Gregory Groover's Criss Cross debut, recorded on the Boston born-and-bred tenor saxophonist's thirtieth birthday, is a tour de force. Joined by a bespoke sextet of his favorite players, all New York-based, Groover presents a recital of 11 original tone-parallels to family and friends, his intentions anticipated, illuminated and fulfilled by his gifted bandmates.

In the fall of 2022, French jazz vibraphonist Alexis Valet followed the sun, from east to west, and embarked on a trip to New York. After three months there playing, jamming and absorbing as much music as possible, he decided to record an album, “Following the Sun”, that encapsulates his experience in the Big Apple.

South Korean singer Yeahwon Shin’s ECM debut, “Lua ya” is a gentle album of songs and lullabies, recorded in 2012 in the spacious acoustics of Mechanics Hall, near Boston. It’s a very intuitive set, shaped by “improvising, listening to our childhood memories and letting the music flow”, as Yeahwon says. Shin and pianist Aaron Parks played together just once before the present recording, finding “an instant improvisational connection” which is further explored here. Accordionist Rob Curto shares with Yeahwon an affinity for Brazilian music and has collaborated with her previously (in contexts including her Latin Grammy-nominated album “Yeahwon” on ArtistShare). But this new disc is a project beyond the idiomatic borderlines: Korean children’s songs are amongst the inspirational sources, and jazz has influenced the phrasing and imagination of all three participants, yet “Lua ya” seems to emerge from a place of pure music and a common reservoir of feeling. Yeahwon Shin dedicates the set to mothers and children everywhere.

For his second ECM album, award-winning pianist Aaron Parks assembled a trio featuring bassist Ben Street and drummer Billy Hart. The rhythm pair, which also teams in Hart’s hit quartet for ECM, blends fluidity and strength, what Parks calls "an oceanic" quality, producing waves of energy for the pianist to alternately ride and dive into. Find The Way has the aura of a classic piano trio recording, from the melodic opener Adrift to the closing title track, a cover of a romantic tune Parks grew to love on an LP by Rosemary Clooney and Nelson Riddle. Placing a priority on space and subtlety, Parks also drew inspiration from the likes of Alice Coltrane and Shirley Horn, for whom Hart played.

"Arborescence" is the word for the way something grows, seeking and adaptive, like a tree - its roots and branches moving under and around things wherever they need to go toward water, toward the sun. Prize-winning young American pianist Aaron Parks titled his ECM debut Arborescence because the album's music is the fruit of a session of solo studio improvisation in which little was predetermined; the pieces developed in the moment like "living things", in the artist's words. “The music felt as if it were coming into being and going where it had to go, in that sort of arboreal way”. It's possible to hear fleeting echoes in this music of Arvo Part and Paul Bley, Erik Satie and Kenny Wheeler; but Arborescence is ultimately something deeply individual and intimate, recorded with the lights down low in the warm, clear acoustics of Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts.