Back in 1985, there were rumours flying around that Buddy Rich's band was not what it once was. The gossip was that it was a pale shadow of its former self, and I remember seeing his decrepit bandwagon parked up that year by a motel near the end of New York's Holland Tunnel and thinking (just from the state of the bus) that it must have been true. But this excellent release goes to show that the rumours were nonsense. The 1985 band on show here, from a San Francisco session for which the master tapes were ‘lost’ having been almost ruined by fire and subsequent water damage, is itself on fire. Many Rich albums from the era have Steve Marcus on great form on soprano or tenor, but here he excels himself with a simply stunning soprano solo on 'New Blues’, and a storming tenor solo on ‘Cottontail’. Yet the star in every moment of every track is Rich himself – two years after open-heart surgery, but on the most energetic form of his career. He drives the band with an iron will, never allowing a tempo to slacken or a moment of tension to pass without perfect emphasis, and plays some of the best solos of his entire recorded career. I heard him play the ‘West Side Story Suite’ several times live over the years, but this 15-minute version, which as all fans will know is mainly a feature for solo drums, is one of his most dazzling and heroic solos. In the past I might have directed someone seeking the best of Buddy Rich to the 1960s Pacific albums like Mercy Mercy or Big Swing Face, but having heard this, I think this is the one. And full praise must go to the engineers who have turned the first not-very-successful LP attempts to clean up the damaged tapes into first-rate audio.