Easley has had one of those distinguished sideman careers, working with George Benson, Mercer Ellington, Isaac Hayes, John Lewis’s American Jazz Orchestra and the Smithsonian Orchestra as well as countless studio sessions for Stax and Hi. Now 76, and living in North Carolina, he’s brought local players Wells and Hanks together with New York organist Kyle Koehler as the core band for one of his rare albums as leader. The general feeling is laid-back, even on the medium up-tempo pieces such as ‘Those Were The Days’, and his saxophone sound (on both tenor and alto) has a rather beguiling frailty with the occasional slightly late or missed note. He breezes through standards such as ‘I Should Care’ and ‘When Lights Are Low’ and both keyboard players bring focused and punchy solos to the proceedings. It’s a brave player who takes on ‘Isfahan’ after the definitive Ellington performance, and Easley makes it sound rather lightweight, but his ballad playing is at its best in a sensitive reading of Duke Ellington’s ‘I Didn’t Know About You’ and the album highlight is old boss Mercer Ellington’s ‘Things Ain’t What They Used To Be’.