condition (records/box/insert): NM / EX+ / NM

4LP box set. Insert included.

In the late thirties the big bands started letting small groups out of their own ranks make records, and the results are frequently better than anything the full orchestras managed. Three of these sides come from inside the Ellington organisation - Johnny Hodges, Rex Stewart and Barney Bigard each leading a handful of colleagues - and they are miniature masterpieces: Hodges' alto sliding between notes in a way nobody has replicated, Stewart's half-valve effects, Bigard's New Orleans clarinet. Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven and Artie Shaw's Gramercy Five supply the white bandleaders' equivalent, with the harpsichord on the Shaw sides still sounding faintly outrageous.

Japanese RCA four-LP box. The swing era's chamber music, and consistently the best-played records of the period.