After appearing at Ronnie Scott’s the previous night until 1.30 am, Pepper’s quartet caught an early morning flight to Oslo, and were driven the 80 kilometres or so to Kongsberg, to play the closing Sunday afternoon set of the city’s jazz festival. There was no time for a soundcheck, or according to Art, to eat or sleep! They just went on and played.

But there’s no sense of autopilot here. This is a band on great form, listening to one another, and producing some fine music. At the heart of the set is a beautiful version of Art’s ballad ‘Patricia’. Written for his daughter, it begins sensitively and caressingly, before he starts to open up other feelings. After a thoughtful solo from Leviev, Art returns, probing and exploring the range of his instrument to present some pretty raw emotions, before a graceful retreat to the theme.

Following the fortnight at Scott’s, this was his first ever concert in continental Europe – previously, he had only visited Paris and London briefly during his WW2 service – so he has a point to make, and we can feel his delight at talking to a receptive crowd who respond to his every sentence between pieces, even discussing his affection for his cat. But even more so, we feel the audience at one with his music, whether it’s a standard such as ‘Caravan’ where the melody emerges cleverly from a lengthy collective vamp, or the joyous spiky blues dedicated to his feline pet Blanche.

It’s another blues that opens the set, just known as ‘Unititled No. 34’ from its place in the band pad, but Art liked to start with just such a straightahead piece in which all the band members get to solo, with a particularly dazzling display here from Leviev, and some fine drum interludes from Burnett (a sudden interruption of feedback being quickly dealt with by the Norwegian engineers who did a great job on the sound overall). A valuable document of Pepper starting the last great touring phase of his career.