" data-original-title="" title="">Mike Holober is hiding out, he's doing it in plain sight. Constantly in demand, his work as a pianist, conductor, arranger and composer has drawn plenty of attention. In the past 15 years alone he has served as the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Westchester Jazz Orchestra (from 2007-2013), the Associate Guest Conductor of the hr-Bigband (from 2011-2015), and the Associate Director of the BMI Jazz Composer's Workshop (from 2007-2015). In that same stretch of time, his writing and conducting talents have shaped many performances of the WDR Big Band, he has worked tirelessly as a full professor at the City College of New York, received numerous fellowships and awards— Holober is a five-time MacDowell Fellow and a Ucross Foundation Fellow—and delivered some boundary-stretching albums with his Gotham Jazz Orchestra and Balancing Act octet. In short, the man is busy. While some artists get trampled under foot by the hustle and bustle, Holober seems to thrive on it, as evidenced by this double album.

Presenting a series of commissioned works—two suites bookended by two stand-alone pieces—Holober is in his element. Channeling nature's bounty into varied dimensions and directions, he manages to meld two of his loves—the great outdoors and sound itself—into enthralling functions and forms. Take the opener, "Jumble," for example; this 2008 commission for the U.S. Army Jazz Nights captures the oddly sympathetic ideals of retreat and grandeur. Named for a secluded lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the piece uses an airy resonance to sync up with solitude. But the majesty of the mountains overcomes that isolation, moving to the fore with a display of massive peaks, Brazilian maracatu rhythms and some searing solo work. It is (nearly) 14 minutes of pure magic.

Flow, the first of the two suites, follows that opener and fills out the remainder of the first disc. A polymorphous pursuit commissioned by the Westchester Jazz Orchestra, funded by the NY State Council of the Arts and penned during one of Holober's stays at the MacDowell Colony, it is a multi-movement composition of tremendous breadth and complexity. The tantalizing "Tears Of The Clouds," with close-voiced harmonies, reed whirls, muted brass, tip-toed gestures, massed fronts and a tour de force solo stand from tenorist