With a mother who teaches violin; a father who is a record collector and aficionado; and a grandfather who sings opera, Isfar Sarabski had an inevitable predisposition to a life in music. Yet the 31 year-old Azerbaijani pianist has made the kind of progress on the international stage, above all through his triumph in the Solo Piano Competition at the Montreux jazz festival, that makes it clear that his talent might well be more than inherited. Backed by bassist Alan Hampton and drummer Mark Guiliana, both of whom have been important figures in American jazz for two decades, Sarabski, who also had a Berklee scholarship, acquits himself well on this, his major label debut.

He has impressive technical ability and a wide range of vocabulary, drawing liberally on classical, post-bop and the folk of his homeland, which makes this album anything but unpalatable.

But it is not especially memorable, either. The nine original pieces, which include numbers with strings as well as solo piano, all reflect a potentially exciting, budding composer, but as elegant as Sarabski’s harmonies, rhythms and themes are he hasn’t yet really managed to create a soundworld that stands apart from any number of his peers also using Mehldau-Glasper-Iverson templates. He is finding his way. As one visionary asserted many yesterdays ago, tomorrow is the question.