A curious choice for the designation of American Jazz Classics, even if it is nice to see all of the prolific 1950s (and now the out-of-copyright early 1960s) being reissued once more. The 41~-minute octet album was recorded at the same time as Gillespie's outings with Rollins and Stitt – see last month's Short Cuts section – and is comparatively polite, with the workmanlike originals of Gryce and Golson having been more memorably done elsewhere. It's all perfectly well carried off, with good solos from both arrangers and from Ray Bryant, while Diz himself begins cautiously in mute (even channelling Harry Edison on the opening ‘Blues After Dark’) before getting more animated later. The near half-hour of bonus material could hardly be more different, with the JATP all-stars and Stitt jamming loosely at the session for a mainstream French movie, Les Tricheurs, which attempted to jump on the jazz soundtrack bandwagon (Selwyn Harris included it in his Jazz On Film 2 box). There's much dynamic playing but, as with the octet, it seems average rather than exceptional.