receiving a series of glowing reviews.  “…unfailingly beautiful, richly expressive voice.” - Jazzwise 

In 2019, she was commissioned by the American Canales Project Hear Her Song to write a piece celebrating the life of Sakena Yacoobi, an Afghan activist who has spent her life fighting for the rights of children and women to education in Afghanistan.  This gave rise to The Gardener (also featuring Iain Ballamy) - the voice of the narrator is that of a student from one of the many of the schools Sakeena set up, speaking of their own desire for their lives along with huge love for their teacher.

Nash, too, is a prolific performer, featuring at Jazzahead! 2025; the Lotus Code tour - a UK-Japan collaboration at the Southbank; BBC Radio 3’s J to Z studio session and live broadcasts from the Manchester and Marsden Jazz Festivals, alongside appearances at Jazz In The Round, and leading jazz festivals in London, Cheltenham, Love Supreme, Cambridge and Bristol.

The album’s title track, with trumpeter Percy Pursglove, represents the search for that ‘elusive ‘something’, says Nash.  “It’s symbolic of human existence - focused on the strands that bind us together.  We were trying to find inspiration to write about something that would represent an artists’ quest to create. Ribbons was our first collaborative song and has become symbolic of our working relationship.”

The album artwork, too, followed a similar path.  Created by Swiss-born, UK-based artist Vivienne Schadinsky, it was discovered by Rebecca - spotted on a friend's wall by chance.  Symbiocene 1 (from a series of six) became the striking visual identity for Ribbons Vol. 1, with its themes of interconnectedness and renewal, resonating deeply with the spirit of the album.

Ribbons is released on 20th February 2026 on CD and all digital platforms with Stoney Lane Records.

Thank you to Rupert Burley for sharing with us

On Feb. 13, Melissa Aldana will release Filin, a stunning ballads album that presents a collection of songs drawn from Cuba’s filin music tradition performed by a remarkable quartet featuring pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, bassist Peter Washington, and drummer Kush Abadey, as well as special guest vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant. The third Blue Note album by the GRAMMY-nominated tenor saxophonist, Filin is introduced today with the music video for the gorgeous lead single “La Sentencia.”

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For as long as she’s been a recording artist, the Chilean-born saxophonist has wanted to make a ballads record. With archetypes like John Coltrane’s classic 1963 LP Ballads as her North Star, Aldana saw a slow-tempo project as a way to advance her lifelong quest for sound.

“I transcribe Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and Don Byas, among many others. For them the sound itself is a tool to express an emotion,” she explains. “Every single note is a whole world. So there is a technical side to playing, but then there is this mystical side of sound that… I still don’t know exactly what it is.” A ballads record, she believed, would help her burrow deeper into the essence of her sound.

To start, she reached out to Rubalcaba, a revered pianist and one of her “biggest heroes” who she has longed to work with at project-length. His suggestion proved a revelation: Aldana should interpret the filin music of his native Cuba, a gorgeous yet still-unheralded tradition of richly arranged romantic song that thrived between the late 1940s and early 1960s. Filin — the word derives from “feeling” — “created a dialogue between traditional Cuban trova, the bolero and jazz, redefining Cuban musical identity,” Rubalcaba explains. “Filin elevated lyrics to a level of greater poetic and colloquial intimacy, and gave rise to instrumentalists and singers of great virtuosity and creative elegance.”

To Aldana, filin songs presented a deeply meaningful new ideal: They reminded her of the lovelorn standards she’d internalized as a jazz saxophonist, but with lyrics sung in her native tongue. “They felt like the ballads that I love from the Great American Songbook,” she says, “but because the lyrics are in Spanish, I was able to connect to these songs in a way that I never thought I could.”

With Rubalcaba as her guide, she began exploring the history of filin music and working with him to pare down the songs that spoke to her. A plan coalesced: Rubalcaba would craft the arrangements and play piano alongside the rhythm tandem of Washington and Abadey. Aldana’s dear friend McLorin Salvant, would sing on two numbers, and Blue Note Records President Don Was would produce, offering his trademark oversight, at once discerning, empathic and open.

The end product is, in a word, stunning. It’s also unlike anything else in Aldana’s catalog — or in 21st-century jazz on the whole. Throughout these eight tracks, the ensemble enacts a kind of stirring and emotional minimalism — a quiet intensity that places paramount importance on Aldana’s radiant delivery of the melody. This music moves slowly, simmering forward with great deliberation and restraint, which is all the more impressive once you consider the runaway virtuosity these players are capable of.

Perhaps most remarkable, however, is the fact that this incredibly patient program is never less than compelling; like great cinema, it holds its audience rapt without bells and whistles. When Aldana solos, she plays in a way that contrasts the longform harmonic probings she’s best known for. Her improvising here is mellifluous and moves like gossamer, with a newfound focus on accenting the core tunefulness. “I wasn’t trying to play the perfect jazz solo,” she says. “I was just trying to play inside the band — to leave space and be as present as I could, let the songs breathe. I’m older too, so I might be feeling less like I have something to prove. I also just felt in my gut that I wanted to do a ballads record,” she adds, “that I have something to say.”

Melissa Aldana website click here

Thank you to Blue Note for sharing with us