This final album in the 12-record series of Garner's Octave records from the 1960s and 70s begins with a version of Gershwin's ‘Strike Up The Band’ that is almost a compilation of Garner clichés, from the staccato, out-of-tempo introduction to the lapse into gentle 4/4 swing, and then increasing layers of bombast accompanied by the pianist's characteristic moans and groans.

If the whole album were like this, it would be easy to dismiss as a pianist going through the motions. But then, as is so often the case with Garner, we get pulled up short by the staggeringly virtuosic ‘Love Walked In’, that follows. This is fine pianism by any standards, but it also takes the standard and explores its every nook and cranny, so we suddenly have to reassess Garner in the last full year of his short life (he was only 55 when he died). Given that ‘I Got Rhythm’ had already become a jam session warhorse well before 1976, he again performs minor miracles making it sound fresh and new. He roars through ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ at an uncharacteristically fast tempo, and ‘A Foggy Day In London Town’ is more like an aggressive smog with unseen objects hurling themselves out of the musical mist. Yet overall the album is one of the finer late Garner offerings, and confirms, although occasionally patchily, that we are (as George Wein wrote in his original liner) in the presence of a musical genius.