Milan-born and UK-educated saxophonist Tommaso Starace makes his devotion to hard bop pretty clear on Narrow Escape, but it's no clone of the method, and strikingly showcases the leader's composing talents on five of its nine tracks. Starace (playing only alto here) has set both himself and tenorist Dave O'Higgins the challenge of playing bop's relentlessly chordal music without a harmony instrument, and mostly they resourcefully meet it – even if the lateral imaginations of such free-harmony specialists as Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins or Sam Rivers show just how tough an assignment that is. The closest Starace comes to an Ornettish approach is on his own boppishly skippy ‘Touch and Go’, in a fluid, tone-tweaking alto break over Davide Liberti's bass-walk and Ruben Bellavia's jostling drums. ‘Fugue in Eb’ is a polished contrapuntal dance, and the title-track (superbly opened by Liberti's solo intro) is an understatedly clever melody of cagey rising phrases and quiet resolutions, set against a vivaciously brisk counter-theme. Monk's ‘Trinkle Tinkle’ and the Coltrane/Adderley vehicle ‘Grand Central’ skim along in snappy call-and-response games, and O'Higgins is in impressively rugged Rollins mode during his own fine solo on Dizzy Gillespie's ‘Be Bop’. Starace uncorks one of his most laidback and devious improvisations on his ‘Pass A Good Time’, a sassy mid-tempo two-horn theme over a prodding bass vamp. Narrow Escape is an original, and skilfully affectionate, homage to a jazz approach that never loses its swaggering, knock-em-dead magnetism.