Filipino-American saxophonist Jon Irabagon won a Thelonious Monk Piano Competition prize in 2008, and with his debut album,The Observer, revealed a highly personal amalgam of methods - subtle Cool School stylists like Lee Konitz and Stan Getz, muscular hard-boppers including Sonny Rollins, and even British free-jazz virtuoso Evan Parker. A decade later,Bird with Streams becomes a first album visit to jazz standard songs for Irabagon, but it's no routine canter through the Great American Songbook. The saxophonist and his family retreated from New York to South Dakota when the pandemic broke out, and he found a private practice space at a canyon called Falling Rock, where peace and solitude coexisted with what he calls 'varying kinds of reverb' from tumbling rivers, birdsong and wind across the eight months of his stay. The period also coincided with Charlie Parker's centennial year, so Bird's classic bop themes gradually became the focus.

There are 15 short tracks, all for Irabagon on tenor - ranging sonically from the rough, blustery sounds of 'Anthropology' with its sounds like buzzing wasps, squawking birds, and rubbed balloons; to a warm Rollins-ballad intimacy on Miles Davis' 'Sippin' At Bells'; pad-flappings like birds' wings on 'Now's The Time'; a headlong 'Donna Lee'; a mix of bebop and swing-tenor swagger on 'KC Blues', and more. Irabagon's technical powers are awesome, and the sweep of this soundscape unique - even if a few longer explorations might have broken up a hint of monotony about these brief, haiku-like pieces.