Houston Person - Rain or Shine

The soulfully expressive tenor saxophonist, Houston Person learned his craft in the 1950s, a time when some of the earliest pioneers of jazz saxophone - Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster - were playing.

Like Sonny Rollins and a handful of others, Person is an eloquent messenger who is rooted in traditional blues, church music, Broadway love songs and the mimicking of a singer's tonal palette and phrasing. His blues feel led to a renaissance among acid-jazz clubbers years later, and his sound has become uniquely characterful: an idiosyncratic edit of all he has learned, expressed in shrugging hoots, briefly cantering bop sprints, spacious and softly blown ballads.

With his long-time friend and colleague, cornetist Warren Vaché and guitarist Rodney Jones, Person's burnished sophistication, assured elegance and poise are again on display giving listeners an object lesson in unfussy, no-gimmicks music-making.