The second volume in the Reference series from AlAy, the Basel imprint curated by Werner X. Uehlinger, gathers twenty two sides that document one of the great partnerships of modern jazz: trumpeter Fats Navarro and composer, arranger and pianist Tadd Dameron, captured across seven New York studio sessions between January 1947 and January 1949, with sonic restoration and mastering by Michael Brändli and new liner notes by Art Lange.

Navarro, gone at twenty six, made perhaps the deepest impression in the shortest time of any figure in jazz history: a bebop soloist of dazzling fluency, complex ideas articulated with total clarity, intensity and control held in dramatic balance. Dameron was his ideal foil, a formalist rooted in swing, Ellington and Gershwin, who shaped these small groups with an arranger's ear, smoothing the bop attack into something more sophisticated and songful. Around them circles a staggering cast: Dexter Gordon, Charlie Rouse, Ernie Henry, Leo Parker, Allen Eager, Wardell Gray, Kai Winding, Art Blakey, Kenny Clarke and more, running from the classic Fat Girl, Ice Freezes Red and The Squirrel through Our Delight, Lady Bird and Nostalgia to the exotic contours of Jahbero and Casbah, where Dameron already points towards the orchestral ambitions of Fontainebleau.

Is it bebop? Yes and no, and that is exactly the point: the revolutionary brilliance of the era's most gifted young trumpeter set within the elegant architecture of its finest arranger. A unique chapter in jazz history, restored with care and sounding remarkable.

Sound restoration and mastering by Michael Brändli. Cover and postcard photos by William P. Gottlieb. Liner notes by Art Lange. Produced by Bernhard "Benne" Vischer. Graphic concept by fuhrer vienna. Executive curator Werner X. Uehlinger. Total time 62:49. CD, AlAy, thingamajig 2512, 2026 edition.