Rising

This album has been added to 1 public list:

• 

  2024 Top 20

  Adam Wood

  Across the six tracks and 39 minutes of Rising, Jasmine Myra’s alto saxophone is accompanied by minimal piano, delicate strings, and ethereal flute, but itself remains centre-stage. The majority of the compositions feel roomy, allowing both space in the mix (by Portico Quartet’s Glen Freeman) for the instruments’ glowing tones to shine, and time on each track for successive melodic developments.

  On album high point ‘Glimmer’, Myra’s sax sits out for a minute, allowing the percussion and bass to build something new, on which the sax then returns to build. It’s one moment of mesmerising counter-play amongst several here, leaving the listener unsure as to the balance between composition and improvisation.

  This was one of a few jazz-adjacent albums that caught and held my attention this year. Where Myra’s record won out is in its inviting warmth—a quality that had me reaching for it as the accompaniment to reading, writing and armchair daydreaming alike.