As a preamble thanks firstly to a good friend of marlbank's the London saxophone teacher and fine jazz writer Selwyn Harris for alerting us to Change of Course. It's always good to be hipped to a brand new release from someone whose taste you admire and whose views generally mutually chime.

As side listening to Change of Course - spend time with Fred Hersch's Live in Europe (2018) the iconic pianist Hersch with bassist John Hébert and drummer Eric McPherson who are playing partners of pianist Sebastien Ammann's on Change of Course out today.

Ammann, an expatriate Swiss musician, composer and teacher living in New York, is no newcomer and you can tell that not only by the elite playing company that he keeps on this recording pairing him with trumpeter Ralph Alessi, best known for his work with Ravi Coltrane and albums on ECM such as Imaginary Friends, and the wonderful Herschians Hébert & McPherson. But more to the point it's for his own elegant unstuffy piano playing whose radiant style makes us think definitely of Brad Mehldau-inspiration Hersch and not surprising given that Ammann was taught by the great piano guru whose own new solo album Silent, Listening is among 2024's best jazz releases.

Doesn't 'henge his bets

Concerned with climate change - ''My goals with this project are to raise awareness and to inspire listeners to take action,'' Ammann has noted regarding his motivations thematically - Change of Course also features a guest spot by saxophonist Caroline Davis (on the pieces 'Bright Light' and 'Jevons Paradox') whom we liked a lot on Julian Shore's Where We Started which unfortunately kind of disappeared on release given that the Pandemic was raging at the time. 'Twas a bleak year.

The mournful but brightly voiced 'Hubris' led by Alessi is our favourite track - we playlist it today on the marlbank Spotify 10 - but there is a good range of fine tracks. On 'The Meadows' gain the presence of a strong rhythm section sense of understanding. Then there's 'Jevons Paradox' - the meaning of which alludes to an axiom that posits the notion that as technological efficiency increases for a resource, its consumption tends to increase rather than decrease. It has a crisp contrapuntal feel in the accompanying Hébert bass line that makes us think of the way Terence Blanchard writes say on an album like Bounce and there are points of comparison surely in Ammann's approach with pianist Aaron Parks.

Overall it's the composing, Ammann's own tunes, as well as the savvy harmonic and rhythmical integration of the group interplay that lift this out of the ordinary.