This anthology follows an earlier issue from Acrobat, and like its predecessor, it aims to offer a representative cross-section of Powell’s recordings. It takes us from the days of his earliest professional work, as a 19-year old with Cootie Williams, to his mature years in Paris with ‘Les Trois Patrons’ (alongside Pierre Michelot and Kenny Clarke). En route, as can be seen from the personnel above, he worked with many of the key figures in bebop, as well as musicians beyond category, such as Sonny Rollins and Don Byas.

Obviously some of the most celebrated recordings that were on Volume 1 aren’t here, but nonetheless this has got plenty of examples of Bud at his best, playing entirely unaccompanied, in trio format or with slightly larger groups. There are choice tracks from his collaborations with Dexter Gordon and Sonny Stitt, examples of his work with Bird, as well as his Blue Note sides with Navarro and Rollins.

So, given that the music is all worthwhile, what are the transfers like and what’s missing? The transfers are varied. The early Cootie sides are as good as any others around, but the ‘Long Tall Dexter’ session is very trebly and doesn't stand comparison with Proper’s version on its 4-CD Powell anthology Tempus Fugue-It. Equally, the mid-range from the February 1950 Clef session is thinner in comparison with the 2-CD set that came out in 2019 from Jazz Images of Powell’s four albums for that label.

That said, the 11 tracks originally out on Blue Note are close in quality to the early CD reissues from EMI. There’s more depth of choice of tracks in each period of Powell’s work on the plentiful reissues from his original labels, Verve and Blue Note, and the Proper box explores the major and minor label issues of the 1940s and early 50s in more detail. The 2005 French Chant du Monde 2-CD album La Danse Des Infidels has a comparable chronological spread, and some slightly more unusual choices, but overall this Acrobat set is a first rate introduction to Powell and if you aren’t too picky about sound quality on 60-70 year old recordings, it’s an excellent place to start, even though the liner notes were clearly never properly proof-read!