Back in the 1950s, French-born but American-raised Wilen was the continental answer to our own Tubby Hayes. Like Hayes, Wilen's natural metier was hard bop, but as the 1960s unfolded he moved into a category of his own, part free-jazzer, part World Music pioneer. These previously unissued concert recordings with favoured collaborator Jean-Marie date from close to the end of his life and play rather like a career retrospective. There are nods to his Parisian days on ‘No Problem’ (originally recorded with Art Blakey in 1959); dips into bop's back pages (‘Night in Tunisia’, ‘Repetition’) and a suggestion that late in the day, Wilen was mining a similar seam to latterday Johnny Griffin, the speed and accuracy of his earlier incarnation sacrificed for a sort of muted lyricism. Things like ‘I'm A Fool To Want You’ and ‘Goodbye’ (especially the version which closes CD One) have a tremulous, poignant fragility that is genuinely affecting. Not that everything had changed; Wilen's soprano tone (always one of his strongest suits) is still absurdly controlled and pure, and when he chooses to outline the bopper's anthem ‘All The Things You Are’ he still burns, albeit now on a much lower heat.

Jean-Marie reads Wilen's every move and makes this so much more than a soloist-accompanist recital. He also offers contradiction to the sleeve note writer's assertion that the saxophonist was apt to ‘drift away from the beat’. The pianist was ‘flabbergasted by the ease with which [Wilen] could swing without a rhythm section.‘ What we hear here (in pin-sharp audio) is perhaps less hard-driven, but with its ever-present air of melancholy this album is a useful introduction to Wilen's later music and a quiet goodbye to the man himself. Elegant, lyrical and highly recommended.