Blue Cranes

Keeping a band together, particularly among the mercurial community of jazz musicians, is no small feat. Other gigs beckon. Life outside of making art takes precedence. It’s a reality that makes the continued existence and progression of Portland quintet Blue Cranes feel so momentous. The ensemble — saxophonists Reed Wallsmith and Joe Cunningham, drummer Ji Tanzer, keyboardist Rebecca Sanborn, and bassist Jon Shaw — has been working together in a variety of formats since 2004, creating a solid body of work that has connected them to both the traditional sounds and the future-minded artists of their chosen genre.

Chad Crouch’s soundwalks fuse immersive binaural recordings—made while walking through a sound-rich natural environment—with his elegantly simple instrumental scores. Columbia Lowlands Soundwalk captures the reverberant ancient calls of Sandhill Cranes wintering along the Columbia river, pairing them to tender, evocative, melodic performances.

The new album by Sweden’s Vargkvint, the solo project by multi-artist Sofia Nystrand. ‘Månens Hav’ is the follow-up to her 2019 record ‘Hav’, and it’s co-produced and engineered by Grammy Award-winning Antonio Pulli at LEITER’s studio in Berlin’s celebrated Funkhaus complex.