New Release Friday, check out what’s on this weeks list!

Four tracks lead this week’s update to our New Jazz Releases playlist, and between them they cover most of the emotional range jazz is capable of — reverence, restraint, homecoming and orbit. Here’s what earned a place on the list, and why.

Pursuance – Nicholas Payton & Butcher Brown

I’ll admit I did a double take when this one showed up. Nicholas Payton and Butcher Brown reimagining Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme as a single nine-track project sounds, on paper, like the kind of idea that either becomes a career highlight or a cautionary tale. Having sat with “Pursuance” a few times now, I’m firmly in the first camp.

The album, A Supreme Blue, arrives digitally on 24 July via Concord Jazz, with vinyl following on 14 August — timed to the centennial birth years of both Davis and Coltrane. The story behind it is one of those happy accidents the genre thrives on: Payton sat in with Butcher Brown at a live show, quoted the opening theme of “Acknowledgement” over the band’s house-inflected groove, and by the end of the night had texted drummer Corey Fonville, “Yo man, we gotta do a record.”

“Pursuance” itself, the third movement of Coltrane’s original suite, is built from a bass figure by Andrew Randazzo that the whole band locked into on the spot, with Payton arranging on the fly and calling for tape. There are no keyboards on the track, which gives it a darker, more exposed quality than you might expect, with Marcus “Tennishu” Tenney’s tenor carrying much of the weight. Engineer Alex de Jong’s dub-inflected treatments, applied live during tracking rather than added afterward, shape the record’s identity as much as the playing does. Liner notes come from Ashley Kahn, who wrote the definitive books on both source albums — a fitting hand to have on this one. A full review of the album is in the works once A Supreme Blue is out in the world — this is a project I want to give proper space.

Coming Home – Hristijan Risteski

Macedonian-born, Graz-based saxophonist and clarinetist Hristijan Risteski released the first single from his debut album today, and it’s a lovely, unhurried introduction. “Coming Home” is the opening window into Waters Dance, due in October on CD, LP and streaming, and it tells you a good deal about where the record is headed — rooted, personal, built on a repeating four-chord sequence with a diatonic, folk-like melody.

What struck me most is the rhythmic language: Risteski weaves Macedonian 7/8 and 11/8 meters into and out of each other with a fluency that never announces itself as technique. His quartet — pianist Marko Churnchetz, bassist Hrvoje Kralj and drummer Chris Smith — is a working band in the truest sense, having played nine or ten months of live dates before entering ArteSuono Studio in Italy with Stefano Amerio. Notably, the charts only reached the musicians ten days before recording, so a fair amount of what’s on tape was genuinely new to the band. That balance of deep trust and fresh material gives “Coming Home” its warmth. I’ll be reviewing the full album when it lands in October.

London–Finsbury Park – Nils Petter Molvær & John Paul Jones

Nils Petter Molvær’s Be Quiet, released 10 July on Edition Records, is a duo-by-duo travelogue — nine tracks, nine collaborators, nine cities, from Chang Jing’s guzheng in Bangkok to Anja Lechner’s cello in Munich. “London–Finsbury Park,” his pairing with Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, sits at track four, and it’s arguably the most straightforwardly beautiful piece on the record.

Jones plays acoustic piano here rather than anything electric or effects-laden, and the dialogue between his playing and Molvær’s trumpet is close to conventional jazz duo territory by the standards of this project — the two voices meeting, separating and rejoining as the piece unfolds. Jones brings a bright, sparse touch that leaves plenty of air for Molvær’s melodic, soaring lines. Given how far Molvær has ranged across ambient, dub and electronica over the past three decades, there’s something quietly satisfying about hearing him this exposed, with just piano and trumpet in a room together. The album is accompanied by a documentary from Norwegian filmmaker Per Manning, tracing the process behind each pairing.

I’ll say this plainly: as a lifelong Led Zeppelin fan, the moment I saw John Paul Jones’s name on this tracklist, this was going on the playlist — no debate required. Be Quiet as a whole is also on my desk for a full review in the coming weeks, but “London–Finsbury Park” earned its spot here on its own considerable merits, personal bias aside.

Komodo – orbit

Closing out this week is “Komodo” from orbit, the third of the tracks we flagged briefly in last week’s round-up and the one I want to spend proper time on. Where the artist’s other recent work leans toward Nu-Jazz and jazz fusion in fairly direct terms, “Komodo” is dreamier and more atmospheric, built on tight, organic rhythms underneath a hazy melodic surface.

Listeners have taken to describing orbit’s sound as a kind of cosmic trip, and “Komodo” earns that description — it sits comfortably alongside spiritual jazz, cosmic funk and psychedelic instrumental playlists without simply imitating any one of them. It’s a track that rewards a proper set of headphones rather than background listening.

That’s the four leading this week’s update. You’ll find all of them, alongside the rest of our current picks, on the New Jazz Releases playlist embedded below — have a listen to the complete list and follow it on Spotify to stay ahead of what we’re covering next.

New Release Spotify Playlist

The Jazz In Europe New Release playlist features tracks from the new releases reviewed on Jazz In Europe. Updated weekly, it is the best place to discover music selected by our editors — not algorithms. Follow the playlist to keep up with the kind of records we believe deserve attention and to stay ahead of the curve.