The Cosmic Tones Research Trio - All Is Sound (2024 US Pyramid Records Vinyl LP)

The Cosmic Tones Research Trio - All Is Sound | Vinyl LP - 2024 US Pyramid Records (MOR-09, a Mississippi Records label)

The alto player and composer Roman Norfleet built this record out of an idea he had been chasing for years. His earlier group, Be Present Art Group, grew from drum gatherings he ran in Washington DC in the spirit of Alice Coltrane's teachings, and its 2023 album came out on Mississippi Records. For All Is Sound he pared everything down to a trio, joining the cellist and multi-instrumentalist Harlan Silverman and the pianist Kennedy Verrett, who also handles flutes and didgeridoo. The name tips its hat to Sun Ra, and the music sits in the lineage of Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Laraaji: healing music made from saxophone, cello, piano, flutes, small percussion and the odd wisp of analogue synth. For all the instruments listed, it is an exercise in restraint. "Peace Prayer" turns on a single lyrical piano line, and "Black Rest" leans into the East-meets-West modality Sanders loved.

It found an audience well beyond its small pressing. All Is Sound turned up on plenty of 2024 best-of lists and has become one of the underground spiritual jazz records people keep passing to each other, admired for it's sincerity. The trio followed it with a self-titled second album in 2025. 

This is the 2024 United States pressing on Pyramid Records, a Mississippi Records label, catalogue MOR-09.