Fifteen years ago, someone asked me if Polygram (for whom I compiled a 16-track sampler of this period) was intending to reissue Shearing's entire MGM output from this period. It's taken the public domain 50-year rule, and a few years extra, for the task to be undertaken, and this release adds six of the tracks recorded weeks earlier for Discovery (only omitting a couple where he played accordion instead of piano). Easily written off at the time as the 1950s equivalent of smooth jazz – especially when the last session here added a choir, leading to albums on Capitol with much blander backings – the ‘Shearing sound’ became a cliché so overused by everyone else that the man himself eventually tired of it. In fact, there's a surprising subtlety even in some of the early hits (‘September In The Rain’, ‘I'll Be Around’, ‘I'll Remember April’) and a considerable amount of jazz material covered (‘Move’ written by drummer Denzil Best, ‘Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid', Mary Lou Williams' ‘Lonely Moments’ and Shearing's own ‘Conception’). Then on CD4, with the arrival of Tjader, there's the move towards latin-jazz and the addition of Peraza as a sixth member. More serious than the accordion omissions is the disappearance of two solo tracks – the hit ‘Tenderly’ and the pseudoclassical ‘Summertime’ – but these could and should have been included.