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Blank & Jones is not so much a band as a brand: a duo of producers specialising in trance, techno and electronica, based in Köln, Germany and with a dozen or so albums and even more singles to their name since they got together to create Sunrise back in 1997. All of which might suggest what to expect here: banging choons, and a bit of ambient trippiness, right? Erm, no: here the duo teams up with German pianist and composer Marcus Loeber to create an album all about intimately recorded solo piano, playing gentle, melodic pieces. And that’s about it: this is, as the title suggests, a relaxed, slow-paced set of tracks, none of them especially memorable but all suitably chilled out. The piano sounds nicely weighted and detailed, and the whole thing might be just the thing to play at a dinner party (or a laid-back hi-fi show demonstration).

The veteran vibes player Bobby Hutcherson marks his return to the venerable Blue Note label with this all-star set, produced by label president Don Was and with an all-star line-up including saxophonist David Sanborn, organist Joey DeFrancesco, and drummer Billy Hart. None of these stalwart performers are exactly strangers to the recording studio thanks to extensive careers. As you might expect, this is a joyful set, with DeFrancesco’s Hammond bouncing off Hutcherson’s understated vibes, and assured rhythm-keeping by Hart. It’s a relaxed, good-time set of tunes, played by a bunch of old masters completely at ease with themselves and what the others are doing.

Jazz pianist Vijay Iver’s been busy of late: having changed label from ACT to ECM last year, he’s managed to put out three albums, of which this is the latest, as well as being appointed a Professor of the Arts at Harvard. Here he rejoins with long-term travelling companions Stephan Crump on double-bass and Marcus Gilmore wielding the sticks – the three have been playing together for over a decade – for a set combining Iver’s takes on some jazz classics as well as self-compositions. Iver and company pay tribute to Monk, Coltrane and Strayhorn with impressive takes on ‘Work’, ‘Countdown’ and ‘Blood Count’ respectively, but it’s in the original pieces that there’s the strongest sense of musicians who know each other well both locking together and playing off each other. It’s all recorded with typical ECM clarity by label founder Manfred Eicher.

You can’t help noticing that Paul Lewis’s recorded repertoire closely follows that of his mentor Alfred Brendel, whose early Vox LPs included Pictures at an Exhibition, a work he redid 30 years later for Philips. Issued with a bold Kandinsky cover, this Teldex Studio coupling is from Nov ’10/Feb ’14 and there’s a real disparity in sound quality. Pictures. .

Born in Paris in 1656, Marin Marais studied the viol under Sainte Colombe and worked under Lully in the court orchestra. He wrote over 800 pieces for viol, many in suite form and the Canadian oboist has transcribed six of those here. (The baroque oboe was first heard in a work by Lully a year after Marais was born and it quickly became very much in demand in France. ) The suites are typically in seven-movement form – Prélude, Courante, Sarabande, Menuet, etc – with a few concluding Gigues having descriptive titles: ‘La Chicane’, ‘La Badine’, ‘La Petite’.

Coming to this one hot on the heels of the Craig Armstrong's It's Nearly Tomorrow, it might be tempting to think ‘Not another album of film music’, but though German-born saxophonist Jason Seizer has created an album drawing on music from some celebrated movies, he combines with his band – Pablo Held on piano, Matthias Pichler on bass and drummer Fabian Arends – to come up with a set that’s both smooth of sound and perfect for a little late-night listening. Not surprisingly Seizer’s breathy sax is to the fore, underpinned by delicate playing from his fellow musicians, with plenty of brushwork and cymbals in the percussion department, a rich, warm bass and every touch of the piano crystal-clear. It’s not the most challenging jazz album you’ve ever heard, but the musicianship is beyond question, and the recorded sound serves the performers well. AE Sound Quality: 85% Hi-Fi News Lab Report Digitally recorded and mastered, this 96kHz rendering offers very low levels of white noise (hiss).