Goin' Roamin'No label ***

The emerging young Irish tenor saxophonist and composer Alex Mathias makes his recording debut as a leader with this quartet album featuring Johnny Taylor (piano), James Little (electric bass) and Dominic Mullan (drums). As befits a graduate of Boston’s famed Berklee College of Music (and a student of Joe Lovano and George Garzone), Mathias is a promising player with a full, round sound, excellent facility and robust, muscular style.

Here, sharing solo space with Johnny Taylor, he has a compatible rhythm section to work with. It’s an assured, capable debut, with Taylor, in particular, consistently good despite a less than ideal piano, but the band could have been better served by the chosen repertoire, six originals by the leader. Mostly rather formulaic, similarly hook-based pieces, they lack the variety and sustaining light and shade the album needs. see alexmathias.com