It's probably the sound quality that’ll determine whether you buy this. This series of broadcasts was doubtless recorded with a mic in front of the radio, and at least one track here seems to be copied by a mic in front of another tape-recorder. So the bass is pretty inaudible except when soloing (Garrett is added on only one, or at most two tracks, as far as I can tell), plus there's quite a bit of distortion on some tracks while, on others, the cymbals and other high frequencies come and go (‘dropout’ hardly covers it). In addition, three items are described as “fragmentary” – ‘Favorite Things’ lasts all of 10 seconds, the home recordist clearly deciding to pass - and the opening number not only begins in mid-stream (as do several tracks) but has an unacknowledged edit, suddenly cutting from piano to drums.

So what's the good news? That opener (‘Liberia’) and the following ‘Vierd Blues’ (aka ‘Trane's Blues’) are the only live versions extant. There are two ‘Greensleeves’, the earliest versions known, both played in C-minor rather than D-minor, as in the later records. What's described as a second ‘Impressions’ (also earlier than the official recordings) is a 24-bar ABA song-form rather than 32-bar AABA, and we also learn that ‘I Want To Talk About You’ was being done without the long Coltrane cadenza that appears on the 1963 versions. This may seem like clutching at straws here but what's revealing is how, in a Chicago Southside venue, he's already using a post-‘Chasin’ The Trane’ style that's more challenging than his then current studio sessions. If you’re the rich Coltrane freak who needs everything he ever did, you’ll probably know that more than half the material was on two white-label LPs but, if you’re bothered by poor sound, you’ll prefer the Village Vanguard reissue.