This recording marks the moment that Lalo Schifrin took over from Junior Mance as Gillespie’s pianist in the quintet, bringing with him new ideas and a fresh repertoire. ‘Gillespiana’ was conceived as a concerto grosso, in which the trumpeter’s quintet played as the group of soloists and a massed big-band brass section formed the ripieno ensemble. The resulting texture is quite unlike any of Gillespie’s other 1950s and early 1960s big-band works, including Schifrin’s later big-band suite ‘New Continent’, because of the absence of reeds. Leo Wright’s solo alto and flute contrast dramatically with the full weight of the horns, underpinned by Don Butterfield’s tuba. Gunther Schuller (present in the French horn section) commented at the time that they all marvelled at Gillespie’s ‘sovereignty’ on his trumpet and at the way Schifrin had reflected such different aspects of Dizzy’s musical personality, from his rapid-fire ‘Toccata’ to the melancholy ‘Blues’ or the heritage explored in ‘Africana’. Re-listening to this album now, it’s impossible to disagree – this is Gillespie on top form, and in a more ambitious and through composed setting than anything he had attempted up to that point. Unlike the 1990s Verve reissue on CD, which pairs this with Gillespie’s Carnegie Hall Concert album, EJC have wisely decided instead to add a Paris concert, performed just days after the recording sessions, which features the quintet playing extended versions of four of the movements from the suite – the lengthiest, ‘Toccata’, running almost 14 minutes. This is a fascinating and instructive contrast, and a fine piece of production by EJC that urges one to acquire this reissue even if the Verve original is already on hand.