Florian Pellissier Quintet - Rio

For their fifth album, the Florian Pellissier Quintet marked twenty years together with a pilgrimage to the legendary Rudy Van Gelder Studio, a cathedral of jazz sound. What emerged wasn’t the dark, stormy séance they first imagined, but something more refined, a luminous, tropical-leaning take on hard bop. Recorded in New Jersey, mixed in Paris, and mastered in London, Rio balances spiritual depth with elegance, with tight rhythm grooves, warm acoustic interplay, and subtle touches of synth that drift through like a warm breeze. The result is contemporary hard bop that's melodic and sunlit, with the quintet choosing finesse over fury and finding a new latitude in the process.