Taken from four Petrucciani concerts in the 1990s from Montreux Festival director Claude Nobs’ private tape collection, this superbly-packaged two-LP set also comes as a CD release. The album has helpful, informative liner notes and a series of previously unpublished photos.

What could go wrong? Subjective, of course, but this comes on the heels of the two-LP set One Night in Karlsruhe (Jazzwise 282), which is a splendid representation of the pianist in the trio setting, in which he excelled. While this excellent Montreux Years artist by artist retrospective is to be welcomed, my personal preference would be a concert-by-concert release, brought home by the very recent Karlsruhe release.

It allows a much deeper engagement with Petrucciani the pianist, than two or three tracks from this concert two or three from that, each in a totally different instrumental configuration. It can be disconcerting – context is all, and in the case of side four of this set, we go from duet, to solo, to quartet, each time recasting Petrucciani’s role – playing in an ensemble, duet and in solo demands subtly different skills. It’s like sitting down to a cordon bleu dinner, and having each course whisked away before you have time to fully savour it.