Swept Away ECM*****

It’s seven years since bassist Marc Johnson recorded the much-admired Shades of Jade with Brazilian pianist Eliane Elias – his life partner as well as his longtime musical collaborator. If anything, they have bettered it here.

The group again features saxophonist Joe Lovano and drummer Joey Baron, two of the most sensitive musicians in US jazz, and the chemistry within this quartet of equals is palpable.

But it is the superb Elias who really lifts Swept Away to another level. There are echoes of Keith Jarrett’s European quartet, notably on One Thousand and One Nights, with its funky bass line and gospel harmonies, and the ghost of Bill Evans (Johnson’s former employer) hangs over the harmony, but this is a group with its own very authentic sound and, in Lovano and Elias, two soloists who can gently pull a tune apart and put it back together in many different, beautiful forms. ecmrecords. com