Now, this is a find. These selections are from transcription recordings made for French radio, with three complete programmes included, the personnel and date listed a matter of informed guesswork by annotator Tony Middleton. Replete with the original detailed introductory comments (great for checking out your command of French), they capture the Dankworth band in its later form, with the Seven front-line out front. It's easy to see Dankworth himself as his band's greatest adornment, his literate, always fluent alto out front, the writing as accomplished as could be, often with Snyder's tuba in rumbling counterpoint. His contrasting trumpet soloists are heard often, Wheeler, long-lined and limber, and Hawdon more boppish, (the latter sometimes on the slightly hoarse-sounding tenor horn, an instrument now mercifully side-lined), with Moss adding bass-clarinet to his more familiar tenor while the still-active Smith is featured in a fine trio reading of ‘Love For Sale’. The band itself is in great shape here, Basie-ish at times, Clare's drumming a potent element, with the material split between re-worked swing staples like ‘Don't Be That Way’ and original compositions by JD and his associate Dave Lindup, with his ‘New Forest’ an especially relaxed track. The excursions by the Seven are a delight, Hawdon letting rip back on trumpet on Ray Bryant's jaunty ‘Threesome’, the richly-toned Moss swinging hard as he does whenever chance comes his way. Too many other delights to detail here but rest assured that this is a release to savour. This really was a cracking band.