A simplistic overview of modern jazz tenor saxophone in 1964 would have Stan Getz blowing bossa-nova at one end and Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’ at the other. This newly-disinterred live set by Johnny Griffin is a welcome reminder of the broad mainstream in between.

Not that Griff was minus controversy. ‘A sort of more melodic Coltrane’ was how Joachim Berendt had described him a couple of years earlier. Indeed, the pocket Chicagoan’s rep for technical audacity was well proved to UK listeners on his first visit to Ronnie Scott’s in 1963. “It must all be done by mirrors”, observed Melody Maker.

Pulled from the contentious archive of the late Les Tomkins, this encore set – packaged in a sleeve featuring striking photography by Jazzwise contributor Val Wilmer – from 1964 provides plenty of the expected dazzle, but is also an especially good place to assess just how much Griffin and Coltrane might have shared.

The centrepiece is a marathon ‘Indiana’, taken way up on the speedometer and in two keys, as Coltrane had done on his themeless blow on the same changes as ‘Goldsboro Express’ in 1958. Whereas Trane’s reading pushed towards something darker, Griffin’s is merely joyous, witty tenor pealing out for chorus upon chorus.’ Blues in Twos’ is no less intense, its tonal distortions and R&B borrowings showing how well the tenorist knew the tradition of his instrument.

The minus side of this issue, however, is its audio profile, which like so many of Tomkins’ tapes from Scott’s leaves the piano little more than a rattling half-heard sideshow, even with a player as muscularly inventive as Tracey present. What he plays is great, when it finally emerges. There are no such problems for Cecil and Dougan, who are stamina personified throughout, the drummer’s ceaseless creativity helping to redress that misconception that Phil Seamen was then the only show in town.

And it’s the sound that ultimately docks this superb set its extra star, its limitations only exacerbated by the odd choice of a sort of superimposed ballroom echo throughout. [Editor’s note – this is due to the source material, and is not intended as a criticism of Gearbox’s superb restoration and mastering]. Fun stuff, for sure, and one which all fans of real deal tenor will want to check out, if only for that ridiculous ‘Indiana’.