Bassist Joe Fonda's latest release brings together for the first time a threesome of old friends: trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, a collaborator during their New Haven days in the '80s; Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii, a partner in an astonishing duo; and Italian drummer Tiziano Tononi, bandmate in a number of rock-oriented Long Song albums over the past decade.

Reductively, the group members can be assigned elemental designations with Fonda as earth, Smith as wind, Fujii as water and Tononi as fire. But what makes this collection of Fonda compositions so special — and Fonda is one of the finest modern jazz writers — is how those characteristics actually move among the four musicians, creating varied terrain, ecology and lifeforms. A fifth element, the elusive aether, comes from Fonda's first recorded appearance on flute.

There are seven pieces, four dedicated to Smith and one to another former partner in Bobby Naughton. Fonda's tribute to Dr. Cornel West gets its fourth reading since 2014. And a tune from Fonda's book since the '90s, "My Song", makes its latest appearance.

If one word encapsulates this recording, it is grandeur. The sound is vast, especially Fonda's. It feels like a collection of Ansel Adams vistas translated into music, captured in a moment yet formed over millennia. Yet grandeur should not imply distance and impenetrability. The opening pieces, "Inspiration Opus #1" (the first Smith dedication), beginning with bass and trumpet, and "My Song opus #2", heralded by gentle piano, are delicate and vulnerable. Part of that is Fonda's trust in his partners; the rest is their connection with one another, highly attuned for a first-time meeting.

There are marvelous sub-groupings, such as the four-minute Fonda/Fujii intro to the album's longest track, "We Need Members opus #4" (the second Smith dedication), which later trots along gracefully over Fonda's elegant line, or Fonda and Smith's seven-plus-minute dialogue that is the dedication to Naughton (who worked with both in the '80s).

Those familiar with the version of "Listen to Dr. Cornel West" by the OGJB Quartet from 2016 — there becoming almost a calypso — will be fascinated at its transformation here into a cerebral and forceful essay worthy of its namesake.

It is in the second half the penultimate Smith dedication "Bright light opus #5", after a segment of trumpet, drums and prepared piano that Fonda enters on flute. Setting aside the hackneyed joke bassists have been hearing for decades, it shows a different side to the leader, who closes the track with fragility rarely heard in his bass playing.