Jazz singer-songwriter, entrepreneur, and educator Michele Thomas is a suave innovator. With silken grace she eases in her formative background in gospel, and her love of R&B, soul, and neo-soul, into a musical language that shows a dedication and a passion for jazz, spanning all of its defining eras. Michele’s restless creativity reflects jazz’s improvisatory spirit—for jazz, like life, is a journey and not a destination. Michele’s latest album, her third album, The Assumption, is her most profound musical evolution. It is loosely a conceptual piece that over three song-suite groupings examines notions of trust, as it relates to familial connections, race relations, gender, interpersonal relations, and our relationship to ourselves. It represents much artistic growth as half the songs here are original jazz compositions. “I stopped worrying about pleasing jazz critics in my head, or feeling like I had to live up to the American Songbook,” Michele says. “I felt the need to say something, and I wrote from the heart.” Not only does it showcase Michele’s fine songcraft, it also full embraces who she is and where she comes from. It’s a bold synthesis of styles incorporating her gospel roots, her love of folk and neo-soul, and even a passion for rock. Though it siphons from a broad array of stylistic sources, it just feels like the spirit of jazz—an improvisatory music always shapeshifting; never stagnant.