Jasmine Myra: Rising

The British alto saxophonist, flautist and composer Jasmine Myra is based in the north of England, which is far enough away from London to have its own distinctive jazz scene, much of which is in the ambit of auteur, trumpeter and producer Matthew Halsall, who founded the Manchester-based Gondwana label in 2008. More about this can be found here, in a review of Myra's first album, Horizons (Gondwana, 2022).

Horizons was an auspicious debut. Recorded with a nonet augmented by a string quartet, the music on it is lush and melodic, calm and centred, and blissful without being blissed-out. If it has a weakness, it is that the vibe is so resolutely consonant and at ease with itself that at times the music risks being misread for ambient, drifting in and out of the listener's attention, emptying and refreshing rather than filling and stimulating the mind. But one imagines this is Myra's intention, at least in part.

Myra's follow-up, Rising, was recorded by much the same line-up, and once again benefits from Halsall's empathetic, ears-on-the-detail production. (It would be premature to liken Halsall to ECM's Manfred Eicher, but give him another few decades in the control room and we will see.) The only significant change in the line-up is that Horizons' second horn player, soprano saxophonist Anna Chandler-King, has been replaced on Rising by bass clarinetist Arran Kent, depped on one track by Joel Stedman. There are changes, too, in the string quartet's personnel, heard on four of the six tracks, but the string arrangements are by Carmel Smickersgill as before. Myra's core group—keyboard player Jasper Green, harpist Alice Roberts, guitarist Ben Haskins, double bassist Sam Quintana, drummer George Hall and percussionist Greg Burns—is unchanged.

Rising is in much the same blissful without being blissed-out bag as Horizons (check the YouTube below). But there is one significant and welcome development: this time out we get to hear more from Myra as a soloist, which brings a corresponding uptick in sonic surprise and (whisper it) even suggestions of edginess.