Garry Booth offers discs of vindictive vigour alongside the sumptuously smooth

What would the 33-year old Stan Tracey have made of Kit Downes’s new trio album Vermillion, his third for ECM? In contrast to Tracey’s deliberate (if unpredictable) style, Downes sounds as if he has freed his mind and allowed it to wander where it will. It’s not that simple, of course. Fragments of melody fanned by wafting drum and bass accompaniment (from Petter Eldh and James Maddren respectively) are the product of carefully considered deconstruction. Downes has pointed to the late great John

Taylor’s influence on his music and it’s evident here in the young pianist’s sublime lyricism and his textured approach to improvising. (ECM 388 0001) ★★★★★

Different again is the music of the Johan Lindvall Trio. The Swedish, Norway-based pianist’s second album, This Is Not About You, consists of 11 short pieces that discuss, in a rather prickly way, the difficulty of untangling a relationship. Tunes with sharp titles like ‘Imagine Something Different’, ‘Not Now’ and ‘Leave me Alone’ fit Johan’s knotty piano lines. Bassist Adrian Myhr’s fretful curlicues and drummer Andreas Skår Winther’s skirmishing stoke the anxiety. It’s a strangely pleasurable experience, though, because the pieces or preludes are fresh, unhurried and hang together so well. The final track ‘Break’, recorded live, sees the trio set free and relaxing into a flowing groove. (Jazzland 3779430) ★★★★

Another concept album comes in the shape of Nostalgia Machine, a quintet programme operated by Icelandic guitarist Mikael Máni. He aimed to, and succeeded in, making the sort of music that leaves an imprint on the mind. The medium is a form of impressionistic jazz that makes use of electronica and organic percussion around guitar, reeds and electric bass. Imagine a superior form of north-european schlager music with a Bill Frisellinspired, golden-toned guitar at its centre. The fine musicianship on display from all involved is complemented by superb production from US record industry legend Matt Pierson. (Smekkleysa SMJ 12 CD) ★★★★

The avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor, who died in 2018, always left a lingering mark on his audience. Of his 1957 debut, fabled jazz writer Whitney Balliett said his music ‘rejects both the listener and standard jazz procedure with an almost vindictive vigour’. Fast forward to 1973 and Taylor’s first live performance after a two-year teaching break took place at New York’s Town Hall. This previously unreleased quartet live recording, Return Concert, with Jimmy Lyons

(alto sax), Andrew Cyrille (drums) and Sirone (bass) is reliably discombobulating. The torrential piano playing across shifting rhythmic patterns, matched by Lyons’s chattering sax and the bass/drum duo’s destruction derby is simply awesome. (Oblivion Records OD-8) ★★★★★

The pianist Dave Arch stands at the other end of the accessibility scale. Arch is a household name in the UK as the miracle-working musical director and arranger of BBC TV’S Strictly Come Dancing, providing dance themes live and in every conceivable style. Left to his own devices he’s teamed up with journeyman guitarist John Parricelli (and drummer Paul Clarvis) to make a slicker-than-slick fusion album, True Colours. The programme is a ’70s throwback, but sumptuous studio work by the duo, and the ethereal vocalese of Daisy Chute on three numbers, elevates the potentially cheesy sentiment to a higher level. (Linn CKD 678) ★★★