By the time Haidu’s trio recorded this, at the Van Gelder studio, they had been working together (on and off) for four years, and their collective understanding shines out of every track. There’s no question that re-exploring standards, these are musicians who know how the songs work, and how to dig out interest from them. ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ opens with the theme, and as well as providing his characteristic support on bass, Buster Williams then adds an inventive pizzicato commentary, interacting with the piano through all the bass registers.

Their lovely opening of ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ with Billy Hart’s sensitive brushwork and Buster’s solid bassline leads into one of Buster’s fine solos, a sound that that I remember from listening to him many times at the Village Vanguard.

But they are not just reverential, and the opening ‘Over the Rainbow’ is not just a showcase for Billy’s vigorous percussion, but it has a dreamy, rhapsodic quality in the piano figures, that finally start to hint at the original theme. I’m not entirely convinced by Buster’s bowing, which seems to have been recorded with a very trebly edge to the sound, but there’s a dramatic moment seven minutes into the track as, after alluding to the theme, over arco bass, Haidu suddenly gives us the siren sound of the ‘Someday I’ll wish…’ element of the lyric, and gradually the familiar melody hovers into place.

From old standards to the comparatively youthful sound of Pedro Flores’ ‘Obsesion’, here are three masters of the craft of trio playing, conjuring magic from the standard repertoire.