Well, here’s a turn-up – 40 minutes of the first Miles quintet that is genuinely unissued. Recorded off-air but with Chambers more prominent than on typical airshots, the music is occasionally cautious but still important. The nearly 20 minutes that follows, with a reticent Evans and very possibly Cobb at the drums (see Jazzwise 172), has been released frequently, most recently on United Archives. Of the two bonus items here, the rough ‘Night In Tunisia’ from a 1953 concert is short and reveaing, but the 1958 TV jam on ‘What Is This Thing’ is long and misleading because – though Miles is mentioned for a concert plug – it’s actually Art Farmer and the Mulligan quartet plus guests who, like Miles, are incorrectly identified by Domino (the above listing is incomplete but more trustworthy).

The So What concerts, which haven’t been out before, were officially recorded at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw with dramatically better sound, and parallel the Dragon album combining Miles’ two 1960 tours, one his last with Trane and one with Stitt. The first group plays only the second set of a JATP promotion, while the two-set concert by the later line-up includes two long numbers by the rhythm-section and two short ballads by Stitt who, in the course of the evening, manages to quote ‘The Kerry Dancers’ three times. The Coltrane band had already played in Scheveningen earlier the same evening and, while possible fatigue may affect Kelly’s invention, the effect on Trane is most interesting. On several solos he permutates short phrases in an unflamboyant way that predicts his later work very clearly, and it goes without saying that Miles himself has many excellent moments.