From the second batch of the Candid label’s recent reissue programme, The Straight Horn of Steve Lacy, only his third album as leader, has been issued on CD a handful of times since the 1980s. Originally released during a fertile couple of years for Candid when Nat Hentoff was running the label, the title refers to the only curve-free member of the sax family, an instrument that took on a new significance through the progressively modern to free jazz era largely due to Lacy’s dedicated methodology. The title also ironically hints perhaps at his less-than-straight ahead approach to jazz in the rapidly shifting musical landscape at the start of the 1960s. As the selection of material might suggest – two tracks by Cecil Taylor, three by Monk and ‘Donna Lee’ by Charlie Parker – the pioneering soprano specialist was in transitory mode somewhere between bop and the freer styles, having had a spell in Taylor’s quartet from 1956 as well as with his hero Monk, Gil Evans and Jimmy Giuffre prior to this release. Lacy’s progressive approach is evident in his solos compared to the more entrenched bebop of the lesser-known Charles Davis on baritone – then a member of trumpeter Kenny Dorham’s group – whose vocal-like rasp and ragged swing on the baritone nevertheless provides a compelling contrast to Lacy’s uncannily irregular construction of coherent melody, and on something like Monk’s ‘Criss-Cross’ it takes some beating.

Roy Haynes’ support on drums throughout is exceptional, the superb remastered sound here making his playing more deliciously tangible – it’s an opportunity to celebrate Haynes, now 98 years old, while still a living legend. Nat Hentoff and fellow jazz writer Martin Williams contribute the reliably informative booklet notes.

A rather offbeat, stylishly-packaged minor classic among Lacy’s prolific discography.