Unless you are fortunate enough to possess an extremely rare copy of the 1954 Esquire release The Ronnie Scott Jazz Club Vol.3 (Esquire 32-003), then this BBC Radio session recorded live at London's Criterion Restaurant has remained unheard ever since. Newly excavated, what a revelation it proves to be. Ignore any surface noise, for it can't distract attention away from this genuinely energetic session. If only England could field a football team with as much imagination or brio as this one captained by Scott, then there would be nothing to complain about. Quite probably there was no similar sized unit (either here or Stateside) possessed with so much genuine fire in its belly and dynamic soloists such as Jimmy Deuchar, Ken Wray, Derek Humble, Victor Feldman, Tony Crombie, not to mention the self-effacing guv'ner himself. Here was a raucous bunch of bebop brigands, who were living the dream (mostly) on their own terms and in the process greatly improving their individual skills. To add to their uniqueness, when not stuffing the band book with originals such as Ronnie's title track, or Crombie's ‘Body Beautiful’, they reworked anything from ‘Yardbird Suite’ to ‘Dear Old Southland’ and though composer credits to ‘In The Land Of Nimbupani’ are listed as unknown, it was in fact a Victor Feldman original dedicated to a traditional Indian lemon juice drink! Fast and loose just about sums this lot up!