This rollicking big band suite is a smile-inducing, toe-tapping labor of love. As both a composer and alto saxophonist, Watson has always invested his hard bop with a funky flair that puts the fanfare on his phrases and melodies like flames painted on the doors of a hot rod. He is also a native of Kansas City, where the swing and bop traditions converged in the glorious brass and propulsive beats of big bands led by Jay McShann, Count Basie and others. And, not least of all, he loves him some barbecue, a food and culture smoked through with blues, funk and the hedonistic release of a contented respite from hard toil.

All of that is suffused in these tunes and arrangements, wrapped up and pinned with a g-clef. Watson, who left the camaraderie and hothouse incubation of the NYC jazz scene in 2000 at the age of 47 to return home and eventually take over the jazz studies program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, has been working on this suite for years. And although he is far and away the star instrumentalist here — listen to his signature, slippery-soulful bop on "Beef on Bun," or the sweet sorrow evinced… read more »