The late Cedar Walton started out as an authoritative sideman for people like JJ Johnson and Art Blakey, and developed into an equally impressive bandleader. First of all with quartets (sometimes labelled Eastern Rebellion) featuring the likes of George Coleman, Bob Berg and even Harold Land on a 1994 European tour, he also led a long-standing trio with David Williams and Billy Higgins.

It’s Walton’s own crisp and crunchy playing that’s singled out here and, surprisingly perhaps, given the liner notes cite his album Blues For Myself as receiving considerable acclaim, rather than reissue it, the Red label has decided to release the out-takes from that session. Cedar frequently created memorable originals, and the fact that his ‘Booker’s Bossa’ and ‘Bridge Work’ are each heard in two complete takes doesn’t imply any inferior quality. The other item to receive two versions is a flamboyant arrangement of the standard ‘Without A Song’, whereas the other standard (‘Li’l Darlin’) and the other Walton original (‘Sixth Avenue’) only appear once. There’s sufficient variety to make a listenable programme, and the fact that these were all re-done for the original issue could hardly be guessed by listening to the present album.