The Swiss-born New York based young tenor saxophonist Grand generated credible plaudits for her 2018 full debut release Magdalena with her concept-driven contemporary enigmatic post-M-Base jazz.

Much of that work was linked to alt. spiritual expressions of femininity. Reciprocity goes even further down that road, its central inspiration being the process of creation with specific reference to her son who she was pregnant with over the course of the recording – over half the tracks come from what she's titled a ‘creation’ suite.

Released on pianist Fabian Almazan's eco-friendly Biophilia Records, Reciprocity features a more exposed stripped-down ensemble format of sax-bass-drums and improvisation-centric setting than previously. As a result Grand is more front and centre here and there's something of the old-school tough tenor in her sound too.

With a commanding, engagingly limpid tone, she shifts between the smokily meditative and quickfire harmonic invention, skilfully creating tension by negotiating the borders of ‘in’ and ‘out’ playing and sensitive rhythm section support. Although the only non-original Venezuelan folk song ‘Canto Manta’, with an engaging vocal by Grand, provides a haunting diversion, vocal and spoken word contributions from each of the trio across another few tracks have a starkly eerie effect that caters for a more obscure taste.

Grand is a mesmerising new voice on the tenor sax nonetheless.