JD Allen joins the likes of Sonny Rollins and David Murray as one of the very few musicians to attempt the wholly demanding format of solo tenor saxophone. Those who have followed the 48 year-old Detroiter's career will have heard him impress in a variety of contexts, particularly a piano-less trio, and to a certain extent this format is going further down the road to presenting Allen with both space and clarity. These elements are paramount here.

Allen is perceptibly and powerfully measured on the 13 tracks on this album, which fall within the tight two-to-five-minute mark rather than stretching into opus territory. This concision is important. For the most part Allen keeps his focus on very even-handed well-paced narratives, sometimes using quite spare phrasing to highlight his melodic richness of pieces such as the beautiful ‘Wildwood Flower’ and sometimes opting for a strong rhythmic attack, such as on the bustling ‘Retrograde.‘

His articulation is excellent to the extent that some notes, cast against nothing but the endless vista of silence, have a steely, almost guitar-like resonance, as if he were fingerpickin' the blues rather than blowing it into life. The burly, weighty character of Allen's tone falls into a classic lineage that would include Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins, and he also has some of the danceable buoyancy of the latter on occasion.

He has also been well recorded and engineered, though hearing Allen do this on stage is a prospect worth holding on to for a hopefully post-pandemic world.