“[ECM boss] Manfred Eicher and I had been talking for a while about doing an album that might pay homage to a particular jazz artist,” explains John Abercrombie of his new project. “But in the end I preferred to look at the era when my own musical tastes were shaped.” The result is a disc that takes its inspiration – and much of its basic material – from the classic form-stretching post-bop recordings that marked the shifting sonic landscape in the period immediately prior to Abercrombie's own emergence on the cusp of the 1970s fusion wave. With expert backing from Drew Gress and Joey Baron, he and Joe Lovano revisit the likes of Rollins' ‘The Bridge’, Ornette's ‘Blues Connotations’ and Coltrane's ‘Wise One’ with admiring empathy and delicate invention that, in Abercrombie's case, draws on the harmonic genius of Jim Hall. Even ‘Flamenco Sketches’, significantly reimagined, sounds fresh here. There are originals too: ‘Nick of Time’ defies easy encapsulation and sounds as though, like the iconic tunes that surround it, it might itself still be worth plundering for its musical riches in 50 years' time.