This is NYSQ’s seventh album, and the fourth on Mike Janisch’s Whirlwind Recordings label. Their constancy as a group, 13 years together so far, is something of a latter-day phenomenon: while each man is in demand for other things, they reunite often to tour and record. The personnel stays steady, the only change this time being bassist Okegwo in for Daiki Yasukagawa, so too their focus, the group’s full title, New York Standards Quartet, making their intentions clear. An earlier album was entitled The New Straight-Ahead and that makes the point rather well. Thus, Bernstein’s ‘Tonight’ opens as a soliloquy before settling into a tenor chase-up, this quite at odds with its original purpose in West Side Story. Armacost is compelling in this, Berkman’s fluency the ideal counterpoint, Jackson driving hard, the tenorist then taking Bird’s ‘Cheryl’ for a zig-zagging post-bop workout, Jackson breaking up the beat. The usually saccharine ‘If I Should Love You’ is heard here as a soprano jaunt, neatly routined, Berkman pushing, Jackson responding. Porter’s ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye’ works well, as does Bud Powell’s widely-recorded ‘I’ll Keep Loving You’, with Berkman offering a lyrical opening exposition before Armacost comes in sotto voce and Berkman resumes, nimble and Tyner-ish, this the longest track of the eight on the album. Two by Parker, two by Porter, the rest by the likes of Silver, Hancock and Powell: eclectic choices maybe, but that’s how NYSQ see things. Good for them.