Of émigré White Russian extraction, Hodes immersed himself from an early age in Chicago’s African-American blues culture, emerging as both an evocative writer and oneman propagandist for that city’s indigenous art form. Along the way he developed his own unique take on blues piano, recording with the cream of the crop, reverting mostly to solo performance in his later years. Here he pays tribute to the repertoire of Bessie Smith – her gravestone bears the epithet ‘Greatest Blues Singer in the World’, and rightly so – in an album originally recorded for the hard-to-find Euphonic label (its catalogue now acquired by Delmark). With a few additional unissued tracks, Hodes wraps up 16 pieces, melody at the forefront, each piece carefully mined for feeling and emotion, with ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ given an especially rousing workout. If Tatum and Peterson set the bar for technique overly high, it was never in Hodes’s mind to seek to emulate them. Instead he concentrates on neatly wrought expositions, thoughtfully done, the accent on clear-eyed reflection rather than noisy bombast.