This obscure chunk of British modernism was originally issued on vinyl by Ember, a label which specialised in artists who played the Flamingo basement club in Wardour Street in the late 1950s and early '60s. The original sleeve notes, for which you will need a magnifying glass, are by Bix Curtis, who alternated emcee duties at the Flamingo with Jazzwise's very own Tony Hall. Harold McNair, a bright Bird-influenced altoist, was a white Jamaican who might have made a bigger impression in London had Joe Harriott not arrived at around the same time. He gives a fair Johnny Hodges impression on his ballad feature, ‘Look for the Real Thing’. Cecil, a swinging bassist who had briefly worked by Tubby, later contracted TB and emigrated to South Africa for health reasons. I met him while leading a piano trio aboard the cruise liner which took him there. Still later he moved on to the US, where he turned up programming synthesisers for Stevie Wonder. McNair, tenormen Tommy Whittle, doubling on bass clarinet on one track, and Bobby Wellins (on four tracks only) are the frontline stars here, but drummer Crombie is the leader, and rightly so because he wrote and arranged all 12 of these originals. Composer of background music for the Man from Interpol and other TV series, he craftily recycled some of his screen themes for this session, including short chase-pieces like ‘Round the 'Ouses’ and ‘Stop That Man’. Whittle is the most chameleonic player on view, recalling Lester Young in some places and Tubby Hayes in others. The early Wellins sounds remarkably like he does today, whereas the young Gordon Beck is Oscar Peterson-like and far peppier than he would become in his more introverted years. He occasionally switches to harpsichord to good effect in this unusual session. One for the collectors of vintage and rare.