Let me start by commending you on a wonderful performance. There's a lot to praise about this: your energy throughout, your time, intonation, technical ability on the alto, and leading the band throughout it all. Bravo!

Some of what I have to say gets into style preferences which is subjective, so I'll give you my thoughts and let you decide what to incorporate into your own musical personality. So permit me to nit pick!

You wrote about wanting to play "more interesting ideas". That is the goal for each of us and something great players do well. A lot of your improvisation consists of 16th note runs, especially after 2:03. What more interesting ideas could you express by creating more variety in your lines - specifically held notes or at least longer notes that could make for an interesting motif and motivic development? I like finding notes that are common across bars or chords. Consider concert D, especially over the G7/C7 bars. That note works well over much of the tune and creates an interesting color over various chords. You did play some note length variety in the section starting at :40. That was good. Just watch the notes you lean on like that concert Ab and Bb in the second time through that A section. Raising each of those a half step (to A and B) would sound more harmonically congruent.

But whether or not you do it as I described, variety adds interest. And that variety can be note length, articulation, playing deliberately outside of the harmony for a bit, or note range (which you mentioned). And I do understand your desire to finish with a flurry, but sometimes going out with a bang can be done without a lot of notes. (Of course a trombone player is suggesting that!)

You mentioned the ending so let's talk about your cadenza. First make sure you nail that suspended chord's harmony (you weren't quite in the chord) because that's your opportunity to make the contrast with the resolved last chord. You might plan beforehand what your last suspended note is and improvise your way of getting to it. To my ear, ending on B (the major third of the chord) is a weaker note that gets lost in the G major chord the band is playing than, say A, which has a little more personality on top of G major.

You mentioned playing more in the genre, but I think you did that well. That arrangement contains a bit of modern reharm off the basic changes, so it lends itself to playing the way you did. Again, this is subjective, but I could hear myself playing over this with lots of longer notes bending to squeeze out the emotion of the song. Consider the lyrics containing phrases like: "Sad as I can be", "Listen to me plead", "Crying all alone" and so on. It's not a happy tune!

But let me conclude by saying you played really well throughout. I am nit picking, but then again, I don't think you would have submitting this sample if you didn't want to hear my thoughts on taking your terrific rendition of Willow to another level. Keep up the excellent work!