Five CDs in a box – LPs in miniature, in fact. No notes added or booklet over-view provided. The initial pair carrying the original essays by Nat Hentoff and Mike Hennessey and still annotated as Side A and Side B so no concessions to the CD format there; the remainder are unadorned. These now remastered recordings are from the Milan- based Black Saint and Soul Note labels, known for their adventurous outlook and championing of free and contemporary jazz, a factor in the Fasoli-Wheeler collaboration on Welcome. This is a mostly sombre affair, tenorist Fasoli the composer of all eight pieces, some coloured by Ornette Coleman-like eruptions, each participant adept at free interplay. Humair impresses here and Fasoli can certainly play some good down-the-line tenor when so inclined. Hentoff cites this as ‘serious jazz’ and so it is. Wheeler’s own quintet scores most heavily for me on Flutter, with crisp interjections by Taylor (superb on ‘Miold Man’) and magnificent bass playing by Holland. Here’s Wheeler at his capricious best on his own pieces, each solo suffused with what the late Ian Carr called his ‘buoyant, romantic melancholy’ whether on trumpet or the even more affecting flugelhorn, as on his ‘We Salute the Night’ with Sulzmann’s soprano alongside. Tales is altogether more joyous, certainly free-wheeling if not ‘free’ with each player including the US-born but Europe-based Elgart joining in with Porta, yet another virtuoso bassist, and a quite perky Wheeler, ahead of All The More, where Wheeler is reunited with Taylor, as always a fruitful association, each utterly distinctive and harmonically curious. Taylor has a limpid touch and like the best players, seems to always have time on the ball, never flustered or strained. It’s obvious that each is comfortable in the company of the other. Thoughtful, often blissful music. The final orchestral ensemble features compositions by Wheeler, Fasoli and Manfred Schoof, Fasoli heard on soprano on KW’s ‘The Sweet Yakity Waltz’, thickly scored, each piece worthy of attention with his ‘W.W’, a standout, sweetly lyrical at first before the tension builds, marked by Wheeler’s contained effervescence. Wheeler seemed to relish the chance to play in Europe avoiding ‘the gladiatorial competiveness of the American scene’ in Carr’s words, which may explain his near-decade- long association with Soul Note. How well this series of recordings holds up against his more lauded association with ECM is for others to decide. For now, this box-load of Wheeler offers a surfeit of this one-of-a-kind improviser and composer, whose quiet distinction has so attracted today’s best players.