Ambrose Akinmusire & Mary Halvorson – Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings Music CD

Nonesuch Records releases Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings by trumpeter/composer Ambrose Akinmusire and guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson on June 12, 2026. The album features four new compositions by each musician as well as one collaboration. The duo, long admirers of each other’s musicianship, met at Halvorson’s Brooklyn apartment and began playing together periodically as far back as 2015. They rehearsed the music on Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings in January 2025, just before performing it at the New York City club The Stone; they recorded this album the next day at Sear Sound.

Halvorson says of the duo’s rapport, “I think it’s partly a shared aesthetic and an ease of communication. I feel comfortable to try whatever.” Akinmusire concurs, “It’s rare to feel like you don’t have to do anything and you can do anything. And that’s what love about playing with Mary.”

During his career, Ambrose Akinmusire has paradoxically situated himself in both the center and the periphery of jazz, most recently emerging in classical and hip-hop circles. He is on a perpetual quest for new paradigms, masterfully weaving inspiration from other genres, arts, and life in general into compositions that are as poetic and graceful as they are bold and unflinching. His unorthodox approach to sound and composition makes him a regular on critics’ polls and has earned him grants and commissions from the Doris Duke Foundation, the MAP Fund, the Kennedy Center, and the Berlin and Monterey Jazz Festivals. While Akinmusire continues to garner accolades, including the DownBeat Critics Poll Trumpeter of the Year for 2025, his reach is always beyond—himself, his instrument, genre, form, preconceived notions, and anything else imposing limitations. 

Mary Halvorson’s first three Nonesuch records were named Jazz Album of the Year in DownBeat’s annual Critics Poll, where she was also named Guitarist of the Year for the last three years in a row. PopMatters noted in its review of her most recent record, 2025’s About Ghosts, “The latest from guitarist Mary Halvorson is another master class in jazz performance and composition. If she is the future of jazz, we are in tremendously gifted hands ... she’s currently in the midst of what may be her most acclaimed and creatively fruitful period.” And Spin said, “You hear Mary Halvorson play a guitar once—it sticks with you. Her tone, both liquid and spiky, burrows into your nervous system on contact. Using a delay pedal and digital effects, she flattens, smears, and discombobulates single notes, which creates an eerie, addictive effect. Her darting, slippery approach makes her songs simultaneously vaporous, brittle, and kinetic ... Instead of dominating with virtuosity, however, Halvorson prefers to insinuate, often submerging her balletic verve beneath contrasting textures and busy, interlocking rhythms.”