Anyone who has followed Newsome's progress since his emergence in Leon Parker's group in the mid-1990s will know that he is a talent to be reckoned with. But his development in the last few years, during which he has asserted himself as a solo soprano saxophone virtuoso, has been nothing short of startling. This brilliant album sees him take what is generally seen as one of the most demanding members of the saxophone family into daring, if not audacious territory. His ability to turn notes into lengthy sustains that acquire a kind of reverb-y drone and also break up some of the longer pitches with growlingly aggressive, tightly controlled, Lacy-ish overtones imbues the music with a vivid sense of colour. But it is when Newsome starts to push the sound towards what is not a reed instrument that he becomes compelling. He has developed a slap tongue technique that evokes the African thumb piano, the mbira, that has all of the pick and scrape of that magical device that he leavens with more cleanly articulated notes so that it sounds as if he is somehow playing a soprano over a banjo. He does this masterfully on a thrilling take on Ellington's ‘In A Mellow Tone’, which is part of a Duke-ish medley, the other segments of which alternate with Trane's ‘A Love Supreme’ and a third suite of original tracks, ‘Soprano De Africana’. This wide range of material enables Newsome to highlight the full extent of his musicality: the very personal handling of a melody, his astute overdubbing of bass and treble parts and last but not least, his skill at playing with silence, meaning that the moments that he chooses to lay out make absolute sense in the emotional and structural arc of an improvisation. Gripping work from a player of courage and cunning.