In his latter years, Kenny Baker reformed the Dozen, and played several festivals and some residencies at the then flourishing Birmingham branch of Ronnie Scott's. Any of us who heard the band then were impressed, but there were always wise head-nodders among the hardcore fans who would look back and say, “But if you want to hear the REAL Kenny, you'd need to track down the weekly broadcasts his band did in the 1950s.” Some of these have done the rounds among collectors for a while in bootleg form, and one or two shows have crept out on specialist labels such as Bear Family. The Half Dozen's studio sessions are also out from Lake, but this Acrobat issue presents a pair of previously un-circulated BBC Radio shows by the big band from February 1957 that turned up unexpectedly at the San Francisco Traditional Jazz Federation archive. Baker's playing is a joy throughout, including a lovely flugelhorn solo on ‘It's Only A Paper Moon’, but there are equally fine contributions from Bill Le Sage (vibes), Keith Christie and George Chisholm (trombones), and Keith Bird on clarinet. Personally, I could do without the bass sax and ocarina solos by that great character of British jazz Poggy Pogson, but they are more than made up for by the other splendid ingredient of this set, Phil Seamen on drums, playing as if his life depended on it.