These three albums (also available as a boxed set called Duos) represent the jazz side of Jim Rattigan’s work, playing an instrument that’s not widely used in jazz, in a chamber setting. Except that the music on the two albums with piano is anything but restrained and gentle.

Although the disc with Ivo Neame begins with three works that might be thought of as ballads, ‘Reverie’ (by Glazounov), Rattigan’s original ‘Elegy’ and Strayhorn’s ‘Chelsea Bridge’, the dialogues are vibrant and varied. ‘Elegy’ has Rattigan appearing to converse with himself, alternating phrases played conventionally with the harsher metallic sound of using his right hand to stop the bell completely. By contrast ‘Chelsea Bridge’, in Neame’s bustling arrangement, is no impressionist painting, but a busy street scene.

The duos with the acoustic guitar of Costley-White (in a more conventional accompaniment role for most of the theme statements) are more gentle and restrained. Some intriguing explorations of standards, by Jobim, Richard Rodgers and Michel Legrand, sit alongside some less well-known pieces by Bill Evans and Steve Swallow. One of Rattigan’s major achievements here is to create a version of ‘My Funny Valentine’ that owes nothing to the ghost of Chet Baker!

By contrast the spirit of Thelonious Monk is omnipresent in the final album with Hans Koller. It’s a brave player who takes on ‘Trinkle Tinkle’ after the famous Monk/Coltrane collaborations, but this spacious version fits the sound of the horn beautifully, and from the way the opening theme is almost spat out of the instrument to the melodic variations that follow from both players, it makes one want to re-explore the piece. The same is true of many of the other tracks, and ‘Pannonica’ is one I’ve come back to again and again. Three interesting and unusual albums played by a master of the horn with some very empathetic partners.