Trinidad-born but now US-based, trumpeter Charles makes much of his Creole antecedents and his concern for their cultural traditions and rightly so. His music infuses these varied influences, with his ‘Old School’ combining familiar big band protocols with a calypso under-pinning, while hosting crisp solos from Hogans, Ellis, Tucker, Charles himself, and Fortner. It’s busy but joyfully full-on, danceable too. ‘Poison’ is similarly multi-layered, with a stop-start solo from Hogans, percussion akimbo, plus funk guitar from Wintz and a rap by Rose.

The ensemble passages and band writing score heavily throughout even if some of the added effects don’t always add that much. ‘Think Twice’ by Monty Alexander has a neat groove, great brass attack, with Smith and Dease shouting out, Fortner comping distinctively. René Marie gives ‘I Wanna Be Evil’ an old-time vaudeville feel with Fortner pacing her brilliantly and ‘Holy City’ is a Charles showcase, with his Lee Morgan-like command, amid some chunky writing and soulful tenor from Ebersole.

In contrast comes Sweets Edison’s timeless ‘Centerpiece’ with Marie singing Hendrick’s words in bluesy fashion, aided again by Fortner’s Monk-ian piano, the theme handled in world-weary style by the reeds and ‘bones in turn. Think Carmen Bradford and the Basie band, Charles adding solo riffs. Then again, there’s such sturdy war-horses as ‘Stompin’ at the Savoy’ and ‘Night Train’, each given righteous treatment. There’s so much here, such a mixture of cultural influences, rhythmic, vocal, and instrumental, that it might take the rest of this magazine to fully describe it all. Suffice to say that Charles has a whole lot to say and the right kind of players to help him say it. It’s just surprising that it’s taken him six years to get it out.