In the late 1950s Quincy Jones put together an all-star American big band to tour Europe as part of a Harold Arlen musical called Free and Easy. The show went bust, and so the band’s two-year contract was not honoured. Instead, Quincy attempted to keep the musicians on the road, playing high profile concerts, largely on the back of the album The Great Wide World of Quincy Jones that had been recorded in the US before they left. He got them a studio session in Paris that produced the LP I Dig Dancers and helped to pay the bills, as well as generating some new charts.

This 4-CD set (an exact replica of the 2011 Domino release – so not, as the liner notes claim, the ‘first time’ this material has been on CD) draws together all the known live recordings from the three months Q managed to survive, before admitting defeat and returning his A-list musicians to the US. As the concerts naturally included somewhat similar programmes, there are multiple versions of some tracks, including the theme ‘Birth of a Band’ and a slick arrangement of ‘Moanin’’. Clark Terry and Phil Woods are the standout soloists, but there’s great work from most of the lineup, notably on ‘Everybody’s Blues’ of which three versions run to around 10 minutes, sharing the spotlight around. Onstage the band clearly enjoyed itself, whether being whimsical on ‘I Remember Clifford’ and ‘Parisian Thoroughfare’ or roaring through ‘Airmail Special’. It’s a shame the band didn’t last, but marvellous that we have such a fascinating document of its short existence.