Like Matt Slocum’s six previous albums, Lion Dance is a work of high distinction. On his first investigation of the tenor saxophone- bass-drumset trio format, in the company of world-class practitioners Walter Smith III and Larry Grenadier, Slocum – less widely known than his bandmates – operates fully as a peer, surefootedly navigating them through five original pieces whose subtle challenges enhance freedom of expression, and three Jazz and American Songbook standards addressed more or less straight-no-chaser.

One reason, Walter Smith suggests, is Slocum’s thematic focus, his ability to shape, sculpt, and refine the beats and drumkit tonalities to ensemble imperatives in the heat of the moment. “It seems to me that Matt usually thinks about how things will build,” says Smith, who makes his fourth appearance on a Slocum-led project. They’ve been friends and musical collaborators since both were young aspirants in Los Angeles during the mid-’00s. At the time, Slocum, who’d earned a scholarship to the jazz program at the University of Southern California, was studying with Peter Erskine, and gigging with luminaries-to-be like Gerald Clayton, Massimo Biolcati, Dayna Stephens, and Taylor Eigsti, all participants on his earlier records.