Neil Ardley would have been pleasantly surprised with the emergence of work that he thought had disappeared into the ether over 50 years ago now appearing on CD and vinyl thanks to Universal, Dusk Fire Records and Rhythm and Blues Records.

Yet this music does not betray the passage of time, sounding resolutely contemporary at a time when writing and arranging for larger ensembles (with just a few notable exceptions) seems stuck in the mud, unable to move much beyond Sammy Nestico’s text The Complete Arranger.

That a talent such as Ardley should end his days as a talented author of children’s books for Dorling Kindersley, his distinguished musical past in British jazz parked firmly behind him, is one the great miscarriages of justice in UK jazz.

BBC Sessions comprises two broadcasts, the first from a Jazz Club broadcast in July 1968 with the New Jazz Orchestra, and of those six tracks, five would subsequently appear on the NJO’s Le Déjeuner Sur l’Herbe, recorded eight weeks or so later. The BBC session lacks the polish and finesse of the album, which was recorded for the American Verve label when Creed Taylor superseded Norman Granz.

The Neil Ardley Group, an octet, featuring compositions by Mike Taylor and Ardley, dates from a Jazz in Britain broadcast in October 1970. This session does not lack ambition, and along with the July 1968 broadcast and Le Déjeuner Sur l’Herbe, point to Ardley’s magnum opus, Greek Variations & Other Aegean Exercises. All are fine examples of British jazz at the time, when UK musicians were defining their music in a way that avoided sounding “American.’