Saxophonist
Maria Grand has been studying and working with a who’s who of great jazz artists since moving to New York from her native Switzerland: Billy Harper, Steve Coleman,Vijay Iyer, Craig Taborn and MacArthur fellow Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl, for starters. For her third album
Reciprocity, she sticks to collaborating with her regular backing musicians
Kanoa Mendehnall (bass) and
Savannah Harris (drums). Taking inspiration from the arrival of her son – indeed, recording and touring while she was pregnant – Grand uses her spiritual jazz influences to develop a powerful statement on creation itself.
Opening track “Creation: The Joy of Being,” part of a multi-part suite, evokes another classic of spiritual yearning in a jazz context – John Coltrane’s