The dreamy atmosphere is what strikes you most overall on In the Nature of Things, the latest album by pianist Leslie Pintchik released in late-March. Joined by the New York-based player’s sextet, and produced by the band’s bassist Scott Hardy who also arranged the horns, it’s a collection of instrumentals mostly made up of Pintchik’s own gently imaginative tunes (just one standard here, and that's ‘I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face’ from My Fair Lady). Steve Futterman in the notes makes the connection between the tracks featuring Wilson and trumpeter Ron Horton as drawing inspiration from Herbie Hancock’s Speak Like a Child and there’s a detectable feeling of the Golden Age of Blue Note about the album somehow moulded into making it sound right for today without seeming somehow too old-fashioned. Lightly swinging acoustic small group jazz, sometimes with latinate touches and an appealing tristesse on the most complete performance of all, ‘Ripe’, delivered with skill and flair, Pintchik isn’t perhaps the most assertive of pianists yet the former university teacher makes her ideas count and they’re worth discovering here, almost a decade on from her recording debut. Listen to ‘I’d Turn Back If I Were You’, the funky latinate second track from the album by clicking above on the link.