Broder is yet another of the many highly competent New York-based players who seem to have passed local audiences by.

He records regularly, teaches a lot, and runs a whole series of interesting band projects yet we don’t know about him. That is, until now.

Writer Willard Jenkins applauds the fact that a current jazz musician should wish to pay tribute to Johnny Hodges, a distinctive soloist whose inclinations were markedly different to this favoured by Broder's usual affiliates. Happily, this conjunction of performance and intentions works delightfully throughout. From the opening bars of ‘Royal Garden Blues’, using the 1959 Back to Back album template, we know we’re in safe hands. Mulherkar handles Sweets Edison's part with commendable spirit while Broder evokes Hodges without parody, his sound appropriate even if he lacks Hodges’ distinctive swoop. Staaf is far too wise to imitate Duke Ellington, so turns in a series of inventive choruses of her own. And yes, this little band swings. Having picked other Hodges specialities like ‘Viscount’, a Hodges-Mercer Ellington collaboration which lopes along, Broder unfurls his baritone on ’18 Carrots for Rabbit’, the Gerry Mulligan piece written for his album with Hodges, and helps us to remember Harry Carney.

Elsewhere Broder broadens his attack, moving his Hodges affiliation into near-contemporary country, Mulherkar and Staaf with him all the way. I’d like to know more about Mr Broder and his other activities. For now, there's pleasures aplenty here.