Often times hooky - unpretentious - immediate - ​Raise Your Spirit Consciousness is a gently appealing praise song kind of album from Jay Hoggard who now is in his late-sixties was a significant presence in the 1970s and 80s on records by Chico Freeman and James Newton. In sparkling form you feel the Hutchersonian vibist has nothing to prove and everything to give on a bunch of unselfconscious gospel and jazz heartland derived originals (even a touch of reggae folded in on the catchy 'I Want Love, I Don't Want Hate') plus tunes by Wayne Shorter, Duke Ellington and Thad Jones. With the American who hails from Washington D. C. reedist Dwight Andrews surfaces best on a good many passages particularly on the absorbing 'Primordial Aqua Mist.'

Recorded at the Van Gelder studio in New Jersey, the most celebrated jazz recording studio in jazz history, the choice of Wayne Shorter's 'Deluge' is the masterstoke and an album highlight - you don't often hear the JuJu number also recorded at Van Gelder's that much covered these days. The Ellington Sacred Concerts material is core but the album avoids being too earnest or generic. Hoggard rows in from the edges where you can concentrate on a stylish sense of swung momentum. Full personnel has Hoggard, Andrews on soprano sax and bass clarinet, James Weidman - organ and piano - Nat Adderley, Jr., piano - Kenny Davis on bass and Pheeroan AkLaff on drums. Jay Hoggard, photo: publicity shot