Pablo Held, prolific German pianist and composer (with great social media game as well), comes off a series of collaborations with French guitarist Nelson Veras to venture something wholly different on Buoyancy. He joins two of the UK’s finest, organist Kit Downes and trumpeter Percy Pursglove, as well as German drummer Leif Berger in a mostly original set overflowing with harmonic riches, unexpected timbres and, not least of all, irrepressible swing. The pairing of piano and organ is itself unusual, and with players of this high a stature, it’s going to be wild. Held’s use of mellotron, like a celestial flute-synth, on “Underwater Rendezvous” and “Star Wars” (yes, by John Williams) is sheer wizardry. His piano solos are top form throughout, not least on a pleasingly overstuffed arrangement of the 1969 Pippi Longstocking theme (“Här Kommer Pippi Långstrump”, by Swedish pianist Jan Johansson, tragically killed in a car wreck at age 37). Downes is far more out-and-out jazzy than in his ECM work of this period, fulfilling the bass role like a solid Hammond player but also taking plenty of left turns. Pursglove brings chops galore, soaring into Kenny Wheeler-like intervallic leaps on the title track.