Danish label Storyville last issued their double-CD of this legendary ‘live’ Ellington dance date in 2000, labelled reasonably enough as the ‘60th anniversary edition’. Now they’ve released it again, sub-titled this time as Special 60th Anniversary Edition. Prior to Storyville’s involvement an earlier edition appeared in 1990 on the US-based Vintage Jazz Classics label. I mention this because that version boasted a 19-page booklet essay by Ellington scholar Andrew Homzy, a superlative track-by-track evaluation of the music which is not replicated on the Storyville release or matched by the Jerry Valburn-William Strother-Jack Towers’ notes repeated here from their 2000 release. Even so, there’s enough here to place the recording in context. Towers and the late Dick Burris, tyro audio engineers, had seen the band back in 1939 and resolved to record it when it came to Fargo, North Dakota, setting up their rudimentary gear having cleared their endeavour with the booking agency and Duke himself. And what a feast of music they captured for this was the famed Blanton-Webster line-up caught in all their blazing glory on a one-night dance gig in the boondocks. No compromises offered bar the occasional pop song, the core repertoire – ‘Ko-Ko’, ‘Sepia Panorama’, ‘Never No Lament’, ‘Cotton Tail’, ‘Boy Meets Horn’ (with every kind of cornet noise from Stewart) etc – all included. Forty-five pieces in all, some truncated for disc changeovers etc, the vocals less well caught than the ensembles. Trumpeter Nance, making his first gig with the band, sounds good, as do all the established stars. What comes across most for me is Blanton’s incredible buoyancy and the extraordinary rhythmic verve he and Greer demonstrate throughout, this exemplified on the outrageous version of ‘St Louis Blues’ that precedes ‘God Bless America’ as the gig’s closer. Then again there’s the sheer energy and audacity of the ensemble playing, every man on song and in the form of their lives. Oh yes, the sound is surprisingly good considering. Don’t wait another 13 years: snap this up now.