Taped by Contemporary Records in 1960, scheduled for belated issue in 1972, then unaccountably shelved only to finally see the light of day via Fantasy in the mid-1980s, this set might be considered jinxed, at least as far as its corporate history is concerned. Happily, the music it contains tells a rather more straightforward story.

Caught between his peak-period stint with Verve Records and the Columbia and Impulse! sessions that marked his studio farewell before heading to Europe, by this juncture in his career Ben Webster could do no saxophonic wrong. Offering gruff-toned and blues-hewn solos there was still a touch of his younger self on faster paced material, but the poised, breath-shaded ballads were where the real drama lay.

While a cynic might justifiably ask why the world needs a further version of a familiar Webster standby like ‘Stardust’, only a heartless churl would complain at the result heard here. Indeed, who but a master could serve you such hackneyed fare as ‘Georgia’ and ‘Caravan’ and make you forget any antipathy toward these done-to-death choices?

A great part of this session’s success, alongside its 11th-hour club blow informality, is the dream team rhythm section, younger men all but each perfectly attuned to the veteran tenorist’s idiom: Rowles quirky by turns, Hall immaculately as attentive as ever and Mitchell and Butler brewing up the most delicious of grooves no matter what the tempo.

That each instrument is registered so beautifully isn’t solely to the credit of Craft’s audio remastering genius Bernie Grundman; the original engineer Howard Holzer already got everything down front and centre on the night, this session joining his work on Shelly Manne’s contemporaneous live albums as definitive examples of on-location jazz recording.

The only real problem a record like this presents is one of critical restraint. A truly satisfying album, full to the brim of honest, impromptu, bullshit-free music, none of which strays needlessly into the realms of self-indulgence, it plays like the perfect jazz LP.

It’s also the ideal counter to anyone who wonders why, this far on from the heyday of swing, we still venerate a player like Webster. Those opening notes on ‘Stardust’, thick with sentiment and yet so sparsely phrased as to be diaphanous, tell it all.

A beautiful, beautiful album.