In his centenary year, Leonard Bernstein's work is getting plenty of attention. And among the offerings celebrating this titan of American music is percussionist Bobby Sanabria's big-band orchestration of the music from Bernstein's best-known stage work, West Side Story. The arrangements are by Sanabria, Jeremy Fletcher, Niko Siebold, Jeff Lederer and Danny Rivera among others, and the entire 2CD set is the document of a live concert at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola at J@LC. In its life this musical-cumopera has not always had an easy ride as regards recordings. The maestro's own version for DG with José Carreras and Kiri Te Kanawa is fatally flawed as classical diction and tone uncomfortably mingle with the street language of New York, and maybe the best version is the soundtrack album from the 1961 movie. The music has not been lacking for jazz treatments either, with Stan Kenton winning a Grammy for his 1962 version of Johnny Richards’ charts, and the truncated ‘West Side Story Suite’ also became a perennial staple of the Buddy Rich repertoire for two decades. So this version has a lot to live up to. At times the atmosphere of a live concert makes this compelling listening, with some fine soloing, for example on the ‘Jet Song’, above a rhythm section that seems to be hammering every kitchen utensil in reach. But there are also some moments that just don't come off, including the plodding tempo of the ‘Prologue’. It's so nearly very good, and bringing it into a studio to record it might have sacrificed a little in atmosphere, but more likely ironed out some of the rough edges. The latin preamble (complete with police whistles and grunts) to the tune of ‘Tonight’ is a case in point, and even when the full ensemble comes in with the familiar melody there are some moments where the reeds ride roughshod over the chart, which then has only a short run of the orthodox tune before the rash of percussion re-enters and superimposes a latin feel again. Allin-all it needs to be chalked down as yet another curate's egg recording of this most multi-faceted of works.