Susanne Ortner is one of the many emigres who’ve arrived in New Orleans recently to enliven the traditional music scene. Originally from Germany via Pittsburgh, she played fine traditional jazz, klezmer and Caribbean clarinet and tenor sax before arriving in town in 2017. In the last year or so she’s gone head over heels for Brazilian choro, a musical cousin of our rag and New Orleans jazz. This type of crossover of open-minded traditional players embracing tangential music’s (Charlie Halloran and Colin Myers are two others) is a heartening development. 

Joining her are James Singleton, the acoustic bassist with 40 years of playing with the top New Orleans musicians; and another recent arrival, the guitarist Nahum Zdybel. A very reserved fellow, Nahum is an unheralded wizard, who like Singleton can play it all.

The album is comprised of six early Brazilian pieces, five New Orleans jazz standards, a Venezuelan waltz by the wonderful Lionel Belasco, and an Ortner original. The Brazilian pieces are unorthodox; choro is not ordinarily played with this lineup. Ortner’s tone is always impeccable and she has mastered much of the Brazilian choro vocabulary; she pulls out all the stops on the propulsive “Santa Morena.” Zdybel alternates between Cuban habanera comping and more traditional Brazilian rhythm, and solos flawlessly. The three pay close attention to tasteful counterpoint, timbre and dynamics. 

The New Orleans pieces are more conventional but still yield surprises. Zdybel plays astonishing counter-rhythm on Bechet’s rarely-heard “Chant in the Night,” and goes into a triplet frenzy on Morton’s “The Pearls.” In fact, the album’s finest moments are when Zdybel blasts us with an unhinged bit of rhythmic whimsy. So much traditional jazz aspires to perfect solos and recreation from 1932; this is much more exciting stuff.