This is Lester in extremis, his health shot, nearing the end of his career (and his life), gamely trying to find inspiration, the solo playing often blurred, the effort to complete each phrase palpable and heart-breaking to endure. That said Sweets is a sympathetic foil, mostly muted yet perky, clearly relishing the chance to perform alongside his old Basie band-mate, while Peterson's trio do their utmost to bolster Lester's confidence, probing and prompting, Bellson swinging hard. His clarinet is better than his tenor if somewhat ethereal on ‘St Tropez’ an impromptu blues, suggesting that the effort to play was less taxing, the groove established by Edison's stabbed notes and Brown's bass launching Peterson's lovely solo. Oddly perhaps, the later session with the lively Stein and superb trumpet from Edison on ‘You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me’ is marginally more satisfying. I guess Pres was just feeling a bit better that day. The late critic Ralph Gleason wrote that these recordings (released posthumously on Verve) were “positively eerie, like a death rattle.” Even so, he gave the album five stars on the basis that anything Lester did was ‘invaluable’. In truth, that must have been a case of heart overruling head for Lester's work here is largely minimal, sketchy at best, the tone faded and the phrase shapes often hinted at rather than fully resolved. Four stars for the accompanists but only two for a sadly enfeebled Pres, I'm afraid.