Whenever veteran pianist Cedar Walton comes to Europe – and there's generally a tour every summer – he likes to hook up with local talent and often becomes a sort of unofficial mentor. Such is the case with 50-yearold Italian tenorman Piero Odorici. To judge by his CV, Odorici seems to have shared the European stages with just about every still active American hard bopper as well as many who have since passed on. He studied with Woody Herman's Sal Nistico and also Steve Grossman and was later involved with Mal Waldron, Barry Harris and Joe Henderson. Very much in the vein of many 1950s and 60s tenor stylists, he's an ideal choice for what may be the first in a Savant series called Cedar Walton presents. This straightforward straightahead tenor and rhythm session has four standards and four originals, one by each of the participants. Of the latter, Odorici's modal ‘Casadias’ is probably the best, followed by Willie Jones' pretty ‘For Someone So Beautiful’. Of the standards, ‘Over the Rainbow’ gets an up-tempo treatment, Chano Pozo's ‘Tin Tin Deo’ has always been a tenor's tune and the two ballads, though frequently recorded, are still nice vehicles for blowing on. The engineer, Ron Tedesco, gets a very Van Gelder-ish sound, especially for Walton's piano.