The Swiss pianist, composer, arranger and conductor George Gruntz is a major figure on the European jazz scene. His Concert Jazz Band has accumulated a significant discography as well as countless air miles on their tours around the continent, while he is regularly in demand as a guest conductor/composer/arranger with big bands across Europe. Here he is with German radio's NDR big band, which, like the other two fulltime jazz orchestras maintained by Germany's public radio, comprise some of the finest jazz musicians in the country. Here, Gruntz's imaginative scores of material associated with Coltrane's Vanguard years (1961-62) are interpreted with precision and above all a passion. ‘Blue Train’, with its unexpected clarinet introduction is taken at a delightfully slow tempo, while ‘Giant Steps’, from Coltrane's Atlantic period and not his Vanguard years, somehow finds its way into the proceedings. An over-exposed staple of the Coltrane repertoire, it is treated as a vehicle for extended soloing with trumpeter Ingolf Burkhardt shining in a version that seems to augur for a moratorium on a composition that has now, officially, been done to death. The main interest of an album of pieces that, like ‘Giant Steps’, have been constantly recycled since Coltrane's death some 50 years ago, must be in the originality of the writing and the ability of the band to vividly bring the scores to life and on pieces such as ‘Impressions’ and ‘After the Rain’ this is largely achieved.