Ettinger’s new CD showcases his prowess as a composer and improviser whose music is a compelling blend of the lyrical and the free. The album also displays his talent as a fine bandleader whose quartet comprises top-drawer sidemen tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby, bassist Devin Hoff and drummer Scott Amendola.

Ettinger hastens to note that while the violin loops do play a role in Kissinger in Space (prominently in the eerie, spacy title track), they are scaled back. “I’ve been doing that kind of improvising for years,” he says. “I love doing it, but this album is probably the least amount I’ve done. I wanted to hear more violin on this CD.”

Kissinger in Space features Ettinger and co. playing buoyant tunes with spirited beats, reflective numbers with moving introspection and songs where the meditative and the exuberant converge. What’s particularly noteworthy is the sonic kinship of the violin and tenor sax as Ettinger and Malaby play unison lines and sublime harmonies as well as converse and echo.

Holding the rhythm section down are two Bay Area regulars: Hoff (who plays in the Nels Cline Singers trio as well as fronts his own duo project Good for Cows with drummer Ches Smith) and Amendola (the Bay Area vet who in addition to fronting his own bands is also in Nels Cline Singers, currently tours with Madeline Peyroux, has an impressive resume with Charlie Hunter and the T.J. Kirk project, and played drums on Ettinger’s first CD).