After decades of daggers drawn, some of the most interesting contemporary voices in American jazz are the ones who are searching for some space between the dogma of the neo-boppers and the wilful individualism of the avant garde.
Pianists such as Jason Moran, Robert Glasper and Ethan Iverson (who provides a sleeve note here) reach back into the tradition, even as they stretch the limits at the other end.
Ohio pianist Aaron Diehl – a 29-year-old former Wynton Marsalis sideman – has looked like every inch the conservative up to now, a follower of the austere John Lewis school of jazz classicism, but his second studio album, with guest appearances from legendary saxophonists Benny Golson and Joe Temperly, hints at new horizons, even while it keeps its feet planted firmly on swinging, hard-bop ground.
