The 49-year-old Jackie McLean-mentored tenor saxophonist Wayne Escoffery has high-pedigree recordings and live work under his belt, including lengthy stints with the veteran trumpeter Tom Harrell and Mingus Big Band. Escoffery was born in London, but moved to East Coast America when only 11 years old, and since 2001 has recorded his own albums as leader in the modernist mainstream vein.

He is a deceptively inventive horn man of depth and intensity despite the genial, unhurried surface sound of his playing. Even when in full flow, his succinct, incisive phrasing is laid out logically and eloquently. There’s never an intention of showing off his unquestionable chops for their own sake.

Alone is an album of sleepy, patient tempos, the title alluding to a more darkly reflective mood than is typical of the saxman’s work. Which means there’s little room for sweetened sentiment on evergreens such as ‘Shadow of Your Smile’ with John Coltrane’s influence an understated yet yearning presence; and ‘Stella by Starlight’ with its tortoise-like gait and aching introspection. Informed by both Dexter Gordon and Wayne Shorter for his sleepy, blurry long tones on the title track, the Charles Lloyd sideman Gerald Clayton’s elegant Herbie Hancock-ish piano is an equally engaging listen. The intoxicating ‘Moments with You’ brings to mind a Swedish sax legend Bernt Rosengren on Krzysztof Komeda’s Knife in the Water film soundtrack while ‘The Ice Queen’ finds Escoffery balancing logical and mantra-like phrasing while Carl Allen’s minimal kit work and the living legend Ron Carter’s bass both humbly serve the collective cause. A fine album then in the ‘classic’ quartet mould; but more significantly for one that digs into over-familiar territory, it’s a recording of substance.