On Blues for Pekar, Cleveland saxophonist Ernie Krivda pays tribute, not only to the late writer, critic and jazz aficionado Harvey Pekar, but also to the time and place from which both men hailed. Working with the Detroit Connection rhythm section also featured on the saxophonist's Live at the Dirty Dog (CIMPoL, 2010), Krivda swings mightily through a set of bebop standards and originals that skip, sing and warmly sway to the pulsing beat of the rust belt in its mid-20th century heyday. The music, in fact, has a spring to its step, even on the ballads, that seems a touch at odds with the grumbling, down-in-the-mouth Pekar persona made famous by the writer's American Splendor comics. But the music's vibrancy is duly fleshed with bluesy, melodic heft that keeps it from ever becoming flighty.

As ever, Krivda favors long—ever so long—spiraling lines that weave in and out of a tune's scripted framework, flashing by turns the polished chrome of a standard's communal lyricism and the barreling weight of Krivda's own athletic insistence. His tone throughout is deep, wide, strong and full, commandeering the surge through an equally dense and enveloping field loosed by bassist