These are halcyon days for those keen to hoover up Art Farmer reissues at modest cost. Recently, there’s been Art Farmer: Four Classic Albums on Avid (reviewed in Jazzwise 290) and then the Four Classic Albums by the Farmer-Golson co-led Jazztet (Jazzwise 292) and now this Acrobat double-CD collection of Art’s early Prestige sessions.

Almost inevitably there is an overlap on these collections: all eight tracks of the Quintet with Gigi Gryce from May 1954 and May 1955 heard in their entirety on Avid are repeated by Acrobat here.

Annotator/compiler Paul Watts explains that many of these Farmer ‘name’ sessions were first issued on 10” Prestige albums and then re-packaged when the label went over to the 12” format. His compilation sticks to the original issue sequence, date by date, kicking off with the 1953 session made with Farmer’s pals from the Lionel Hampton orchestra that opens CD1, with Quincy as both composer and pianist, Farmer himself sounding a tad brittle, the tone quite thin. Cleveland is the highlight here, fluent, and adventurous.

Next, it’s a quintet with the youthful Rollins, not yet the titan he became and then the quintet with Gryce which not only reflects his value as a composer but reminds us that he was a thoughtful alto soloist too. Farmer seems to be gathering strength hereabouts, sounding less staccato than hitherto and showing added verve. Cleveland returns for the 7 June 1954 date, but it’s Rouse with his resolute tenor who impresses most.

Farmer is further exposed in a quartet date with the marvellous Wynton Kelly and brother Addison on bass, and we begin to hear the emergence of the mature Farmer, warmer, always literate, and pristine. Bassist Keter Betts was right to call him, “a gentleman’s trumpet player, not a rebel”. Good music all the way. Sound is adequate.