We are regularly reminded that bebop was a stylistic revolution in jazz but also that, from the viewpoint of later generations, it showed great continuity with what had gone before. Both are correct, of course, and this compilation does a good job of demonstrating those truisms. Most of the key names listed above are well represented across the 70 tracks on this triple CD set, including the innovators (Gillespie, Parker, Monk, Christian) and the important mentors from an older generation such as Hawkins and Young.

Other established facilitators such as Roy Eldridge, Lionel Hampton and Ben Webster are heard from, along with the contemporary big-band incubators led by Billy Eckstine and Woody Herman, plus more distant reflectors, such as the bands of Boyd Raeburn and Claude Thornhill (the latter playing Gil Evans arrangements of ‘Donna Lee’ and ‘Yardbird Suite’).

Among the future developments hinted at on the third CD are Afro-Latin (Gillespie’s ‘Manteca’ and Moody’s ‘Tin Tin Deo’, both with Chano Pozo) and Cool (Davis’s ‘Boplicity’). While it’s good to have a track each of Sarah and Ella and to end on Gray’s ‘Twisted’ (foreshadowing Annie Ross’s vocalese), two tracks of Mel Tormé is two too many. The contents overall are an amended collation of three separate Acrobat CDs released some years ago, quoting at length from their annotators (uncredited, as are the compilers) but, if you want elucidation of individual tracks, some wider reading is recommended.