Last year the New Land reissue label made a lot of friends with its very first release, a superb version of Gerry Mulligan's Night Lights (Jazzwise 269). That circle of admirers is sure to widen still further with the label's republishing of these two albums by a pair of underrated trumpeters, both superbly-packaged and annotated; and beautifully (100-per-cent-analogue) remastered from the original tapes by the estimable Kevin Gray.

The short-lived (he died in 1979, aged just 49) Mitchell's record – sometimes titled Soul Village – was originally released on Mainstream in 1971, and as one of his first post-Blue Note dates, tends to get overlooked. That's a shame, because this is a big, meaty, almost gospel-ly, date that deftly combines the rough with the smooth. Taking a very different direction from his fellow trumpeter Miles Davis, 1971 vintage Mitchell (pictured) went for traditional values, revivifying the R&B blowing from his days with Earl Bostic and Ray Charles, tracked by Walter Bishop Jr's sympathetic piano and the experienced Forrest's soulful sax. It's no surprise that this quintet was a big concert draw on the US jazz circuit 50 years ago. Great music, and the sound on this LP is as fat and sumptuous as it should be.

A decade before Blue Mitchellwas recorded, be-bop trumpet pioneer McGhee – who many contemporaries rated almost as high as Dizzy Gillespie – was just shaking himself free of his drug addiction, and recorded the excellent Dusty Blue for Bethlehem with a stellar cast, including a young Ron Carter, who, on this evidence, already knew how to assert himself at a session.

Interestingly, Dusty Blue– a butt-kicking cover of Diz's ‘Groovin’ High’ excepted – chooses to insinuate itself with the listener through seduction (the closing ballad ‘Cottage For Sale’ is a swoonsome knockout) rather than with speed and force. The three McGhee originals here – the title track, which is lovely, especially – are splendid, and it's puzzling why none of them ever became standards.