This is the first disc on the re-launched, sometime vintage jazz label OKeh (revived by Sony Classical) that promises more jazz releases in the future by the likes of Bill Frisell and David Sanborn. John Medeski is better known as one third of the hip rockin’ New York avant-jam band organ trio Medeski Martin & Wood, a band that proved one of the biggest audience-crossover successes in the past two decades. But here is Medeski seemingly transported into another space and time with a solo performance in which his usually filthy-sounding Hammond B-3 has been dumped for a delicately-toned 1924 Gaveau, a pre-modern French piano in the Pleyel style as favoured by Chopin. For an uncharacteristically reflective venture such as this, Medeski draws from an intimate palette of anything from harmonically oblique impressionism and Satie-like minimalism, through to blues-jazz and rural Americana. Recorded in a studio-converted 19th century church, the album boasts mostly originals with the addition of Willie Nelson’s ballad ‘I’m Falling in Love Again’, and the spiritual ‘His Eye is on the Sparrow’. Medeski uses mostly the entire range of the piano as if demonstrating its unique acoustic features rather than his own playing but he does this very well; the old Gaveau is a treat for the ears in an age in which the harsh sounds of digital are the norm. Hearing Medeski in this kind of serene environment compared to the fast and furious MM&W might take some adjusting to, especially from fans of the latter. But Medeski’s wittily resourceful charms at the keyboard shine through in the end.