Jazz, July 2026

Immanuel Wilkins Quartet Live At The Village Vanguard, Vol 1 Blue Note 8817082; LP: 8817087

A live recording by one of Blue Note’s brightest stars, made in the New York club that the label calls a ‘hallowed jazz shrine’. By the time you read this, Vol 2 and Vol 3 will have followed. As with the preceding studio albums, you can hear the total rapport between Wilkins, pianist Micah Thomas and drummer Kweku Sumbry, who had been playing together for three years before the release of the saxophonist’s 2020 debut, Omega , while bassist Ryoma Takenaga has taken over seamlessly from Rick Rosato. One of the album’s four long tracks is Alice Coltrane’s devotional ‘Charanam’, and the quartet’s aim is complete vesselhood, becoming a conduit for music to pass through. They are getting there. SH

Sound Quality: 85%

QOW Trio The Rule Of Three Whirlwind Recordings WR4847; LP: WR4847LP

Irish saxophonist Riley Stone-Lonergan graduated from Leeds College of Music before co-fronting the free jazz Family Band quartet with trumpeter Kim Macari. Then, with veteran drummer Spike Wells, who’d worked with Tubby Hayes, and gutsy bassist Eddie Myer, came QOW Trio, named for a Dewey Redman tune but essentially a tribute to Sonny Rollins, who’s evoked notably this time on the Calypso-like ‘NowHere’. It’s no mean feat to lead a chordless trio that keeps listeners tuned in and wanting more, but with his fluent technique, broad palette of styles, gift for melody and warm, inviting sound, Stone-Lonergan does this with ease. SH

Sound Quality: 85%

Soft Machine Thirteen Dyad Records DT034; LP: DT034LP

After 60 years, countless regroupings and many changes of direction, the band that once led the psychedelic Canterbury scene still flourishes today. The longest-serving member is guitarist John Etheridge, who first joined in 1976, while Theo Travis, who plays keyboards, saxophone and – here on the thoughtful ‘Waltz For Robert’ – flute, has notched up 20 years. Bassist Fred Thelonious Baker took over when an 80-plus Roy Babbington retired in 2021, while drummer Asaf Sirkis joined a year later after the retirement of John Marshall. And it’s Sirkis who creates and defines those wide-open spaces for Etheridge to soar in. This is surely a not-so-unlucky Thirteen. SH

Sound Quality: 80%

Miroslav Vitous Mountain Call ECM Records 789948; LP: 7879042

Billed as the Czech bassist’s ‘first album as leader in a decade’, this is really a retrospective with 18 tracks recorded in Prague between 2003 and 2010. There are duos with French clarinettist Michel Portal and with Jack DeJohnette, and pieces with orchestral musicians. But in the ‘Rhapsody’ suite we hear a virtual orchestra, Vitous using the sample library he’d created in the 1990s, with saxist Gary Campbell and drummer Gerald Cleaver (who played, as did Portal, on the 2009 album Remembering Weather Report), and strangely offstage vocals by Esperanza Spalding. More a ‘work in progress’ than a finished product, but rather fascinating. SH

Sound Quality: 80%