When it comes to big bands, most jazz critics talk about Ellington as being the longest-lived. They conveniently forget the brawling, crude but hugely vibrant and influential Lionel Hampton outfit, which even today thunders on, close on 60 years later. This collection starts in 1937, five years prior to Hampton's big band, with selections from a breathlessly brilliant series of all-star small-group sessions he led for RCA Victor which should be in anyone's collection. Hampton began recording with his big band in 1942 and soon hit with "Flying Home", featuring Illinois Jacquet on a tenor sax solo which helped shape popular jazz and blues for the next decade. It also set the pattern for Hampton's own group, encouraging this natural showman to pull out all of the stops all of the time. The compilation selects sides up to December 1949, including the equally rampant 1944 "Flying Home No.2", featuring Arnett Cobb out-Jacqueting Jacquet. There are quieter moments in this set, but the whole point of Hampton is raunch and strut. Although this set doesn't benefit from the greatest of transfers from the original 78s, it is divine stuff, at a fantastic price, brilliantly packaged and annotated. --Keith Shadwick