Troy Roberts, Green Lights, Toy Robot Music ***1/2

US based Aussie tenor saxophonist Troy Roberts puts out his own records at regular intervals and last time he was on the marlbank radar was on Pat Bianchi's toddy for the body Three reviewed in February.

Roberts, known for his work with Joey DeFrancesco and Van Morrison (2018's You're Driving Me Crazy was one of Van's best jazz themed albums - hear Troy's soloing on 'Travelin' Light') has gathered an A team of players who are to most jazz fans far more ''famous'' than he is - but fame, eh, what a fickle and sometimes irrelevant commodity.

But, yeah, they are: guitarist Paul Bollenback (who was on classic DeFrancesco Columbia albums Part III, Reboppin and Live at the 5 Spot in the 1990s - & last on our radar on Heidi Martin's Gifts and Sacrifices out in 2022) here best heard on Roberts' tune 'Stretch Armstrong'; bassist John Patitucci, a Wayne Shorter Quartet legend, marvellous on Letter For Paul in 2021 and significant here in the riffery of 'Jive Dumpling'; and lastly drummer Jimmy Macbride - strong on newcomer Matthew Rotker Lynn's EP Introducing earlier this year and who kicks off 'Solar Panels' so well are all monster players. Of course - given what's here - Roberts is one too. QED. Tunes are 'Green Lights'; 'The Question'; 'By Your Side'; 'Solar Panels'; 'Harry Brown' - the longest track at just over 10 minutes long; 'Jive Dumpling'; 'Up to No Good'; 'The Scotsman’s Ballad'; 'Stretch Armstrong' and the very brief bit of studio banter effing and jeffing 'Soundcheckin’' for a bit of welcome real life veritas, impromptu vocalese & pleasantly syncopated riffery at the end.

Roberts' tune 'The Comedian was a previous track of the week in these pages in 2020.

Roberts makes us think admiringly of Steve Grossman a bit in one place on 'By Your Side' - Jack Johnson legend Grossman's strength was ballads and so is Roberts' on this track and even better 'The Scotsman's Ballad' which is by far the best thing on a very convincing album. Roberts' tunes are extremely strong - there's plenty of flow, beginnings-middles-ends to them, and Bollenbeck's soloing on 'The Question' is outrageously compelling. Better than Roberts' best album to date - which we reckoned up to this point was 2015's Secret Rhymes (Inner Circle Music) that had good versions of ‘Stella By Starlight’ and ‘Up Jumped Spring’ that just like this latest proved tonally very persuasive. Photo: via Bandcamp

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Drawn from Hills and Valleys out on 7 June what wonderful chamber jazz imbued with pastoral qualities conjuring the shires and into the west ingeniously arranged in the inflections and abundantly melting tonalities of the winds and brass. Superlocrian were founded by trumpeter, composer-arranger Sam Massey of the Mike Westbrook Uncommon Orchestra - hear him on 2016's A Bigger Show - also in Superlocrian, a term that can refer to an altered dominant scale, are Gavin Mallett and Hugh Davies on trumpet and flugelhorn; Edward Leaker on soprano and alto saxophone; Jade Gall on saxophones and flutes; Tom Green on trombone and Mike Poyser on tuba. Recorded last year in the optimum surroundings of Air in Hampstead this sheer Englishness of an ensemble play Massey originals, standards such as Carly Simon's 'Nobody Does It Better' and a gorgeous take on the Roger Nichols, Paul Williams 1971 classic 'Rainy Days and Mondays' synonymous with The Carpenters. In that latter regard you could imagine if Rumer - like the spirit of Karen Carpenter reincarnated - ever wanted a new arrangement of her classic Seasons of My Soul (2010) especially on 'Slow' or 'Blackbird' then Superlocrian in this quintessential bittersweet slice of euphonious self deprecation in the very ungrandiose arc of their ensemble play would work oh so very well to supplement a four piece rhythm section the absent of which is like Banquo's ghost just a smidgen at the feast here. Photo: Spark artwork detail

Troy Roberts, Green Lights, Toy Robot Music ***1/2

Track of the week - Whitchurch Down by Superlocrian (Spark Label)