When I was putting together a Radio 3 Jazz Library profile of Earl Hines, I discovered that since the demise of the original French Classics label, there was no comprehensive edition of the great man's career, up until the point when he became principally a soloist rather than a pre-eminent pianist/bandleader. With its usual care and attention to detail, this Mosaic set admirably fills that giant gap in the discography. Starting with Hines' first solo records from 1928 (he had recorded with others, including Armstrong by this date, but not under his own name) the set traces his early Chicagoan bands, and then settles in to document his voluminous catalogue with the orchestra he led throughout the 1930s at the Grand Terrace under the enthusiastic protection (as he told the BBC's Charles Fox) of Al Capone. Because his work was scattered between OKeh, Victor, Bluebird, Columbia, Brunswick and Vocalion, it meant that LP era reissues of Hines's band tended to be label specific, with gaps where he was with another company. The Mosaic set puts that right, with a clear chronological structure, allowing us to trace every nuance of his development, plus some excellent notes by my Jazzwise colleague Brian Priestley, giving context and musical commentary, and correcting some discographical inaccuracies along the way. There are many highlights, including some piano solos that had been near to impossible to find previously, and a comprehensive coverage of the 1939-40 band, which I have always found the most rewarding of the orchestra's work. Why? Because the rhythm section gains the consistently swinging Alvin Burroughs on drums, who is the perfect counterpart to Hines, and fitted his playing even better than his predecessor Wallace Bishop. With this excellent rhythm section the crisp bite of the horns and reeds is enhanced. There's no fear of the furious tempo – Budd Johnson's ‘XYZ’ is a classic – but the band is also a match for any swing era ensemble playing the kind of medium-bounce dance number that was its stock-in-trade at the Grand Terrace, notably its famous ‘Lightly and Politely’. The set is also instructive in showing various arrangers' work for Hines, and it's often the players within the band who score highest, with Johnson and Jimmy Mundy outstanding. By contrast Buster Harding is finding his feet, and Edgar Battle's ‘Topsy Turvy’ sounds dated compared to his contemporaneous chart for Cab Calloway, though trumpeter Walter Fuller sings it with plenty of jazzy coolness. Of the other vocalists – specialists or bandmembers – most are pretty dreadful, and it's even hard to see why the young Billy Eckstine was quite such an aural heartthrob. No such doubts about Hines's piano though. On this set he dazzles throughout, from his Chicagoan debut, to a mature trio with Pettiford and Casey that proves him a lodestar for jazz piano throughout the pre-bop era.