The majority of the contents are from the early period when Jamal's approach was still fresh and widely influential – by my count, no fewer than 14 of the 1951-55 tracks ended up being covered on Miles Davis albums in the next couple of years. The premise for the reissue is that this was the trio which had guitar instead of drums and, though not claimed as such, it's very nearly their complete output – two items from the very first session are replaced by the remakes from 1955, while the extremely rare 1954 date with a young Richard Davis on bass is missing. The 1960 quintet LP is something of a bonus, the then regular trio with drummer Fournier being joined by guests Crawford and violinist Kennedy, who displays welcome hints of Stuff Smith. It was perhaps hardly necessary to add Miles’ version of ‘New Rhumba’ to show how closely Gil Evans orchestrated Jamal's original, or indeed ‘Joy Spring’, with Evans’ embryonic live band giving space to Crawford (who was also on Out Of The Cool). What's more interesting perhaps is the inclusion of the 1955 ‘Poinciana’, with guitar and without the hypnotic Fournier drumming.