Rich Perry’s newest album Nocturne marks the 21st release in his 21-year-tenure with SteepleChase and for the first time Rich employs guitar (by Nat Radley) instead of piano for his quartet. Rich Perry still is arguably the best-kept-secret of today’s modern jazz scene inspite of all the talks of admiration by the critics and the fellow musicians such as tenor player David Valdez. To quote Valdez from his blog, “.. Rich never plays down to the audience, never compromising his advanced harmonic and rhythmic concepts in favor of wide accessibility…. Even though he stays on the cutting edge Rich's sound is always musical and melodic. He just always approaches melodic phrases from an extremely oblique angle. I really can't think of a badder cat that flies so low under the radar… I don't see this changing in the future since fame and fortune are obviously not motivating factors for Mr. Perry.”