The trio’s 2021 album All The Things You Are was live-streamed from the empty Smoke Jazz Club in New York during the pandemic, ostensibly to honour Hart’s 80th birthday. We gave it four stars in Jazzwise 264, and rightly so. This time, they re-convened in a local studio, older and maybe wiser, after a week-long tour and created a second recording to savour. Hays, now 55, and a welcome sideman in any number of New York bands, leads off on his composition ‘Butterfly’, producing a passage of such luminous beauty that one literally did not want it to end.

While comparisons may be invidious, the seemingly effortless creative flow made me think of Keith Jarrett in full flight. Wayne Shorter’s ‘Capricorn’ has a more turbulent examination, Hart and Street making their variable presences felt, Hays picking his way pleasingly through the turmoil. His ‘Song For Peace’ is hymn-like, elegiac in feeling, the melody glimpsed rather than overstated, Street’s deep bass notes cushioning the piano passages. The Beatles' ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ works rather well and Hays builds up quite a head of steam as he refashions it into a jubilant romp, his harmonic variations offering surprises at every turn. ‘Row, Row, Row’ is said to be constructed on a 12-tone row, but still sounds pretty frisky and yes, compelling.

Frisell’s ‘Throughout’ is certainly reflective, while Hart’s ‘Irah’ has a melodic shape that prompts perfection, Hays finding plenty to say, before he heads for Nascimento’s title track, and enjoys its pensive quality.