Assembling all of Blackwell's appearances on Black Saint and Soul Note proves a slightly mixed bag but, most importantly, the drummer's clarity of thought and expression shines through in all his different contexts. The chronological starting-point is the Don Cherry-fronted album that gave its title to Old And New Dreams, whose live set at the 1987 ‘Ed Blackwell Festival’ is also included. At the post-bop end of the scale, the same festival's reunion of N'Orlins homies (Batiste, Turbinton, Battiste and Ellis Marsalis) is comparatively disappointing except for Ed, but the middle-ground of Karl Berger's trio (with Holland) and Murray's quartet (with Hicks) receives Blackwell's wholehearted collaboration. This leaves two live sets of his own trio of Redman and Brown (Walls-Bridges from 1992, the year of his demise) and the equally live Redman-Blackwell duo set (In Willisau, 1980). Among other delights, these all show Redman as a more convincing player on chord-changes than David Murray, although a couple of numbers stretch his ability to great lengths. The abiding memory, though, is of the drummer and the vitality he brings to all of these situations.