" data-original-title="" title="">Pete Malinverni is a spiritual man. It's a side of his musical personality that he explores with depth and clarity on Heaven, a mostly trio affair that puts his succinct feel for the sacred, his supple and exquisite touch and his improvisational elan in the forefront on a gorgeous set of music. He serves up the traditional— "Shenandoah," "A City Called Heaven," "Wade In the Water—along with Duke Ellington's "Heaven" and "Come Sunday," and more, including his own "Psalm 23," a commissioned choral composition re-shaped for his piano trio.

Malinverni spent 18 years as the church musician at the Defore Street Baptist church in Brooklyn, New York, an experience that certainly immersed him in creation of music on a celestial scale. With Heaven he asks the question of the essence of the concept. Is Heaven a delayed reward for a righteous existence, or is it here, right now, in every human interaction, in every grain of sand? These are ruminations elicited perhaps by life events: the passing, in 2012, of the pianist/composer's beautiful and talented wife, vocalist