Earl Gardner, Lew Soloff, Giampaolo Casati, Florian Esch:trumpets; Beppe Calamosca, Gary Valente, Gigi Grata, Richard Henry: trombones; Roger Jannotta: soprano and alto saxophones, flute; Wolfgang Puschnig: alto saxophone, flute; Andy Sheppard: tenor saxophone; Christophe Panzani: tenor saxophone; Julian Arguelles: baritone saxophone; Carla Bley: piano, conductor; Karen Mantler: organ; Steve Swallow: bass; Billy Drummond: drums

“Carla Bley and Her Remarkable Big Band” – as it says on the cover - recorded live at Paris’s famous New Morning club in a set of new but nostalgically-inflected material. “We couldn’t bring back the past, but this was a chance to pay our respects to the wonderful big bands and great American songwriters that dominated American popular music in the first half of the 20th century”. Warm and witty playing by all of Bley’s cast in charts that bear out Nat Hentoff’s judgement: “Her scores for big jazz bands are matched only by those of Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus for yearning lyricism, explosive exultation and other expressions of the human condition.”