Vinyl LP pressing. "When we walked out on stage it felt like a homecoming," says Jakob Bro of this texturally spacious and emotionally charged live recording from Copenhagen, on which three of the defining protagonists of improvisation in Denmark, leading musicians from three generations of Danish jazz, come together. The concert, in February 2023, was particularly poignant since it marked a return to performance for trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg, who delivers some of his most thoughtful playing here. Repertoire, drawn from Jakob Bro's Returnings and Gefion albums, is addressed in spontaneous and exploratory spirit, and transformed as Marilyn Mazur's subtle percussion language of blossoming gongs and metals and rumbling drums blends with Bro's drifting and rippling washes of sound. The music's atmospheric qualities, as well it's eruptive moments, are enhanced by the resonant acoustics of the Danish Radio Concert Hall.

OUTPOST OF DREAMS

LIVING MOUTAIN

WORDS UNSPOKEN

BLUE LAND

VAGABOND

SPHERE

HENRY PURCELL: FANTAZIAS

THEORY OF BECOMING

Galperine's ECM New Series debut, Theory of Becoming, is one of the most original and evocative albums of the year. A composer of Russian and Ukrainian heritage, he explains the sound world the album represents as, "an augmented reality of acoustic instruments, created from recordings made with real and virtual instruments. The numerous transformations the instruments undergo allow me to capture their acoustic nature while also adding techniques and colors impossible to produce in reality..."

NEW DAY

SEPTEMBER NIGHT

NEW DAY

Double vinyl LP pressing. Recorded at Munich's Muffathalle twenty years ago, in September 2004, this previously-unreleased concert recording of the Tomasz Stanko Quartet is a fascinating document, capturing a developmental chapter in the music between the song forms of the Suspended Night repertoire and the improvised areas that the Polish musicians would explore on Lontano. The Munich show was a highlight in a year in which the Stanko Quartet played a record number of gigs, with extensive tours of the US and Europe. The great trumpeter himself is at his charismatic best here, playing superbly, clearly inspired by the energetic support and communicative power of Marcin Wasilewski, Slawomir Kurkiewicz and Michal Miskiewicz, the dynamic young players for whom he had been a mentor. The live album was produced by Manfred Eicher. Tomasz Stanko: trumpet / Marcin Wasilewski: piano / Slawomir Kurkiewicz: double bass / Michal Miskiewicz: drums

Vinyl LP pressing. The third album from Joe Lovano's Trio Tapestry finds the group continuing to extend it's spacious and lyrical approach, with deep listening and intense focus. "Our Daily Bread is fueled by the rhythm spirit of expression that projects the mysterious world of music that lies ahead," says master saxophonist Lovano in his liner note and these elegantly fluid pieces and free-floating ballads indeed feel like songs of the soul.