And so to one of the MBB's greatest alumni - seeing the British born player Wayne Escoffery at Ronnie's in the band down the years you couldn't wish for a better classic ''leading man'' tenorist.
As a leader he has enough personality to step out from the reeds section. Here playing ballads, the sincerity in the playing, consummate instrumentalism and the tunes are what lifts Alone to heights that few could even aspire to.
The playing partners he has assembled include the greatest jazz bass player alive on it - Ron Carter - and formidable pianist Gerald Clayton and ever classy drummer Carl Allen complete the all-stars.
It's a studio album blessed with great sonic values.
Escoffery is no stranger to playing with Carter. He was on 2011 Sunnyside release Ron Carter's Great Big Band.
And Ron Carter's 'Blues for 'D.P' here on Alone is well caught - Grover Washington Jr did a delicious version of the tune too playing soprano sax for that version in the 1980s on Then and Now with Herbie Hancock and Ron among the cats. I remember interviewing Grover on the phone once back in the 1990s when he was doing promo for All My Tomorrows - it was an interview piece ran in a Mayfair magazine called Jazz on CD. The Bill Withers 'Just the Two of Us' legend proved a very pleasant person. I loved that record (still do). What a sound, much smoother he had than Escoffery here. His is more old fashioned, perhaps but elegant with it. He's no fogey.
Escoffery figured on the hard hitting Truth to Power released this year by the Black Art Jazz Collective.
After the love has gone
Recorded last year Alone is an album made after a love affair had ended and after an injury had stopped Escoffery from playing. The songs have a fairly similar feel and tempi, that in keepingness doesn't matter at all, in fact it makes what the saxist has to say more compelling given the mood music. Selections include sensitive, unmannered, treatments of 'Stella By Starlight' and Johnny Mandel classic 'The Shadow of Your Smile.'
New high water mark
Escoffery leads from the front and all the others believe in what he's playing it seems obvious given how carefully everyone caresses the melodies and elaborates upon his subtle touches. It's blindingly obvious it's a new high water mark for Escoffery and the recording goes into the marlbank top albums of the year list straight away.
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