Eric Alexander's assured take on the piano-free trio begins with a liquid glide through latin and swing and continues with the minor key sustains and free-moving runs of ‘Mars’, a spiritual ballad loosely based on ‘Finesse’ by Bruno Mars. Later the American saxophonist compresses Bartók themes into misty abstractions that simmer over Doug Weiss' sombre bowed bass. But it is the influence of quartet-period John Coltrane that defines the aesthetic of this all-original set. Saxophonist Alexander fleshes out the changes of ‘Hard Blues’ with cleanly articulated lines that imply their harmonic support, and ‘Second Impression’ follows the contours of classic modal jazz. The loving melody of ‘Corazon Perdido’ is introduced by sparse piano chords, the up-tempo ‘Frenzy’ brings drums to the fore and ‘Big Richard’ is an easy-going lope. Alexander is an outstanding technician with a sure grasp of form and a great sense of time, but the approach is similar on all three. And, compared to recent sax-bass-and-drum releases, he hasn't moved things on. The drummer here is Jonathan Blake, who plays superbly, but pulls back from the dynamic thrust of Trion, his recent album with Chris Potter and Linda Oh. And there's none of the cross-cutting interplay that made Matt Brewer's trio CD, Ganymede, with Mark Shim, stand out. Alexander follows a straightahead path, and does it very well, but you can guess what's coming next well before the album's end.