When the Dorsey Brothers band broke up in 1935, John Hammond regretted in Down Beat that the pair had failed ‘to take advantage of their golden opportunities to start a band that would have both musicianship and sheer guts’. This collection of 71 tracks focuses rather relentlessly on the gutless side of their work, with a succession of second-rate vocals, with the exception of a few exceptional tracks featuring Bing Crosby and Ethel Waters.

By focusing on spurious ‘chart positions’ (there were no charts as such in those days) the collection misses the chance to look seriously at the emergence of Glenn Miller as the band’s principal arranger or include the rare examples of the band at its swinging instrumental best, on those occasions when their manager Tommy Rockwell relaxed his view that he knew ‘what the public wants’. Both brothers went on to make copious examples of hard-swinging music with their individual bands, but here, squirmingly embarrassing tracks such as ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ (with the vocal group featuring Bob Crosby and Kay Weber) are included, rather than the eight-piece Dixieland sides such as ‘By Heck’, or Miller’s belting unorthodox arrangement of ‘Weary Blues’ with one trumpet, three trombones and three reeds. That’s not to say Miller’s work is unrepresented, but even with this instrumentation, the remastering lets it down, so that a track such as ‘Don’t Let It Bother You’ sounds as if the band is at the far end of a reverberant tunnel. Best of the bunch are a slightly cool ‘Heat Wave’, a romping ‘Sweet and Hot’ (with Bunny Berigan making his presence felt in the trumpet section, plus some of Stan King’s best drumming on the set) and – showing the relaxed swing the band had achieved by its final session, and pointing at Tommy’s future commercial success – a laid-back ‘I’ve Got a Feeling You’re Foolin’.’