It's a measure of the respect and goodwill afforded Colombian pianist Carolina Calvache that the line-up of names on this, her sophomore album, reads like a veritable who's who of players. Getting the mighty Ruben Blades to guest on vocals is a coup in itself – the Panamanian auteur lends his pleasing tenor to ‘Te Conoci de nuevo’, singing lyrics written by Calvache. But it's the latter's expressive playing, as fierce and propulsive as it is graceful and airy, able to convey much with a phrase here, a flourish there, is bolstered here by a large and diverse cast of talents, for whom the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Calvache's compositions seek to combine poetry and jazz – or if you like, imbue jazz with the sort of emotional narrative conjured by poetry and storytelling – and it's to the credit of all, not least producer (and trombonist) Achilles Liarmakopolous – that she succeeds in pulling this off. Poetry is a jumping off point: the album's title track is based on a work (by Colombian writer Porfirio Barba Jacob) about humanity and vulnerability. Portuguese jazz/fado singer Sofia Ribeiro and flautist Hadar Noiberg lift the Pablo Neruda poem ‘El Pajaro yo’ sky-high. Calvache's own, harmonica-laced ‘Stella’ has echoes of Horace Silver's ‘Lonely Woman’. An album that keeps on giving.