Local-boy-made-good, and Ireland’s most high-status jazz musician, Louis Stewart (1944-2016) worked first in Dublin showbands, and then built a jazz career that brought him associations with the greatest players of the day. By the time of this, his first ‘name’ recording, he had already worked and recorded with Tubby Hayes and toured Europe three times with Benny Goodman. He then went on to perform with Ronnie Scott and George Shearing, recording often, and occasionally nipping back to Dublin to re-engage with old friends, including his co-workers on this exceptional album.

The revived Livia Records label having now embarked on its reissue, the original notes reproduced, the original tapes newly digitised, the commentary remarks that the album ‘was a triumph’ and rightly so.

Stewart launches into ‘All The Things You Are’ as if life itself depended on it, his sure-footed variations, sonic clarity and plectrum technique quite stunning, suggesting that those earlier stellar employers knew that they were on to a good thing in engaging him. This is guitar mastery of a high order, the inspiration unceasing, as on ‘Here’s That Rainy Day’ played solo, the eloquent melodic statements complemented by a kind of bravura self-accompaniment. ‘Bluesology’ is taken slow, Walshe’s superb walking bass lines and Wadham’s crisp brushes firmly in the pocket, as they say, the guitar quite spare at first, the timing just right. There’s a fetching Jobim piece as well as Shorter’s ‘Footprints’ also to commend.

There’s more than enough here to justify Stewart’s place in the guitar pantheon. He was the real deal, for sure.