Jagged Edges and Elegant Lines: The Music of Ayn Inserto. The WDR Big Band with Sean Jones

Ayn Inserto received a call from the world-renowned WDR Big Band to present an evening of her compositions, along with four newly commissioned pieces that resulted in a suite. The results can be enjoyed on the bandleader’s first new album in eight years, Jagged Edges & Elegant Lines: The Music of Ayn Inserto. The live recording features a radiant selection of compositions from Inserto’s songbook alongside a new suite written for the acclaimed trumpeter Sean Jones, the ensemble’s special guest soloist for the evening.

Out August 7, 2026 via Summit Records (and available for presale), Jagged Edges & Elegant Lines takes its name from the disparate qualities that Inserto feels best embody her music, which is described as, “unapologetic, rhythmically insistent, and built on a language she has refined over time” in the astute liner notes by bass trombonist and longtime collaborator Jennifer Wharton. “Her music lives in the tension between those two ideas. The edges are sharp, often angular, driven by horn stabs, bass line interruptions, and unexpected rhythmic resolutions. But the lines they form — across ensemble writing, across form, across time — are surprisingly continuous... Her compositional identity is built on controlled friction.”

It also comes from a place of deep personal connection and community, which is nowhere so evident as on “Suite for Sean Jones,” the four-movement piece that Inserto crafted for, and about, the trumpeter. Unlike anything she’s written before, the suite is a portrait in music of four key facets that she sees as making up the personality of a stellar musician whose artistry and friendship she’s valued for many years. She remembers meeting while he was chair of the brass department at Berklee, where she is Assistant Chair of Harmony and Jazz Composition — though it turns out that a young trumpeter had sat in with her college band during a tour of Italy in 2001, who she only discovered was Jones many years later. “I feel like our story keeps growing and growing.”

In its wide-focus entirety, Jagged Edges & Elegant Lines is also a brilliant portrait of Ayn Inserto: visionary in its abstract architectures, yet welcoming in its generosity of spirit; giving in its spotlighting of the myriad gifts of a band of virtuosic talents, yet communal in its blending of those voices into a unified and stunning whole. “For me, melody is queen,” Inserto states simply, though implying a profound depth of meaning. “I wrote a lot of difficult music for this concert, but if I can't sing it, I don't gravitate towards it. Music is just so powerful, and if a live performance can generate that kind of energy, it can change people’s perception of what it can be. — Shaun Brady, Philadelphia-based journalist.

Available on SUMMIT Records and anywhere music is sold.

Down a Rabbit Hole

The trick about falling down rabbit holes is knowing how to get back out. The insistently inventive composer, arranger, bandleader and educator Ayn Inserto has built a brilliant career around her gift for designing fantastical but slyly logical musical landscapes and crafting sonic adventures marked by sinuously surprising melodies, Technicolor harmonies, and arrestingly vivid voicings. Due for release on Summit Records on September 21, 2018, the Ayn Inserto Jazz Orchestra's first new album in a decade, Down a Rabbit Hole, reintroduces her sly and imaginative musical world, a realm populated by some of jazz's most expressive improvisers.

In many ways Inserto conceived Rabbit Hole to showcase her three special guests — trumpet star Sean Jones, tenor sax great George Garzone, and trombonist John Fedchock — along with her exceptional cast of players many of whom have been with her since she launched the group in 2001.

Available on iTunes and anywhere music is sold.

Home Away from Home

From the liner notes: "The first time I went to Italy, I fell in love. Upon returning home, I continued to crave the new place that I discovered. I kept going back, and each time was better than the first. But it wasn't till I was invited by Massimo Morganti in 2008 to Senigallia did I understand the true meaning of Italy. That week changed my life. I discovered an ensemble that performed my music beautifully, musicians that were receptive to my teaching concepts, friendships that last a lifetime, a new place of beauty and a deeper exploration of the soul of Italy in its cuisine; I was home.

Within this recording you will find elements of my experience in Senigallia and the Marche region: the joyous "festa" in Subo, the lush performance by the band and ardent trombone solo in La Danza Infinita, the hard groove in Hang Around and the excellent execution of the horns in You're Leaving and Rabbit Hole."

Muse

On this recording, built around the theme of celebrating those who inspired her, Ms. Inserto pays homage to influences ranging from her family, friends and bandmates to former teachers (Brookmeyer, Dave Eshelman and John Maltester) to eminent jazz musicians (Michael Brecker, Frank Foster and Steve Lacy). "Her genius is that while her music is harmonically sophisticated, there is a sweet, flowing energy that makes it accessible and enjoyable for any palette," writes Garzone in the liner notes.

Clairvoyance

Clairvoyance is Ayn's first recording as a leader. This album features her re-arrangements of three Garzone compositions as well as her own originals. The pieces feature the incredible musicality of the ensemble as well as the amazing solos of Garzone and Brookmeyer. There is a wide contrast in moods from piece to piece, and this album promises an interesting ride.