The big band put together after Basie had spent more than a year leading an octet coalesced gradually, with Sonny Payne and Joe Williams joining too late in 1954 to be heard here, but the feel was there from the outset. The looseness of Basie's original 1930s band was subsumed by a heavier ensemble that actually had much in common with his late 1940s band. A large number of arrangers initially contributing to the new book all had Swing Era connections, and there were even a few revivals of earlier repertoire – including two with Al Hibbler trying his best to sound like Jimmy Rushing – alongside occasional forward-looking items like ‘Blee-Blop Blues’ (previously done by Basie as ‘Normania’ in 1949). There was even the odd standard, such as ‘You're Not The Kind’, but by and large the sound of the ‘new’ band was defined by melodic riff-laden originals from Hefti and others, for example ‘Cherry Point’ and ‘You And Me’ (a forerunner of 1957's ‘Whirlybirds’).

As in the earlier outfit, the leader's minimalist but varied pianism leads a superb rhythm section (all with ex-Jay McShann drummer Gus Johnson, for Buddy Rich only appears on a small-group session – while Oscar Peterson duets with Basie's organ in another small-group). Alongside barely enough of Lockjaw in one of several brief stays with Basie, there's lots of rewarding stuff from Newman and perhaps too much of the pallid Quinichette, while people like Thad Jones and the reed-playing ‘Two Franks’ only arrive towards the end of this package.

The main problem is the sound balance – producer Norman Granz favoured a ‘natural’ mono sound with very little reverb and few mikes, so that on occasion a soloist gets partly drowned by the ensemble or, when the trumpets are heavily muted, they can be dominated by saxophone backings. There's not much a reissue producer can do about this, but the self-described ‘humble CD annotator’ has a lot to be humble about, including errors in the listings. But, despite the sometimes oppressive acoustics, these 63 tracks are a breath of fresh air, especially if taken in small doses.