The soulfully expressive tenor saxophonist, Houston Person learned his craft in the 1950s, a time when some of the earliest pioneers of jazz saxophone — Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster — were playing. Like Sonny Rollins and a handful of others, Person is a a communicative musician who is rooted in traditional blues, church music, the American Songbook and the mimicking of a singer's tonal palette and phrasing. His blues feel led to a renaissance among acid-jazz clubbers in the 1990s, and his sound has become uniquely his own: an idiosyncratic edit of all he has learned, expressed in shrugging hoots, briefly cantering bop sprints, spacious and softly blown ballads. With his long-time friend and colleague, cornetist Warren Vaché and guitarist Rodney Jones, Person's burnished sophistication, assured elegance and poise are again on display giving listeners an object lesson in unfussy, no-gimmicks music-making.

HOUSTON PERSON, tenor saxophone • Warren Vaché, cornet • Lafayette Harris, piano • Rodney Jones, guitar • Matthew Parrish, bass • Vincent Ector, drums

TRACKS: Come Rain or Come Shine • 132nd and Madison • Everything Must Change • Learnin' the Blues • I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone • Soupbone • Never Let Me Go • Our Day Will Come • Danny Boy

 Learnin' the Blues

 Come Rain or Come Shine

 Soupbone

 Our Day Will Come