THIS four-album collection of music from alto saxophonist “Sonny Red” Kyner (1932-80), whose star shone brightly but all too briefly in the early 1960s, is a marvellous compilation of his prodigious talents, as well as those of many of his luminous contemporaries.

On first album Breezing, Red plays with a mercurial fluidity and agility of sound, with his terse horn breaking from the opening riff of Brother B, with trumpeter Blue Mitchell’s crackling chorus and Yusuf Lateef’s tenor saxophone solo all buoyed up by Barry Harris’s swinging piano and the rhythmic impetus of bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Tootie Heath.

On Teef, Lateef brings Detroit to New York, where the albums were cut, alongside Red’s caustic chorus. All I Do Is Dream of You has Red swinging a songbook ballad with melody and the blues fused in every note and his breezy title tune blows a very warm wind indeed.