When Chris Barber died in March this year, no one obituarist, myself included, quite conveyed the full range and extent of his musical career and achievements. There simply wasn’t the space. There was always more to Chris than it was possible to convey. How did this putative actuary, the son of high-minded, successful parents, whose education culminated in a period at St Paul's School in London and who was an enthusiast with a penchant for cars and motor-racing evolve into the jazz trombonist whose bandleading career far outstripped even that of his hero, Duke Ellington? What's more, how did he sustain an innate and formative love of New Orleans style jazz, while providing a musical platform for blues artists of the calibre of Muddy Waters, gospellers like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, R&B stars Dr John and Louis Jordan, freethinkers like altoist Joe Harriott or jazzmen such as John Lewis and Trummy Young, all of whom fitted seamlessly into the Barber band template for jazz and blues at one time or another.

So, what better way for these and many other questions to be answered than by this compelling 69-track book format box set, limited to 1,000 units, which comes graced by an 18,000 word biography and discography written and compiled by Jazzwise's Alyn Shipton, who also collaborated with Barber on his autobiography. Alyn provides a detailed exposition for each of the hour-plus CDs contained in this set in a substantial accompanying book, inserting salient facts, the package rounded out with some 150 photographs, mostly from the Barber family collection. Added to this array of musical memorabilia is David Brodie's illuminating, not to say exhaustive, account of Chris’ involvement with motor sport and a miscellany of auto-related photographs.

These discs unfurl the Barber band story from its amateur beginnings in 1950, through the period with Ken Colyer – the unforgettable ‘Isle of Capri’ – and then on to the era of the professional group starting in 1954. With the impeccable yet always stirring trumpeter Pat Halcox alongside Chris [as he remained for 54 years] and clarinettist Monty Sunshine, its personnel stayed constant, piano-less, the ensemble tightly integrated and hard-swinging over Lonnie Donegan's strong banjo beat throughout their 1950s heyday.

The arrival of Ottilie Paterson [later Chris's wife], diminutive yet lusty-voiced, only added to their appeal as did the extraordinary success of Donegan's ‘Rock Island Line’, the chart-topping ‘Petite Fleur’ [which led to US tours], and the appearance of the electrifying Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Chris described her performances with the band as ‘absolutely mind-bogglingly wonderful’ and I can vouch for that, having heard them at London's Marquee Club. Then came the ground-breaking Muddy Waters association and the presence of bluesmen Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, these presaging visits from other blues stars, opening the eyes of many young R&B followers who then morphed into the rock musicians of a later generation, among them Van Morrison, who's heard here (and who pays tribute).

Chris’ association with veteran US musicians who guested with the band or whose bands he joined for recordings, the wide-ranging repertoire choices – the band first tackled Ellingtonia in the 1950s – and the to and fro of sidemen all feature on these discs, as does their re-badging as the Blues and Jazz Band with the inclusion of the brilliant guitarist John Slaughter. Skiffle was never discarded, the worldwide tours continued and the augmented Big Chris Barber Band brought new strengths to the Barber package, this continuing right up to Chris’ retirement in 2019 in his 89th year. Happily most facets of his career were recorded and most are here: the listening experience again highlighting the band's crystal-clear musicianship, its open-minded approach and Barber's own trombone certainty. His was never just ‘trad jazz’ -it was always far more than that.