While known for having a rich and beautiful tone and swinging delivery on the clarinet, Ken Peplowski is having his tenor sax slowly turning into the embodiment of Lester Young, well displayed on this album recorded at Mezzrow back in 2023 with Ted Rosenthal/p, Martin Wind/b and Willie Jones III. His tenor sax blues blue smoke rings on the easy bopper “Vignette” and gloriously sighs on “Prisoner of Love”, lusciously behind the beat on the appropriately titled “Like Young”.
On clarinet, he is cozy on “Cabin IN The Sky” and glides around Wind on “All The Things You Are”, even taking on Thelonious Monk’s “Bright Mississippi” without even batting an eye, and getting elegant with Ellington’s “Who Knows”. This is a guy who’s learned something most present day artists need to think about when avoiding practicing their long tones-sound is CRITICAL!!