The fourteenth release in the Jazz Is Dead series sees 81-year-old bass legend Henry Franklin in the leader’s berth, aided and abetted by JID founder-producer-multi-instrumentalists Adrian Youge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad.

They gave the former material with which to work but he has stamped his unerringly strong personality on the session that takes as jumping off points his classic early 1970s Black Jazz records such as The Skipper and The Skipper At Home. Franklin’s wily blend of bluesy, funky bop and post-Coltrane sophistication is still very much to the fore and his sound, wrought after decades of admirable service with such as Freddie Hubbard and Stevie Wonder, is majestic, especially the bulging tone and fluid attack, particularly when he leans in to hard swing.

The material varies from themes that have a degree of harmonic finesse to grooves that are pared right down so as to showcase Franklin above all else, and each is effective, with the latter option in particular serving as a reminder to all crate-diggers and hip-hop heads alike that the perfect beat for which they are looking always sounds better when played by someone who is alive even though jazz is dead. And Franklin’s heartbeat shows little sign of fading soon.