The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz describes Candid as ‘short-lived but highly respected label for the quality of its sessions’.

Part-owned by the writer Nat Hentoff for two years from 1960, it benefited from his far-sighted approach to personnel selection and production, this welcome re-release one of his best. Now re-mastered, it had reunited Hawkins and Russell on record for the first time since 1929 when they recorded ‘One Hour’ under the celebrated Mound City Blue Blowers soubriquet, this old standard now happily re-visited here. Hawkins is in the kind of gutsy form that marked most of his 1960s recordings whereas Russell is at his most querulous, well rid of the Dixieland strait-jacket with which he was lumbered for so long. He handles the theme of ‘Tin Tin Deo’ as Jones fires up the ensemble, before Hawk drives in with a gritty solo that arm-wrestles the theme into submission, Berry muted, and Russell’s solo like a series of spasmodic fragments, at once quirky and frail.

He sounds quite unlike any other clarinettist you can think of, Hawkins quoted as saying: “He’s always been way out but they didn’t have a name for it then”. ‘28th and 8th’, by Pierce and Russell, swings perfectly, Jones and Hinton like brothers in arms. Berry’s solo is warm before Hawk nags away in his see-saw manner. Pierce’s arrangements of the six varied pieces work without fuss but it’s the playing of these two old associates that stands out. The title of Ellington’s ‘What Am I Here For’ is twice misspelled on the sleeve but no other errors diminish its suitability here, Pee Wee tentative as he tip-toes around the tune.