This well-wrought double CD – the first NYJO release on Whirlwind – marks a milestone. It's 50 years since visionary founder Bill Ashton first launched his enduring youth project on an unsuspecting world. Still alive and well, this is the current band tackling, first, its recently commissioned material, this cited as ‘contemporary’ (CD1) followed by further special charts categorised as ‘swinging’ (CD2). Working one's way through these contrasting performances is like comparing a Jackson Pollock drip painting with its random splashes of colour and let's see where it goes quality, to a fully-rounded portrait where the line is always clear. The Pollock comparison is epitomised by Siegel's ‘Mama Badgers’ which opens the album and stays for 9.31 minutes, with its episodic quality and stop-start flourishes, Siegel himself challenged by Dawson's spirited trombone and some moody electronics from Luft. Does it work? Just. Does it have direction? Not sure. Is it contemporary and could it have been shorter? Yes. ‘Dreams’ by Chris Whiter is more elegant, Copus in Wheeler mode, ahead of Kit Downes's ‘Wintermute’, another intricate theme with clever voicings, an engaging hook and slippery tenor by Healey. ‘Rush Hour’ has Lockrane and more sub-Hendrix guitar before ‘Sea Master’ by Tom Walsh offers structure and coherence as befits the work of the grandson of composer Robert Farnon. Rahman steps in for her own ‘Red Squirrel’ (arranged by Armstrong), its solemn chords juxtaposed with jaunty flute-led figures. Basie was always known for pruning charts to get to their essence. Might he have done the same here? Possibly. CD2 brings us back to near-normality but it's no homage to Basie for that matter, as Armstrong's layered chart on ‘St Louis Blues’ is still brass heavy, the theme broken into bite-size chunks before Gold gets his moment and the band starts to swing. In contrast, Nightingale's ‘He's Just My Bill’ opens with a trombone chorale, with Nightingale himself the featured soloist before Radcliffe vocalises on Callum Au's subtle chart of ‘My Romance’. I also liked Matt Wates’ arrangement of his own ‘Never The Twain’ with Cox's fleet piano and some tricksy saxophone writing. Radcliffe again comes into her own on Armstrong's lush chart on ‘What Are You Doing’, before Chris Smith's very swingy ‘Going Dutch’ with Healey again contributing prominent leads to the closer, Bill Ashton's clever lyric on his ‘Finding My Feet’, with Radcliffe's light vocal touch in an engaging arrangement by Paul Hart. These are today's players, equally good at both genres, polished and enthusiastic, accomplished and raring to go. So here's to NYJO and to the Class of 2015. All set for another 50? Why not?