Calvin Johnson Jr.’s debut CD, Jewel’s Lullaby, is projected to soar because of its refreshing fusion of honesty and artistry. Its songs are auditory snapshots of a deeply transformational phase of his life, ripe with inflections that listeners than feel rather than hear. The title track is a tribute to Johnson’s daughter, who was a newborn at the time he decided to compose the album. Inspired by a melody he conjured up to soothe her to slumber, the song excavated a type of enlightenment for him that translates directly into the music. “For the first time in my life, I was acknowledging certain emotions that were repressed. Because of this new gift,” he says, “I couldn’t contain them anymore. I had to express them.” And he does. A truly meditative endeavor, Jewel’s Lullaby is a musical memoir. Johnson is a jazz scholar himself, immersed in musical theory since before he could speak, but the tracks on this album include elements of funk, as wel...