The jazz polls might still list cello under the miscellaneous instrument category, where she just placed in the number one spot in the 67th DownBeat Critic’s Poll of 2019, but in the hands of Tomeka Reid it’s an essential vehicle for unfettered jazz exploration. Old New, the second album by the Tomeka Reid Quartet, exemplifies why she’s quickly become a definitive figure on the 21st century jazz scene. As a composer, arranger, improviser, bandleader, and impresario, she embodies jazz’s progressive ethos.
