New Orleans-born altoist Davis, now 57, studied under the late Ellis Marsalis in his home town and then made for New York. Nowadays – for the past 20 yeas in fact – he's based in Italy. Here he's back in the Big Apple, on a flying visit and playing a quartet set at Smalls, badged as part of the Living Masters series.

Davis travels widely, as a freelancer typically has to, happy to take on a varied array of standards and modern originals, and is good to go with the house trio. He carries the Cannonball stamp, and evokes Bird too, even if his tone is marginally less full and his approach more refined than that of Adderley himself. Davis knows what he's about when it comes to fronting a session like this, confident in his ability to tell a story and get underway without fuss, as he does on the opening ‘Gingerbread Boy’. Club operator Wilner proves to be an interesting soloist, deploying a pleasing linear approach that speaks of immersion in the work of players such as Wynton Kelly.

Lee Morgan's ‘Ceora’ is calmer and Silver's perky ‘Juicy Lucy’ is a proper mover, with Washington and Farnsworth digging in, and Wilner using block chords effectively. ‘Love For Sale’, as so often happens, is given a rousing run-through, Davis impassioned, with Wilner again breaking sweat with a very positive solo. Sum this up as good players doing what good players do, Davis happy to take what comes and deliver, without straying too far from conventional norms. The audience, if they’re present, are pretty silent.