The Cologne-based WDR Big Band's tight discipline and springy bounce reflect a long history of tailoring their riffs, shimmers and flourishes to the needs of a broad range of visiting Americans.

Here they showcase guitarist Dave Stryker's clean lines and soulful inflections on a mix of originals and soul and pop covers. The album opens with Marvin Gaye's ‘Trouble Man’, includes ‘What's Going On?’ and follows Prince's ‘When Doves Cry’ with Jimmy Webbs ‘Wichita Lineman’. The album's core aesthetic, though, is best captured by a cover of ‘Stan's Shuffle’, written by the late Stanley Turrentine, the man who gave Stryker a start.

Stryker is a classy guitarist in the lineage of Grant Green, Eric Gale and George Benson. Like them, he has a fluid technique, makes his instrument sing and imposes himself on every tune. The arrangements by saxophonist Bob Mintzer, currently the Cologne-based band's principal conductor, are all of a piece adding excitement, support and meaty moments to savour.

Stryker and Bob Mintzer are gripping leads, and when they are playing, the album takes wing. Elsewhere, brassy subtleties cushion competent solos from organ and brass before Stryker returns to uplift the theme. Highlights include the call-and-response introduction to ‘When Doves Cry’; ‘Blues Strut’ morphing to a shuffle; and the overlapping riffs and stabs of Stryker's own ‘Shadowboxing’.