Guadaloupean saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart has impressed from his early days on the U.S jazz and soul scenes as a sideman to the likes of Roy Hargrove, D’Angelo and Danilo Pérez, but few could have foreseen his adventurous development as a leader-composer in his own right. He has cut a series of excellent concept albums that delve deep into African and Caribbean musical and cultural history, but this latest work takes him to Harlem, a Mecca in black America.

The Harlem Suite is stylistically panoramic, in any case, as it sees Schwarz-Bart celebrate the majesty of swing with a blend of appealing themes and attention-grabbing improvisation on smart changes, but as the set unfolds he moves stealthily into soulful grooves and balladry that intriguingly plays with tonality, finding freedom within form.

Covers of well-worn anthems - Herbie’s ‘Butterfly’ and Trane’s ‘Equinox’ - have astute re-harmonisations and metric shifts, enhanced by a stellar band that includes vocalist Stephanie McKay and different generations of superlative drummers, Terri Lyne Carrington, Marcus Gilmore and Arnaud Dolmen.

As a soloist Schwarz-Bart, whose sensual tone and phrasing uphold the Getz-Henderson lineage, is well on song. The Harlem Suite is a work of maturity from an artist who acknowledges that the past continues to inform the present, and, more to the point, fuel his own creative fire.