These tracks – essentially by two different sized groups, one of nine and one of 11 musicians – presented Chet to an American record-buying public in an unfamiliar setting, given that hitherto his producer Richard Bock had unstintingly promoted Baker’s small group persona. But Chet’s lengthy 1955-56 stint in Europe had teamed him up with Kurt Edelhagen’s orchestra and more tellingly with a Parisian octet for Barclay Records. Hearing these discs, and realising he had missed a trick, Bock celebrated the trumpeter’s return to the West Coast with this pair of sessions, that put his uncharacteristically aggressive trumpet at the head of these larger ensembles. Some of the charts are by Baker’s regular small group colleague Phil Urso, some by Jimmy Heath, and some – the least conventional – by the French bassist Pierre Michelot, who had played on the Barclay sessions.

Not surprisingly, Michelot’s composition ‘Chet’ makes much of Bond’s skilled bass playing, but there are also fine moments crafted to show off Bob Burgess’s trombone in this and Michelot’s other piece, ‘Mythe’. Pacific Jazz brought out the original recordings in 1957, and they were reissued under the same branding in 2004 as part of EMI’s comprehensive trawling of its archive in the hands of Michael Cuscuna. What makes this new issue special, and useful for those who don’t have Baker’s European recordings is that the Barclay sides are also included, so it’s possible to make a direct comparison between the work Chet did on each side of the Atlantic. And for completists, there’s also a set of sextet tracks done in the USA in 1954, with Bud Shank and Bob Brookmeyer joining the regular Baker quartet. So it’s an important acquisition if you don’t have these big band sides, and even if you do, the extra material justifies splashing out.