There have been at least a couple of heavyweight multi-CD sets of this hugely influential and original trio, notably Riverside’s own 3CD set of all the 1961 Vanguard recordings and the Not Now label’s 5CD set of Evans’ Riverside years, which puts three albums of this trio’s work in the context of his previous line-ups for the label.

This new box from Fingerpoppin’ draws together all the LaFaro/Motian trio’s work in one 5CD set. Everything that has previously been issued is here, (although unlike the Riverside box, which separates them into separate tracks, the onstage Vanguard announcements are included in the music, which is a minor irritation if you just want the trio playing and not the fragments of voices and audience).

A great benefit is the inclusion of alternate takes from the group’s earliest albums Portrait in Jazz and Explorations, which are not included in the Not Now issue. For Evans collectors, the other great asset of this set is to have the trio’s surviving Birdland broadcasts included on an additional CD, launched by a remarkable LaFaro solo on ‘Autumn Leaves’. This material isn’t new – it’s from that professional eavesdropper Boris Rose, and has appeared complete on the Swiss Cool and Blue label and on Fresh Sound, among others, but not in the context of the trio’s Riverside work.

Although several tracks were repeated on the nights between March and May 1960 when the trio was broadcasting from Birdland, the different versions show a degree of freedom and looseness not always apparent in its other work. From the background noise at Birdland, it appears most of the audience were talking rather than listening, but the trio were attentively listening to each other, and proving a point that Evans made in an interview (in the liner notes) where he says: “We didn’t want to put…limitations on ourselves, like having to play four-in-the-bar, so from there in it was just playing and listening and allowing it to develop”.

Just comparing LaFaro’s work on the three versions of ‘Autumn Leaves’, his solos are so different, contextually, technically, interactively and melodically, that they illustrate this point perfectly. Apart from regretting that the additional surviving three tracks of this line-up accompanying Tony Scott from his Sung Heroes album didn’t get a look in, this is the definitive account of one of the finest of all jazz trios.