Saxophonist Rahsaan Barber’s two previous albums—2005’s TrioSoul and 2011’s Everyday Magic—consisted almost entirely of his own cutting-edge compositions. For his latest CD, The Music of the Night on his Jazz Music City label, the busy Nashville musician took a different path by applying his tenor and soprano saxophones to a set of mostly time-honored standards, from a swinging version of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” and a gorgeous reading of the Michael Jackson hit “She’s Out of My Life” to a reggae-tinged rendition of Rodgers and Hart’s “My Funny Valentine” and the Ray Charles classic “Georgia on My Mind” treated as a slow blues with a backbeat. It was his mother’s idea. Stella Barber, he writes in the notes for The Music of the Night, told him “how much she missed hearing my approach to standards, and how much she felt my ability to interpret familiar songs sets me apart from my peers.” He also followed the advice of his grandmother, the late Zepher Selby, who often told him to “play pretty” and “make sure you put a blues in every set.” Additional selections are Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer’s “Skylark,” the lyrics of which inspired the album title as well as those of two brief between-song interludes, and two different performances of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “The Girl from Ipanema.” Only “The Backbone,” composed by bassist Butch Warren for a 1964 Dexter Gordon album, falls short of being considered a “standard,” having never achieved the massive popularity of the other tunes. The Music of the Night opens with Barber’s arrangements of “Isn’t She Lovely” followed by “The Backbone,” on which he and the young bassist Jack Aylor (currently age 20) play the head in tandem over pianist Matt Endahl’s economical comps and drummer Derrek Phillips’s propulsive New Orleans second-line parade patterns before switching to swing for Barber and Endahl’s solos. Barber’s robust playing on both tracks reflects his fondness for the late Stanley Turrentine. The saxophonist credits Phillips, whose resume includes recordings with Vijay Iyer, Charlie Hunter, and Vanessa Williams and touring with Hank Williams Jr., with creating the laid-back groove for “My Funny Valentine.” “Derek is one of those players that I can say ‘the softer side of reggae’ to and he knows exactly what I mean and it doesn’t sound like a Bob Marley record. The bass line sets up the intro and then kinda leaves it open to see where it goes. I let the musicians figure out how to meld that in with the rhythm of the melody.” “Skylark” features Barber’s serpentine soprano saxophone and the warm alto tones of vocalist Dara Tucker. “Hearing singers that are engaging the rhythmic side of the groove, no matter what the style is, is exciting, and Dara does that,” Barber says. “This record is intentionally melodic above all else, so Dara fits the mold of the musicians who have this huge melodic thread that runs through the record.” The first version of “The Girl from Ipanema” and “Georgia on My Mind” showcase the versatility of guitarist James DaSilva. His lovely acoustic playing on “Ipanema” reflects his Brazilian heritage, while his blistering electric blues work on “Georgia” “sounds like a guy who grew up in Tennessee,” according to Barber. “All of us who play with Matt feel like he is maybe the best-kept secret in Nashville,” Barber says of Endahl, a onetime student of Geri Allen at the University of Michigan. The saxophonist calls Aylor “the closest thing to a genius that I may have ever run across in music. He’s an incredibly mature, incredibly fluid bass player.” And Phillips, he says, “brings a smoothness to playing the drum set. It’s super easy for me to play with him, which doesn’t mean that it’s not intensely engaging.” The saxophonist feels that Endahl, Aylor, and Phillips— three of Nashville’s most versatile and in-demand musicians—comprise the perfect rhythm section for his music. “The album was the first time we had all played together,” he says, “but I’d been looking for a certain thing from a rhythm section in how I wanted my records to sound going forward.”