In the period immediately following the Second World War, there was a renewed interest in jazz among young Brits. This can, in part, be attributed to US troops stationed in the UK, V-Discs and those life-affirming AFN broadcasts that nightly saturated the airways with the very latest sounds from the States. Impressionable young Brit boppers were immediately hooked, picked up the baton and ran with it as fast as they could. However, there were those local non-playing pipe-smoking blowhards who felt their self-appointed position as arbiters of taste (!!!!) threatened, instantly dismissing local efforts as nothing more than a very pale shadow of the original, while some also had the audacity to question the validity of Bird, Diz, Bud, Monk and others! The intelligent manner in which the Acrobat label has chosen to approach the Tempo catalogue confirms that, against all odds, our esteemed Jazzwise team-mate Tony Hall's original vision for the label was unshakeable when steering this particular ship through choppy waters. Had it not been for his tenacity, many of those who he took into the studio would have quite probably gone unrecorded. Who else would have picked up on The Jazz Couriers or the equally adept The Jazz Five, fronted by Vic Ash and Harry Klein (just two of the Tempo sessions that were subsequently released Stateside), let alone Dizzy Reece (who later signed to Blue Note) or the great Wilton ‘Bogey’ Gaynair? This 4CD pack (which gathers together three rare original themed Tempo samplers plus) is unreservedly recommended, not only for the quality of the actual music, but also for Simon Spillett's insightful accompanying illustrated 42-page booklet. Now we await Victor Feldman's tremendous Tempo output!