Two front line horns plus a three-piece rhythm section were to hard bop what three guitars and drums were to rock ’n’ roll. The main obstacle for both has always been precisely how to set oneself apart from hordes of similar practitioners. An imaginative composer/arranger as well as a fiery alto sax player, Gigi Gryce put all his energies into setting himself apart from his contemporaries with his Jazz Lab enterprise, sharing top billing with Donald Byrd. Though a major player during the mid-1950s via his work with Brownie, Monk, Lee Morgan and Benny Golson, today Gryce is seldom mentioned in dispatches despite the fact that The Jazz Lab recorded prolifically during an eight-month period. Yet it was to be financial considerations (and lack of regular gigs) opposed to the quality of the product that caused the project to fold prematurely while their closest contemporaries such as The Jazz Messengers and Horace Silver’s Quintet valiantly soldiered on. The Jazz Lab came is all shapes and sizes. The 1957 nonet that taped ‘Nica’s Tempo’, ‘I Remember Clifford’ and ‘Little Niles’ among others offers more than just a passing nod and a wink in the direction of both Miles’ Birth Of The Cool and Shorty Rogers’ Giants. However, it’s the five-handed line-up that featured either Hank Jones or Wynton Kelly that wins the day. Perhaps, the compilers should have slimmed this package down from four to just two CDs for maximum impact?