Now in his late fifties, the guitarist-composer Peter Bernstein has earned a first-class reputation as a top-drawer musician of a straight-ahead brand of New York jazz that will continue to thrive while musicians of his calibre are still around. The warm, serene, understatedly luminous tone of his guitar permeates his newest quartet recording, Better Angels.

Since the 1990s he has worked with the now-retired giant Sonny Rollins and the late Bobby Hutcherson, as well as a peer group that includes one of the leading B-3 organ trios of Bill Stewart and Larry Goldings.

He keeps illustrious company here too, on a set of his mostly mellow mid-tempo compositions and a few non-originals. One of them is ‘Born to Be Blue’ a tune associated with Chet Baker, with whom the guitarist would have certainly made a dream team; Bernstein goes solo with his guitar split into two voices: a warmly purring thematic lead and pithy chord accompaniment, and though it’s as breezy as they come, it also has some spice about it.

Pianist Brad Mehldau – a close pal of Bernstein’s since studying at New School together in the late 1980s – and an outstanding rhythm section featuring Miles alumnus Al Foster, create space for Bernstein’s hip, rhythmically potent phrases with their exquisitely executed cadences.

Mehldau deals his strongest hand on an effervescent rendition of Duke Jordan’s exceptional Latin-jazzer ‘No Problem’ in which he employs a witty two-handed counterpoint. It’s a classy, slow-cookin’ record that consistently hits the spot.