ECM

For his third ECM release as a leader, Chris Potter presents a new acoustic quartet that naturally blends melodic rhapsody with rhythmic muscle. The group includes superlative musicians well known to followers of ECM's many recordings from New York over the past decade: keyboardist David Virelles, bassist Joe Martin and drummer Marcus Gilmore, who each shine in addition to the leader on multiple horns. The Dreamer Is the Dream features Potter on tenor saxophone - the instrument that has made him one of the most admired players of his generation - in the striking opener "Heart in Hand" and such album highlights as "Yasodhara," as well as on soprano sax ("Memory and Desire") and bass clarinet (the title track). Potter is an artist who "employs his considerable technique in service of music rather than spectacle," says The New Yorker, and his composing develops in texture and atmosphere with every album.

Williamson Robin: Trusting in the rising light [Digipack / CD]

Bleckmann Theo: Elegy 2017 [CD]

Balke Jon: Warp 2016 [CD]

Winstone Norma: Descansado/Songs for films 2018 [CD]

Julia Hülsmann Trio: Sooner and later 2017 [CD]

The great British jazz singer Norma Winstone once again casts her net wide for source material for this third ECM album with Italian pianist Glauco Venier and German clarinetist / saxophonist Klaus Gesing. Alongside new pieces by Winstone/Gesing and by Venier, the trio covers tunes by singer-songwriters Nick Drake, Fred Neil and Tom Waits. They take a fresh approach to Madonna's "Live To Tell", and to Dave Grusin's "It Might Be You", as well as Ralph Towner's "A Breath Away" (now with lyrics by Norma) and "Bein' Green", a children's song elevated to jazz standard status by Sinatra, Stan Kenton, Ray Charles and many more. "As Winstone moves ever farther from the Great American Songbook," All About Jazz observed, "it's certain that, with band mates as sympathetic as Gesing and Venier, there's precious little she can't do."