Ever since March, when the veteran tenor saxophonist Houston Person and the dynamic guitarist Russell Malone threw sparks during a few tunes together at a Highlights in Jazz concert, I’ve been anxious to hear the two in a full-length collaboration. So far it hasn’t happened, but on Wednesday evening, I created my own de facto Person-Malone matchup by catching Mr. Person at Jazzmobile and then hustling down to Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, where Mr. Malone is playing all week.

There was some doubt as to whether Mr. Person would be able to give his outdoor recital in front of Grant’s Tomb; an hour before the concert was scheduled to begin, the rain was coming down hard, with thunder and lightning for effect. But as I walked down 122nd Street as 7 p.m. approached, Mr. Person and his quartet could be heard launching into their set at the precise stroke of the hour, as if they wanted to get in as much music as they could before the rain returned. Thankfully it did not return, and, far from ruining the evening, it made the atmosphere cool and pleasant, especially on Riverside Drive on the banks of the Hudson.

Waiting to see what would happen, Mr. Person opened with “Only Trust Your Heart,” in which Sammy Cahn’s lyric to Benny Carter’s melody distinctly warns us not to trust the elements. It’s sound advice. Why? Because an element never forgets.

The very idea that one can hear the lyrics to a song when Mr. Person plays it instrumentally — a jazz ideal associated with Lester Young — is nothing to take for granted. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an ideal to which every soloist should aspire, but it is a particularly rewarding experience to come across a musician who can blow the lyrics through his horn. It’s one of the main ingredients Messrs. Person and Malone share. The guitarist began his set at Dizzy’s with a show-offy original, “Mug Shot” (“May you never have to take one,” he quipped), which minimized melody in favor of driving rhythm, intricate fingering, and a funky feeling. But once he had our attention, Mr. Malone moved on to “Peri’s Scope,” a more lyrical — but still swinging — early composition by Bill Evans.

Both Messrs. Person and Malone have a gift for dramatic, but not overdone, playing that captures and holds our attention. They also both know well the craft of picking the most interesting songs and interpreting them in a way that further prevents our minds from wandering. Mr. Person spent his 90-minute set alternating between rompers (“Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me,” “Lester Leaps In”), love songs (“Too Late Now”), a bossa nova (“Sweet Happy Life”), and the blues. On this night, at least, when he played the blues it wasn’t the strict 12-bar variety, but a classic pair of blues-inflected ballads: Percy Mayfield’s “Please Send Me Somebody To Love” and Buddy Johnson’s “Since I Fell for You.” In “Time After Time,” Mr. Person sang through his tenor about wanting to keep a good relationship going, whereas in “Since I Fell for You,” he told of how base desires can drive one to leave a happy home.

With his big-toned tenor, Mr. Person is also a dance band all by himself. He transformed Tadd Dameron’s bop classic “Lady Bird” into more of a swing number and played Frank Foster’s “Shiny Stockings” all the way through — not just the tune “head” but the whole Count Basie arrangement, shout chorus and all. Dancers began spontaneously doing their thing — a fitting celebration in front of the monument to Ulysses S. Grant, who, as a Civil War general, helped make emancipation a reality and, as president, championed civil rights. Unfortunately, owing to the heat, none of the hosiery that Mr. Foster describes was in sight.

Mr. Person’s most imaginative numbers included a bouncing treatment of “Moon River,” which began with a heavy emphasis on the first note of the melody (and title phrase) before arriving at a telling pause between the next two notes. It was a simple, brilliant example of how to make a good tune even better.

That lesson has long since rubbed off on Mr. Malone: At Dizzy’s he essayed an equally thoughtful take on “Witchcraft,” a tune that was written in five distinct melodic segments. His improvisations were so fluid and melodic that he seemed to be adding supplementary chunks of melody that Cy Coleman himself could have written.

Both players also have a winning way with pop tunes of a more recent vintage. Mr. Person’s climactic number was a tender, heartfelt rendition of “The Way We Were,” which made me think a lot more highly of Marvin Hamlisch’s melody than I ever had before. For his own coda, Mr. Malone played a moving, vulnerable solo treatment of the Jack Jones waltz “Lollipops and Roses,” drawing harp-like glissandos from his instrument. The tune led into a rarely heard Cole Porter gem, “Do I Love You?” accompanied by the rhythm section. Mr. Malone’s bravura showpiece was a blues collage that incorporated snippets of various R&B and pop hits, including “Bo Diddley,” and built to a soulful, swinging reconception of the Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun.” As he told the crowd at Dizzy’s, “We slapped a little Afro-Sheen on it.”

Mr. Person’s performances, particularly uptown and with an alfresco crowd, draw out his more extroverted side, inviting comparisons to such larger-than-life tenor colossi as Ben Webster and Gene Ammons.

However, his new album, “Just Between Friends” (Highnote), features a more intimate side. This is the fourth in Mr. Person’s series of dialogues with the celebrated bassist Ron Carter, and the level of interplay the two achieve is remarkable. Mr. Person isn’t playing to the gallery here; rather, his solos are more introverted and internalized — more like Warne Marsh. Yet even when he’s not playing as outsize as usual, his melodic invention is outstanding, and both he and Mr. Carter play with a drive that’s all the more incredible for being so subtle. A particular standout is “Blueberry Hill,” for which the bassist supplies a loping vamp that suggests the song’s long association with country music.

Even when Mr. Person plays without raising his voice, as on the new album, one can still tell it’s him. He’s no less himself than he was as he played on 122nd Street on Wednesday, with a tone large enough to fill all of Upper Manhattan, enough warmth to make it seem like July even if it wasn’t, and a heart as big as the outdoors.

wfriedwald@nysun.com