This week’s releases open in reflective territory, with Anette von Eichel’s nocturnal Halo, the intimate voice-and-accordion dialogue of Marilena Paradisi and Natalino Marchetti’s Blue Prelude, and Jan Prax’s lyrical quartet album Traces of Light. Bobby Watson brings veteran experience and younger musicians together on the hard-bop-rooted Continuum, while J.D. Allen looks towards Morocco’s Gnawa tradition on SÖWT. Two welcome vinyl reissues complete the selection: John Coltrane’s tender yet quietly searching Ballads, newly available through the Essential Vinyl Series, and Steve Lacy’s angular Evidence, featuring Don Cherry in a spacious pianoless quartet devoted largely to Thelonious Monk.
Halo
Anette von Eichel
Cologne-based vocalist Anette von Eichel explores the meeting of darkness and light on Halo, a sequence of songs shaped by dreamlike, nocturnal imagery. Beginning with the words, she draws out the music concealed within them alongside pianist Sebastian Sternal, bassist Henning Sieverts and drummer Jonas Burgwinkel. Their responsive improvisation keeps each piece fluid, while the close integration of voice and instruments gradually transforms the album into a continuous, quietly absorbing journey.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 48 kHz, 24 bit)
Blue Prelude
Marilena Paradisi/ & Natalino Marchetti
Italian vocalist Marilena Paradisi and accordionist Natalino Marchetti create an intimate form of chamber jazz on Blue Prelude. Across nine compositions by writers including Wayne Shorter, Pat Metheny, Antônio Carlos Jobim and Horace Silver, the pair treat melody as a starting point for free yet attentive dialogue. Marchetti draws orchestral colours and rhythmic detail from the accordion, while Paradisi responds with flexible phrasing and shifting vocal textures, bringing coherence to this wide-ranging repertoire.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 48 kHz, 24 bit)
Traces of Light
Jan Prax
Saxophonist and composer Jan Prax leads a new quartet on Traces of Light, joined by pianist Carl-Henri Morisset, bassist Riccardo Del Fra and drummer Zhitong Xu. Across nine originals, the group moves between muscular post-bop, quieter reflection and passages of searching improvisation. ‘Elevation’ and ‘Cold Flame’ bring greater urgency, while ‘Hope in Bloom’, ‘Reverie’ and the title track reveal Prax’s more lyrical side. The result is an emotionally direct album shaped by close, intuitive interplay.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 44.1 kHz, 24 bit)
Continuum
Bobby Watson
Veteran alto saxophonist Bobby Watson links generations on Continuum, pairing longtime collaborators Curtis Lundy and Victor Jones with pianist Jordan Williams, trumpeter Wallace Roney Jr. and trombonist Kysen Ellis. The programme mixes Watson originals with pieces by Lundy, Jones and Rico Jones, plus Mal Waldron’s ‘Soul Eyes’. Rooted in hard bop but animated by a younger front line, the album extends the mentoring tradition Watson absorbed during his years with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
SÖWT
J.D. Allen III
Tenor saxophonist J.D. Allen draws on the hypnotic rhythms and spiritual intensity of Morocco’s Gnawa tradition for SÖWT. Joined by pianist Leo Montana, electric bassist Hamza Souissi, drummer Ruy Adrián López-Nussa and guembri player-vocalist Yazid Alaoui, Allen folds those influences into seven spacious originals. Rather than treating Moroccan music as exotic decoration, the group creates an earthy, searching dialogue in which blues-rooted tenor playing, cyclical grooves and collective improvisation meet on equal terms.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 48 kHz, 24 bit)
Ballads (Essential Vinyl Series)
John Coltrane
Recorded across three sessions in 1961 and 1962, Ballads captures John Coltrane bringing searching intensity to familiar standards without disturbing their intimacy. With McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones and bassists Jimmy Garrison or Reggie Workman, he pares back the virtuosity while retaining his unmistakable tonal depth. ‘Say It’, ‘All or Nothing at All’ and ‘It’s Easy to Remember’ emerge not as easy-listening detours, but as quietly radical demonstrations of melody, restraint and collective trust. Re-released here in the Essential Vinyl Series at a generous price.
Available format: Vinyl Record
Evidence
Steve Lacy
Recorded in 1961, Evidence finds soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy deepening his lifelong engagement with Thelonious Monk. Joined by trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Carl Brown and drummer Billy Higgins, he tackles four Monk compositions alongside two lesser-known Ellington pieces. Lacy’s dry, incisive lines and Cherry’s wiry trumpet preserve the music’s angularity, while the pianoless quartet creates plenty of open space. Adventurous but firmly melodic, the album points clearly towards Lacy’s increasingly individual path. Making a welcome return to vinyl here from Waxtime in Color.
Available format: Vinyl Record
