Tomin’s debut full-length work, A Willed and Conscious Balance, answers a set of questions left unasked in recent years, as a new generation of artists re-energizes the tradition often referred to as “jazz” into its own directions: Where are the composers working with large ensembles? Who are the arrangers creating unexpected charts and dreaming up new orchestral sounds, layered tones and harmonically vibrant colors, the kind that have amended jazz’s “music for soloists” reputation since the swing era’s sunset? Yes, if you pay enough attention, you know that big-bands still walk the Earth, and composers are writing compelling charts for them; but they’re all-too-rarely making music that sounds both new and inviting, now and classic.

Which is where the singular septet featured on Tomin’s A Willed and Conscious Balance comes in. It’s about the air they breathe into current ideas of creative music, the beautiful harmonies and textures this group of esteemed New York + Chicago players bring to life in Tomin Perea-Chamblee’s six originals — as well as in two pieces by fallen heroes, Booker Little and Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre — all of which the 27 year-old composer, multi-instrumentalist and band-leader (re)imagined for the occasion. This is music that aspires towards humanist synergy, pulling forth a palette hard to come by nowadays, neither too difficult nor too abstract, yet one that still requires a healthy leap of sonic faith. In this, Tomin’s A Willed and Conscious Balance is, quite simply, unlike any new jazz album you’ll hear in 2024.