It’s a collection which offers an enlightening, entertaining and substantial snapshot of Basie’s music at a key moment in his career.

Count Basie was one of the most celebrated and influential personalities in jazz, as pianist, organist, bandleader, composer and innovator, both during his stellar career which spanned half a century across the middle decades of the 20th century, and in the years since then. That career encompassed several musical and stylistic eras, and one of the most notable of those was the period in the early 50s, when, after a creative re-think, he formed a new orchestra, which became known as ‘The New Testament Band’, which adopted a musical approach which was fresh and distinctive. That approach was captured on recordings which were done at sessions covering a period of around four years, with the titles being issued on several albums which came out on Norman Granz’s Clef and Verve labels during the mid-1950s. This 63-