Tim Whitehead Quartet - Lucky Boys (2009)

There's an earthiness mixing with the lyricism in UK saxophonist Tim Whitehead's playing that suggests he might just jump on a bar and start rocking. Dancing in the Street is apparently the inspiration for the soul-jazzy opener, and the same atmosphere reappears after pensive beginnings in an account of John Lennon's Imagine and the early-Jarrett drive of gifted Italian pianist Giovanni Mirabassi's vivid Barcarole.

Some of the music was recorded on this Anglo-Italian quartet's 2005 UK tour, and a live version of You Don't Know What Love Is almost steals the set, with its sax hoots over restlessly flying piano figures, intertwining group improv, and beautiful Whitehead closing solo of long, falling-cadence lines.

Mirabassi's originals don't flinch alongside classy materials like Steve Swallow's Ladies in Mercedes (on slow pieces the Italian has a bereft, purple-shaded Nino Rota-like quality, and he writes compellingly punchy chordal melodies at speed) and the rhythm section of Oli Hayhurst and Milo Fell doesn't miss a beat.

Tim Whitehead - tenor sax
Giovanni Mirabassi - piano
Milo Fell - drums
Oli Hayhurst - bass