Jasmine Myra’s debut presents a new generation of spiritual jazz, a resurgent mode always at the heart of Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana label. Leeds Conservatoire-schooled, and a player in the city’s Abstract Orchestra, Myra’s influences range from Kenny Wheeler and Shabaka Hutchings to hip-hop’s masked master MF Doom, evident in the variety of punched and rolling rhythms.

Essentially, though, this is healing music, composed in the pandemic’s wake. Its arc moves from ‘Horizons’ to ‘New Beginnings’, finding fecund organic life along the way.

Myra switches between flute and alto sax, the latter’s tart tone piercing ‘1000 Miles’’ coolly tensile rhythmic undertow, set to pounce till its brisk forward march, led on by a lilting, African-style alto solo. ‘Words Left Unspoken’ honors Myra’s late grandmother, mourned from a painful distance in lockdown. Interwoven harp, piano and bass form gently undulating concentric circles, a calm eternity around which classical strings ascend to high shivering peaks. It’s a meditative elegy, mixing acceptance, constancy and progression.

The Wheeler-influenced ‘Morningtide’ is built around Anna Chandler’s dancing soprano sax and Alice Roberts’ harp, leading directly into the building intensity of ‘Awakening’, tempi switching up but never straining, the strings suggesting symphonic soul. ‘New Beginnings’ is a quiet storm, Jasper Green’s keyboard bluesily reflective, Greg Burns’ percussion simmering, Myra’s flute a supportive bed.

Despite threads of hip-hop thinking, Horizons doesn’t smash the spiritual jazz mould. Myra’s sharply coherent compositions and arrangements do achieve their emotional intent. Knowing optimism is needed now, she offers music as cool water.