The Pauper & The Magician is Hoenig’s eighth album as a leader, and his first in five years. It presents his regular working band (he is a familiar figure on the New York scene, most notably at Smalls) in an ambitious project of exploring “the link between storytelling and jazz”. In other words, this is a programmatic endeavour presenting “six compositions based on the tale of a powerful, dark sorcerer who in a moment of weakness and boredom passes on his book of evil magic to a pauper”. Each chapter is outlined in the liner notes and there’s a two-part short film relating to the project online. The problem is that weak compositional structures and unimaginative writing do not succeed in conveying much in the way of programmatic imagery. A somewhat tense and overwritten project, it looks like a case of back to the drawing board.