Brazilian-born, NYC-based guitarist/composer Ricardo Grilli impressed jazz fans with his album 1954 and after a few years, he’s back with his 2020 follow-up called 1962. With 1954 honoring the year of his father’s birth, Ricardo’s 2020 album, 1962 is a heartfelt reflection of the year of his mother’s birth. Although he was born in 1985, as his music intends, Ricardo’s musical heart is clearly in the more jazz-friendly past. For a composing musician of such a relatively youthful age, Ricardo sounds positively seasoned on 1962, peppering his vintage guitar-centric, jazz-based music with a current vibe and a modern-sounding approach to his recording. Interestingly, the most current sounding, as well as the most reflective sounding, track here is the lead-off track “1954-1962”. Assisting Ricardo on 1962 are some gifted side musicians including Joe Martin (bass), Eric Harland (drums), Mark Turner (sax) and Kevin Hays (piano). A skillful jazz purist, on 1962 Ricardo sets a new standard of excellence, especially for a younger musician clearly obsessed with the bop-jazz era of the 1950s and early ‘60s. With its pure, instrumental jazz ethic, clearly the music on 1962 could have been made in the 1960s and true to form, Ricardo Grilli’s 2020 CD comes across as a timeless musical masterpiece of the 21st-century jazz idiom.