The path of jazz spirituality is a well trod one, with travelers ranging from Alice Coltrane to Ted Joans. And each journey is no doubt personal to each traveler, but few have seemed at once so enigmatic and so understated as the one taken by pianist Myra Melford.

From her early career as a modernist with stride leanings through her Fulbright scholarship spent studying Indian classical music, Melford has managed to maintain a distinctive voice while reflecting a variety of stylistic influences. And like her fellow Chicagoan Joseph Jarman (with whom she has both played and practiced akido), there is an Eastern orientation to her work � more philosophic than aesthetic perhaps, but present nonetheless.

The Whole Tree Gone is the second recording by her group Be Bread, and may be the record that most unites her personal East and West. The group, which takes its name from the 13th century Sufi poet Rumi ("if you can't be fed / be bread") seemed on its first record (The Image of Your Body, 2006, Cryptogramophone) to continue Melford's reach into global dualism with its melding of harmonium and banjo and use of vocals and electronics. Now, having bridged worlds, Melford seems to sit more comfortably in the west of jazz on the new album.

The group has grown here from quintet to sextet, with the addition of the excellent clarinetist Ben Goldberg. Having Goldberg alongside trumpeter Cuong Vu certainly makes this a more horn-dominated disc, and replacing drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee with Matt Wilson gives it a jazzier step. Vu's electronic effects and Brandon Ross' electric guitar are set aside (Ross is heard on steel-string and soprano guitars) making this a more naturally acoustic disc. The sum of these changes is that while the band still plays the expansive moodiness their leader writes, her shimmering piano melodies come through more strongly. She can roll a phrase that would make Vince Guaraldi's feet tap involuntarily. Hardly a bad thing, but a different one than The Image of Your Body.

To say that this record edges toward the mainstream would be short-sighted. The bright horn lines might be reminiscent of contemporary (or "commercial") jazz at times, but the structural complexities supporting them aren't. There's always been a certain joyousness to her composing, and here, as in some of her work from the '90s, that sentiment is given a stronger role. There is less of the mystic this time around but, to paraphrase from the Heraclitus-inspired title of another of her previous albums, you can't make the same record twice.