George Coleman’s gold-plated reputation goes back to his days in the 50s with BB King, taking in periods with Miles Davis and classic recordings with Herbie Hancock. This is his first solo album in 20 years and proves that, at 80, he’s still one of the most fluent and inventive tenor saxophonists around. His style is commonly labelled as hard bop, but his tone is gentler and his improvisations more melodic. By some extraordinary alchemy, he turns quite abstruse harmonic ideas into tuneful phrases. The band consists of his son, George Coleman Jr, on drums, pianist Mike LeDonne and bassist Bob Cranshaw. For a splendid blues tribute to BB King, they are joined by guitarist Peter Bernstein.
