To those in the know this band has long been regarded as one of the best, if not the best of all British jazz orchestras, and this album is its finest work. But Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe was an LP more known about than heard, as this is the first reissue since its original appearance on Verve in 1969. Every player had a well-developed individual sound, so that even a standard like Coltrane's ‘Naima’ (arranged by Alan Cohen) takes on a new character with tenorist Jim Philip's fluttery, oblique take about as much the polar opposite of Coltrane's own playing as it was possible to find. Although Ian Carr was a Miles Davis devotee, his take on ‘Nardis’ is similarly original. Yet Neil Ardley's devotion to Gil Evans was such (I once looked over his detailed transcriptions of the Davis/Evans repertoire) that the spirit of Gil is never far away. ‘Nardis’ also features the woody-toned double bass of Jack Bruce, playing with a depth and jazz sensibility that gives no clue he was three weeks away from setting off on Cream's farewell US tour. Not all the arrangements are by Ardley, and Mike Taylor's version of ‘Study’ (itself based on a Segovia guitar figure) is a brilliant setting for Barbara Thompson's soprano and Henry Lowther's poised trumpet. There's fine writing from Mike Gibbs as well. It's an album full of delights at every level, from full-scale pieces such as the brilliant reworking of Mike Garrick's ‘Dusk Fire’ to tiny nuances of tone colour or harmonic ingenuity. For once, the reappearance of a classic album proves that all the praise that was heaped on it back in the day was true!