A good decade and a half after the Swing Era went bust, 1960 hardly seemed an auspicious time in which to start a working big band. Yet that's exactly what Gerry Mulligan did. Having already made his name as an arranger and composer of real consequence, as well as pioneering a series of light and mobile pianoless small groups, most famously his quartet, Mulligan thought that his new band – again sans keyboard – might combine the best of both worlds: the contrapuntal and linear orchestral scoring he was long famed for allied to the flexibility that characterised his own combo line-ups.

This handy ‘two on one’ from Matchball reveals its early successes in full. Uniting the bands first two Verve studio albums – the eponymous titled debut and its successor, 1961's A Concert In Jazz – it shows in spades how quickly the band went from novelty to a serious addition to the big-band lineage. The first album is dominated by the leader, both as a writer and a player, though there are inevitably several highlights from regular confrères Brookmeyer and Sims (digging in especially hard on ‘Broadway’). Updates of old Mulligan stand-bys like ‘My Funny Valentine’ and ‘Biddable Bobbida’ nudge up against some new things: a gorgeously swinging score of ‘You Took Advantage of Me’ at one end of the spectrum, Django Reinhardt's pastoral ‘Manoir De Mes Réves’ at the other, the latter so slow that it comes on like a cool school ‘Lil Darlin'’.

A Concert In Jazz is even more impressive, as Mulligan turns over some of the arranging duties to fellow writers George Russell (‘All About Rosie’) and – then new star – Gary McFarland, whose two contributions include the Monk-meets-Waller-meets-Mulligan piano theme ‘Chuggin'’, a melody that lodges itself immovably in the ear. Solo-wise, this later set gives welcome spots to ex-Tristano trombonist Willie Dennis and the fine sadly all-but-forgotten tenorman Jim Reider. With music as multi-layered and subtle as this audio mastering is everything, so thumbs up to Matchball for doing a fine job. If you only know Mulligan from the Chet Baker/Quartet era, try this; it's a consistently engrossing account of how he saw jazz progressing in the age of Ornette, Dolphy and Trane. Essential.