This album came at an interesting time in Davis' career, since the year 1966 saw very little recording activity by him other than three tunes recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival and the Miles Smiles studio session of 24-25 October. Thus this complete concert – two CDs – provides a valuable window into Davis' music during this period. It is tempting to think of his career as one of leaps and inspirational bounds, but as this album set makes clear, there were periods of consolidation too. In April 1965 he had a hip operation which laid him up until November 1965, during which time his band returned to the freelance world of jingles, pit bands, studio dates and ad hoc ensembles assembled for a few dates in this club or that. On returning to work, Davis' monumental recordings at the Plugged Nickel took place in December 1965, after which the quintet undertook a month long tour of the West Coast in May 1966 which was followed by a summer East Coast tour. This album was recorded during the West Coast leg of their tours that year at the Oriental Theatre in Portland on 21 May 1966 and was organised by the Portland State College in Oregon. The fidelity is reasonable and does not distract from the historical significance of this material. Ron Carter's freelance commitments had built up during Davis' recuperation to the point he made neither the West or East Coast tours, Davis using Richard Davis instead. Thus these recordings are the only representation we have (so far) of the bassist many considered Carter's superior with the band. The repertoire was by now well established – ‘Autumn Leaves,’ ‘Stella by Starlight’, ‘All Blues’, ‘So What’ and ‘My Funny Valentine’ which were subjected to the same kind of creative abstraction as the Plugged Nickel sessions, plus ‘Agitation’ from January 1965's E.S.P. (also recorded at the Plugged Nickel sessions) and ‘Gingerbread Boy’, which would figure in the forthcoming Miles Smiles session of 25 October. Interestingly, the Leslie Bricuss/Anthony Newley composition ‘Who Can I Turn To’ from the then popular musical The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd makes its only appearance in Davis' discography during this concert.