It's only a few months since two of these albums were reviewed on the Poll Winners label's The Clown + Pithecanthropus Erectus reissue (see Jazzwise 231). Here, those classics open the respective discs, to be followed by the equally renowned 1957 albums East Coasting and Tijuana Moods, both of them adding Shaw's quirky trumpet to the unique nucleus of Knepper, Hadi and Richmond. The feel of the four albums is subtly different, partly due to the extraordinary title-tracks of the first three and, of course, ‘Ysabel's Table Dance’ from Tijuana, but there's great consistency too. Compared to the explosive side of Mingus, a less remembered aspect is revealed by the two reharmonised standard ballads, ‘Memories Of You’ on East Coasting and ‘Flamingo’ on Tijuana. A pity that the last-named album here retains the rather clumsy edits of its original release (instead of the tidied-up versions on RCA Bluebird's 2001 2CD reissue), but that's hardly going to trouble anyone who has yet to be bowled over by this marvellous music.