With one caveat, this is a very worthwhile collection comprising five 1940s sessions and two from the 50s, but thereby hang several tales. Three of the 1940s dates are small-groups from Young's brief second stint with Count Basie, and indeed the first track (‘Lester Leaps Again’), and a couple of slower classics (‘Ghost Of A Chance’, ‘Blue Lester’) have him as the only horn alongside the Basie band's rhythm section.

From the same period, two sessions with Johnny Guarnieri have more touchstone items (including ‘Sometimes I'm Happy’ and ‘These Foolish Things’).

The once-fashionable theory that Young's playing and his morale deteriorated, especially after his enforced membership of the U.S. Army, is partly contradicted by the one late-194Os session with young beboppers including Junior Mance and Roy Haynes.

The remaining material consists of the supremely laid-back LP called The Jazz Giants '56 with Roy Eldridge and Vic Dickenson, and the mixed blessing of Lester's 1957 guest spot with the later Basie band at Newport. Throughout, his influential innovations are lovingly reproduced here and yet… You may forgive an incorrect date or a missing date (one of each here) but a missing track is something else – by using a 10-inch LP for the earliest material, the 1944 Basie/Kansas City Seven session has omitted the great ‘Six Cats And A Prince’!

All these tracks have been available on LP since at least the mid-1960s, so there is no excuse for this less than complete documentation.