Peplowski is the premier mainstream/modern clarinetist de nos jours, a peerless improviser and technician, good at fronting a big band or a small group, as here, this working quartet employing members of the current New York elite. His liner note comments on how he found the tunes he has recorded here or who alerted him to them, and they are an eclectic mix, and all the better for that in my book. He opens with Duke’s ‘The Flaming Sword’, Wilson playing a percussive counterpoint, the clarinet fervent and engaged, Asherie full-bodied at the keyboard. It’s Ken’s husky tenor on ‘An Affair To Remember’, his line slipping and sliding in ways that Lucky Thompson would have liked. Wind starts John Lennon’s ‘Oh, My Love’ the clarinet quite sepulchral, vibrato under wraps, the ‘beauty and simplicity’ inherent in this piece conveyed with sensitivity in this short duo performance. Bricuse-Newley’s ‘Cheer Up, Charlie’ is a tenor ballad, sibilant and softly blown, the 37-year old Israeli Asherie’s harmonies quite choice, much the same applying to Noel Coward’s ‘I’ll Follow My Secret Heart’, with virtuosic clarinet this time. So many pleasures here, mostly elegiac and never fiery or agitated, these players caught at the top of their game, song selections distinctive and unhackneyed, the accent on creativity as well as performance perfection. Strongly recommended.