Although I asked Dave Brubeck if there was a gentleman's agreement between him and the late Paul Desmond whereby the saxophonist was free to record away from the Brubeck Quartet, but not with a piano, he eloquently sidestepped the issue, but it is widely believed this was the case. But since so much of his career was shaped alongside Brubeck's piano, it is equally likely that Desmond erred for the less percussive guitar, since he did prefer his accompanists (including Brubeck) to be subdued and non-interactive. Thus in guitarist Jim Hall he could not find a better partner, someone who instinctively played with the appropriate degree of discretion in accompaniment but was also a masterful soloist in his own right. Here with Brubeck bassist Gene Wright alternating with Gene Cherico and the Modern Jazz Quartet's Percy Heath, plus the MJQ's discrete but effective drummer Connie Kay, Easy Living is probably the best of Desmond's six albums for RCA. It previously appeared on Paul Desmond: The Complete RCA Albums Collection in 2013, and within the modest ambition of ‘mood jazz’ it achieves a kind of perfection. It includes three bonus tracks not on the original release, and throughout Desmond is matchlessly suave, as is Hall, both an object lesson in melodically building a line which young musicians ought to take a long hard look at; they’d learn a lot from these masters of the art.