With the Great American Songbook now here to be seen, this latest album from US singer-saxophonist Curtis Stigers represents something of a departure. Opening with Bob Dylan's ‘Things Have Changed’, the minimalist, less-is-more aesthetic that producer Larry Klein brings to this genrestraddling collection – somewhat similar to his work on Madeleine Peyroux's Careless Love – suits Stigers surprisingly well. On tracks such as Steve Earle's ‘Goodbye’, Eddie Floyd's ‘Oh How It Rained’ and Richard Thompson's ‘Waltzing's For Dreamers’, the album exudes a kind of downbeat world weariness which captures life's sadness and confusion to moving effect. Written especially for Stigers, David Poe's ‘Everyone Loves Lovers’ (on which Poe himself contributes some sweet harmonies), possesses an especially bittersweet sting in the tail. Beautifully evoking the end of a relationship, the album reaches a remarkable high-water mark in the closing title track (from Craig Armstrong's 1998 album The Space Between Us). Heartbreaking in its understatement, it's one of the finest things Stigers has put on disc.