The wise and wistful title track of "Wisteria", written by Art Farmer, takes us back to the early 60s, when both Steve Kuhn and Steve Swallow sang softly of the blues in the trumpeter-flügelhornist's band. Swallow was also a member of the trio Kuhn formed shortly thereafter: they've shared a lot of history since then. Steve Swallow played on Kuhn's 1974 classic "Trance" while Kuhn contributed to Swallow's "Home" and "So There" in 1979 and 2005 respectively. Drummer Joey Baron has been heard with Kuhn on ECM discs including "Remembering Tomorrow" (ECM 1553, 1995) and the dazzling tribute disc "Mostly Coltrane" (ECM 2099, 2008).

This new album takes a fresh look at several pieces last heard on record in Kuhn's orchestral "Promises Kept" collection - "Promises Kept" itself, "Adagio", "Morning Dew" and "Pastorale". Kuhn's compositions, few in number but robust and adaptable, have often lent themselves to quite different interpretations. If anything, these small group versions emphasize the emotional core of the material. Counterbalancing the yearning balladry, the album also includes driving, exciting hard bop (on "A Likely Story", for instance, and Swallow's "Good Lookin' Rookie), Carla Bley's gospel-tinged "Permanent Wave", and the Brazilian "Romance" by Dori Caymmi... It's a varied programme which the trio seems to sail through effortlessly, musicians secure in their craft, beyond the need to prove anything, creating the agreeable illusion that this demanding music is playing itself.

Swallow and Kuhn after a half-century of collaborations indeed know each other's playing well; in accord at a very high level, they share the same love of melody, and develop their improvisational ideas together, as is already apparent on the buoyant opening track, Kuhn's "Chalet" where soloist and accompanist roles rotate. The resourceful Joey Baron, one of Jazz's finest drummers, a player with access to the whole tradition, is also thoroughly at home in Kuhn's oeuvre, having worked with the pianist, in diverse settings for more than 20 years. Surprising, then, that the recording of "Wisteria", in New York's Avatar Studio in September 2011, marked the first occasion that Kuhn, Swallow and Baron had ever played in trio together.

As writer Bob Blumenthal noted at the time of "Promises Kept", "Kuhn's touch, which illuminates the subtlest harmonic nuances and allows both shimmering upper-register glissandos and booming bass chords to emerge with pristine clarity and keenly calibrated force has long been one of his defining traits". The famous touch - which Kuhn often credits to early lessons with Margaret Chaloff - is in full bloom on "Wisteria".

The quartet heard here was formed in 2003, and originally billed as the Ethan Iverson/Mark Turner Quartet. When Billy Hart asked if it could be his band for a gig in his hometown of Montclair, New Jersey, the other members unanimously voted to give it him permanently. As the Billy Hart Quartet, the four musicians have continued to play a number of dates each year, often at New York's Village Vanguard. In 2005 the group recorded a well-received debut album for hard-bop label High Note. Since then, as Ethan Iverson notes, the music has become more free and spacious, qualities that fit well with ECM's priorities. "All Our Reasons" was recorded in June 2011 at New York's Avatar Studios, with Manfred Eicher producing.

Billy Hart, of course, is no stranger to ECM, first recording for the label in 1974, with Bennie Maupin on the classic "Jewel In The Lotus". For ten years a member of the Charles Lloyd Quartet, he can be heard on Lloyd's "The Call", "All My Relations", "Canto" and "Lift Every Voice" - influential albums all. Tenorist Mark Turner guested with Enrico Rava on "New York Days" in 2008, also recording with the Fly trio in that year on "Sky And Country" (a second Fly disc is in preparation). Pianist Iverson and bassist Ben Street make their first ECM appearances with "All Our Reasons".

Billy Hart, Ethan Iverson and Mark Turner are all featured as composers on "All Our Reasons". Hart's "Song for Balkis" begins the programme with an evocative drum solo, with Billy in freer mode, loosely swinging but also with a roiling sense of unpredictability which engages his fellow players - each of whom plays differently, and often rather beautifully - in this context. Mark Turner says of playing with Hart: "I feel I have more trust in myself and more trust in the beat than I would in other situations, and it has helped me grow a lot as a musician."

"Ohnedaruth" was the spiritual name adopted by John Coltrane. Ethan Iverson's homage re-works his "Giant Steps": The opening piano salvo has left and right hands in utter de-synchrony (Iverson's description), like a player-piano gone awry. When the tenor trio takes over, the original changes are barely perceivable through a web of delayed resolutions and unexpected voice-leading, but the emotional feeling remains close to Trane.

"Toli's Dance" is a modern blues composition by Billy. After a fanfare for piano trio, Hart initiates an undulating funk beat. Turner devours the complex harmonic atmosphere in a soaring solo, and the piano responds with simple chimes, morning bells at the end of the party.

"Nostalgia for the Impossible" has several uncanny moments of free harmony between Iverson and Street. Iverson grew up on records Paul Bley made for ECM and perhaps this performance is a kind of tribute.

The gently loping Hart tune "Duchess" was previously recorded on his "Oshumare" album (Gramavision). Street works closely with Hart here to shape each new rhythmic feel into a distinctive statement while Iverson and Turner take melodic fragments and spin them about.

Mark Turner's "Nigeria" takes off from "Airegin", Sonny Rollins's much-covered composition (which was inspired originally by Nigerian dancers, and premiered on Milt Jackson's "Bags' Groove"). Turner's capacity for high-speed improvising on chord changes at top speed is facilitated by the quick reflexes of Ben Street: a master-class in subtle listening.

"Wasteland" is a through-composed piece by Turner learned in the studio especially for this recording. The only improvised sections are the introductory saxophone cadenza and the drum interludes. "Old Wood", meanwhile, is an improvisation originally intended to introduce another piece. The title comes from Iverson's pleasure in an exceptional Steinway.

Finally, Hart's "Imke's March" begins and ends with a whistled melody Billy used to call his daughter in from the playground. When the band gets going Hart stays active on the snare, continuing the march theme. Iverson's casual solo incorporates trademark diatonicism and motivic development.

Following her outstanding ECM debut performance as the lyrical voice of Jon Balke's Siwan recording (released June 2009) Amina Alaoui explores a rainbow of musical possibilities on her own Arco Iris. It is an emotionally powerful album that soars through related idioms. This time, says Alaoui in her liner notes, there is "no need to discuss the origins of fado, flamenco or Al Andalusi" for the music itself investigates the common crucible of the styles: Amina's delivery, and the performances of her superb ensemble, make the interconnections of the genres self-evident. Yet as she also points out, "you must first have assimilated your own roots, in order to absorb the culture of the other..." Historical awareness, study and discernment are essential but more is needed: "I am an artist of the present. I abstain from simply copying the styles of the past."

Singer, composer, poet and scholar of distinction, Amina Alaoui was born in Fez and originally schooled in the Moroccan Gharnati tradition, which remains a central reference in her work. She also studied European classical music from childhood onwards. While based in Paris in the mid-1980s she explored medieval chant with Henri Agnel and Persian song with Djallal Akhbari, interested, as ever, in the points of contact between the traditions. Alaoui has been the recipient of many awards including the Algerian Prix d'Interprétation du festival de Musique Arabo-andalouse d'Oran, Morocco's Prix d'Excellence au Festrival Ghanati d'Oijda, and the Cairo Opera's Prix d'Honneur du Festival de Musique Classique Arabe. She is also a laureate of the Villa Medicis Hors les Murs where her musicological research into the confluence of musical streams led ultimately to the work that has become Arco Iris.

On this disc, recorded in April 2010 in the recital room of Lugano's Audiorium RSI, with Manfred Eicher producing, Amina is flanked by her truly international ensemble: violinist Saïfallah Ben Abderrazak and oud player Sofiane Negra are from Tunisia: Negra has played with Alaoui for many years and has much experience also of cross-cultural collaboration - working, for instance, with flamenco singer Ines Bacan and with many jazz players. Abderrazak's interesting resumé includes work as a physicist specializing in acoustics and sound principles as well as membership of the Symphonic Orchestra of Tunis. Guitarist José Luis Montón from Barcelona has a following amongst flamenco adherents worldwide (and an ECM solo album of his own is in preparation). Mandolinist Eduardo Miranda was born in Brazil, has lived the last two decades in Portugal, and links choro and fado styles through a vocabulary influenced by jazz. The group's youngest member, Idriss Agnel, son of Amina Alaoui, studied music at Maîtrise Notre Dame de Paris from the age of seven. He is meanwhile renowned as a multi-instrumentalist, contributing here deft percussion and (on one track) electric guitar. The sparkling interchanges between the instrumentalists and the rapport of each of them with Alaoui make for exciting listening throughout Arco Iris.

The songs are from many sources, and the texts and some of the melodies span a thousand years. Amina sets mystic poems by St. Teresa of Avila and by 11th century king of Seville Al Mutamid Ibn Abbad, and nature poetry of Ibn Khafaja. ("Nothing is more beautiful, O Andalusians / Than your luxuriant orchards / Gardens, shadow and rivers / And fountains of crystal."). There is 20th century fado from the pen of Antonio de Sousa Freitas and the well-known 15th century text "Las Morillas de Jaén" which Amina puts to her own music (a very different rendition can be heard on the Garbarek/Hilliard Officium Novum set).

The album concludes with the title track, Amina's song of praise to "Arco Iris", the rainbow: "Sun and rain in an embrace (...) bridging the firmament", while "Sounds/ Of light and colour/ Weave in harmony".

CD booklet includes liner notes by Amina Alaoui in French and English, all song texts in English translation, and photos from the recording session.