This double-CD, compiled by Ray Crick, formerly of ASV and now with Nimbus, with a sleeve-note by Digby Fairweather and sub-titled ‘His 52 Finest’, is culled from Humph's extensive output of singles on Parlophone and Decca. By covering the near-decade that it does, it marks the band's transition from an out-and-out New Orleans ensemble to the proto-mainstream unit that it became, setting the stylistic pattern that endured for the remainder of Humph’s lengthy playing life.

The album’s title is taken from the band's hit single, which climbed to number 19 in the 1956 hit parade and in Humph's words “fell back exhausted after six weeks”. Unsurprisingly it has figured many times on compilations but continues to work, as much through pianist Johnny Parker's barrelhouse intro (later appropriated by the Beatles for ‘Lady Madonna’) as for Lyttelton's incisive muted solo. In fact much of this material has been reissued before on Humph's own Calligraph label, no matter, for this kind of over-view is always pertinent. His early mastery of the traditional trumpet style is evident from the off, the attack hot and direct, tonally full-blooded but never over-ripe, his bands performing with the requisite balance of skill and drive.

There’s a lot of music here to get through so highlights will have to do. The two tracks with Sidney Bechet show our hero coping well with the New Orleans maestro, Fawkes and Christie alongside as they remained. Later it's the peerless altoist Bruce Turner and trombonist John Picard, evolving from huff-and-puff tradite to a full-on swingman, who impress, the band version of ‘That’s My Home’ underlining Humph's continuing debt to Satchmo, with Eddie Taylor at the drums. Finally comes ‘Buona Sera’ with Humph leading Coe, Stobart, Picard, Armit, Brocklehurst and Taylor in a potent augury of mainstream triumphs to come. What a man and what a legacy!