It has never been a perfect world, but if it were, then commemorative stamps would be issued, coins struck and statues erected to honour the late Norman Granz. Quite probably the greatest of all jazz entrepreneurs, Granz brought the biggest stars of swing-into-bop to the masses on both record and in the form of his now legendary touring Jazz At The Philharmonic package shows. The European jaunt that JATP undertook in 1960 was one of his very best. Just check out the cast: Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Eldridge on trumpets, tenor sax legends Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz and Don Byas at their best. Similarly, Cannonball Adderley, Benny Carter and Leo Wright paraded their individual wares and we haven't even got round to pianists that included Oscar Peterson, Lalo Schifrin and Victor Feldman. By this time, the format had altered somewhat. Instead of only a line-up of musicians stretched across the stage, in jam session style, Granz now presented a handful of soloists plus some self-contained units (Dizzy, Cannonball etc). Also dropped were the once crowd-baiting honking tenors and the staged battles involving trumpets and drums, but not the excitement.

The premise may still have been combative, but nobody was red carded, while bloody noses and smashed teeth were few and far between. JATP remained as casual as a bunch of jazz gunslingers could get outside of an after hours club environment. Nothing appeared to be over-rehearsed, so what we get is warts and all as, in various permutations, familiar standards as ‘Take The “A” Train’, ‘All The Things You Are’ and ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ are dusted off. If the battles were relegated to history, thankfully, the ballad medley remained intact resulting in sterling interpretations from Coleman Hawkins (‘These Foolish Things’), Don Byas (‘Yesterdays’), Benny Carter (‘The Nearness Of You’) and Roy Eldridge (‘You Go To My Head’). On an evening of outstanding performances, your attention is drawn to a stunning 18' 31"-long version of ‘Kush’ and equally evocative treatments of Duke's ‘The Mooche’ and Dizzy's ‘Wheatleigh Hall’ given by the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet augmented by Stan Getz. JJ Johnson and Candido is about as good as it gets. Still want more? By way of a bonus, a rollicking set by Roy Eldridge, Stuff Smith and Jo Jones with the Oscar Peterson trio taped at the very small Stockholm auditorium three years earlier proves to be the proverbial cherry.