Four Blue Note albums, headed by Parlan, the CD1 pair with the Turrentine brothers in the front-line, those with the just the trio collected in CD2. Pianist Parlan (1931-2017) was hampered after suffering from polio, this requiring him to stress his left-hand technique. From 1973 he moved to Copenhagen and gained great success there.

He had the good sense on these rather splendid 1960s recordings to use a bassist and drummer who exactly complemented his relatively sparse but percussive approach. This is apparent on his ‘Wadin’, a blues, with Tucker’s booming sound and wonderful walking style heard first on this, the initial track from Speaking My Piece, Harewood tucked in, all concerned intent on swing. Writer Nat Hentoff cites Tucker’s ‘authoritative groove’ and he’s right. Tommy Turrentine, a confident player whose career was grounded by addiction, has something of Fats Navarro’s bright fluency in his solo attack, his tone marginally more strident, while his brother and co-partner Stanley is ‘robustly warm’ as Hentoff has it. Their companionable playing and the way they mesh with Parlan, Tucker and Harewood brings everything to life perfectly.

Parlan contributes a number of tunes as do the Turrentines, nothing is wasted or over-prolix, some tracks fading out, the whole effect revealing a kind of innate mastery. I especially liked Booker Ervin’s ‘Al’s Tune’, a minor blues, from the second quintet album, On The Spur of The Moment, Tucker heard pizzicato. The trio albums came before the quintets chronologically and Parlan’s Us Three with its churchy theme highlights engaging directness, Tucker again resplendent throughout. More Parlan tunes, including ‘Wadin’ again, plus standards make me wish I’d heard Parlan live. Too late now, so this will have to do. Don’t hesitate.