azz wisdom courtesy of Thelonious Monk: Keep doing what you do and eventually listeners will catch up. So it goes with Houston Person, whose reputation has grown in recent years, almost sixty years since he began recording steadily. The tenor saxophonist has backed many singers, notably Etta Jones, and many jazz organists. He made a batch of duo records with bassist Ron Carter, and in an unlikely but effective 1983 pairing, guested on third-stream pianist Ran Blake’s otherwise solo gem Suffield Gothic. Person’s higher profile nowadays is partly due to pianist/blogger/tastemaker Ethan Iverson taking him up. But it’s also that, as the ranks of classic tenors grow thinner, his durable sound is that much more precious.

Reminiscin’ at Rudy’s makes his case. Person will caress and linger over a melody, highlighting its best features -- hear “My Romance.” That said, his sound is broad and a little brusque, with a bit of a blat in it. He doesn’t shout, but you’re in no danger of missing anything -- even feathery flourishes are fully articulated for the microphone. That blat combined with vulnerability in his upper register conveys tenderness and strength.

He picks tunes that weather well and aren’t threadbare from overexposure: the movie song “Again” (sung by Ida Lupino in 1948’s Road House); the not-quite-forgotten ’40s ballad “Why Did I Choose You”; and one he’s recorded before, pianist Cedar Walton’s lovely “I’ll Let You Know,” which Person plays so attentively it’s like he’s thinking of the lyric (if it even has one -- I don’t know a vocal version). Those last two are for quartet with pianist Larry Fuller and bassist Matthew Parrish. Most tracks add Russell Malone on guitar, and Reminiscin’ at Rudy’s offers textbook lessons in how dual chording instruments stay out of each other’s way. (The pianist has played in a few bands with guitarists such as Bucky and John Pizzarelli.) Piano and guitar don’t jump on each other’s lines to show how closely they’re tracking each other (a natural temptation in any improvisational style). Malone cedes the main comping role to piano, which stays mostly in a crisp midrange. Guitar filigree puts a halo on the harmonies, or Malone’s line-ending obbligati answer tenor.

From the start, Houston Person has explored unlikely pop songs; he covered “Up, Up and Away” back in 1967. There are a couple of doozies here. Henry Mancini’s maudlin “Moon River” is recast as a gleeful ding-a-ding swinger over Lewis Nash’s rolling, triplety drums; Person barks out the opening/title phrase in syncopated staccato. As with some Sonny Rollins picks, lack of cool is part of its charm. But its uncool pales next to Paul Anka’s 1959 bobby-soxer hit “Put Your Head on My Shoulder.” Heard un-Anka’d, it’s an okay tune with a catchy motif: a couple of consecutive phrases capped by a falling sixth.

A surprise singer turns up, a shower-stall light tenor who croons “Nothing Ever Changes My Love for You” without imitating Nat King Cole (any more than the band echoes the Cole version’s cha-cha-cha beat): the date’s dependable drummer and frequent Person ally Lewis Nash (who’s sung on record before, but not much).