Blue Note labelmates Ross and Immanuel Wilkins have been two of the most eagerly-embraced African-American jazz newcomers of recent years, and they're united again on vibraphonist Ross's third release for the label, with an expanded young band. Ross has observed that these pieces were all free improvisations first conceived through his own impromptu musings with a saxophonist friend - ideas which he then broadened into structures for a bigger band. Ross found that much of his initiating improv survived the ensemble situations - but the communality of repeating tonal centres is at the core of this music, so maybe that's not surprising.

The opening 'Prayer' threads his pulsating vibes sound through a dreamy songlike theme, gradually picked up by the others in swelling brass harmonies. 'Guilt' opens in solo bass and vibes musings from which Maria Grand's tenor eventually rises; 'Choices' begins as a solo trumpet dream that Marquis Hill steers through thickening harmonies; 'Wail' is a yearning sax lament with a churning chordal underpinning that becomes a gleaming vibes glow, and then a pulsating band vamp for Wilkins' sax to delicately glide and dive over. 'Doxology', a rare deviation into sparky boppishness, highlights Grand's agile, glancing tenor phrasing and Sean Mason's sleek piano lines, and the closing 'Benediction' finds Mason intoning solemn major 3rds, with Ross wonderingly tiptoeing over them as an imagined congregation - eventually including the whole band - leaves church. That scenario is an underpinning of this music, which won't work for everyone - but there's a haunting glow to The Parable of the Poet that clearly didn't come just from a textbook.