Following up his 2017 release The Great Enthusiasms, violinist Sam Bardfeld sticks with the unorthodox trio lineup of violin, piano, and drums. He makes a change, however, at the piano chair, with Jacob Sacks taking over from the highly in-demand Kris Davis. Drummer Michael Sarin remains on board for a spirited collection of original pieces and two well-chosen arrangements that capture Bardfeld’s eclectic musical persona to perfection. Along with being a jazz improviser and veteran of New York’s downtown scene with Roy Nathanson’s Jazz Passengers and others, Bardfeld has also served as a string arranger, contractor, and touring band member with Bruce Springsteen. He also earned his stripes on the salsa circuit, which led to the publication of his instructional book Latin Violin in 2002. The pieces on Refuge reflect not just the breadth of his influences and experience but also his dogged originality—witness the loping and angular swing of “Kick Me,” the heavily disguised take on the Gershwins’ “I Got Rhythm” that is “A Ribbon of Sooty Thought,” and the balladic mystery of “That Greeny Flower.” Taking a leaf from his treatment of Springsteen’s “Because the Night” (and The Band’s “King Harvest”) on The Great Enthusiasms, Bardfeld this time chooses “Atlantic City” from Nebraska, having had many an opportunity to play it with The Boss himself. “Refuge,” the title track, is a composition from Point of Departure by the late and incomparable Andrew Hill, whose remote and forbidding harmonic language is the antithesis of Springsteen. To Bardfeld, however, it’s all music, and it all provides a refuge.