Whatever reticence may have bedevilled British jazz in the past, altoist Peter King is immune to it. On this landmark early 1980s session with an equally uninhibited local rhythm section in John Horler, Dave Green and Spike Wells, he is an unrepentantly inspired keeper of the bop flame. Constantly accessible because it combines passion and precision to an extraordinary degree, his is a virtuoso's music whose sophistication is just a means to an expressive end. As a bopper he has few equals anywhere, relying more on ideas and manipulation of line and rhythm than on malleable tone, so his solos stand or fall by their linear responses to harmony and time. And Horler and company brilliantly answer any questions he asks.