Although he is one of the most original composer-improvisers in creative music today saxophonist Steve Lehman has always readily acknowledged the work of others. Of his recorded output to date the 2019 set The People I Love, which reprised songs by Kurt Rosenwinkel, Kenny Kirkland and Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts alongside his originals, is a highlight. The quartet that recorded that album returns here but pianist Craig Taborn drops out and tenor saxophonist Mark Turner comes in, while the programme is Lehman’s take on the works of Anthony Braxton. Entering such a singular a world might be daunting, but Lehman has the advantage of having extensively recorded with the Chicagoan titan of the avant-garde. Lehman’s band has the extreme rhythmic precision to make the lengthy, choppy, cyclonic themes, where sixteenths are often whizzing and whirling upwards, flow with a sustained, disciplined rush of adrenalin.

The drums and bass axis formed by Damion Reid-Matt Brewer slides easily from tough funky backbeat to hard swing while Turner and Lehman form a horn section which captures the metamorphic gymnastics of so many of Braxton’s scores. The complexity of his music is matched by its ferocity, the intellect by earthy physicality.

Braxton has always been resoundingly himself while interpreting the music of others, be it Coltrane, Bird or Brubeck, and Lehman’s originals such as the exhilarating ‘LA Genes’ reflect how astutely he has absorbed elements of Braxton’s vocabulary into his own language, while his soloing on occasion fearlessly dredges the lower range of his alto saxophone as if to match Braxton’s cavernous contrabass clarinet adventures. Lehman’s ability to impose his strong personality on a range of sources, be it the electronica of Autechre or the hip-hop of GZA, is well consolidated by this latest venture, which sees him represent another master with quite masterful imagination.