One-time OTB (Out of the Blue) member and now a highly respected Professor at Rutgers University, Ralph Bowen (like Jerry Bergonzi) is getting better and better with age. Listening to his latest CD, any budding young tenor-player would give his eye-teeth to be taught by Bowen. He's assembled a masterful, hard swinging rhythm section for the session (a striking feather in the cap of Posi-Tone producer Marc Free), with Bill O'Connell, who is more generally heard in latin jazz surroundings like his recent excellent Zócalo album. He delivers rip-roaring earlyish Hancock-inspired hard bop solos and comping, but never forgets his love of latin, with a glorious groove section halfway though ‘You Stepped Out of a Dream’. Kenny Davis and Bowen go way back to OTB, as well as currently co-teaching at Rutgers, while Donald Edwards shows once again why he is so much in demand today with a very contemporary conception. But it's Bowen's record and he quotes Frank Zappa saying “without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible”. Here he takes eight almost hackneyed standards, (only Cole Porter's ‘Dream Dancing’ may be unfamiliar) and breathes not only new life but fire and brimstone into them, re-energising as well as reharmonising. Most of the tempos are very ‘up’ and Bowen's blistering solos are inspirational. If you're weary of originals that may never again see the light of day, check out what's been done here to more familiar material. It's educational.