The two Songbook series (1952-4 & 1959) represented in Oscar Peterson Plays The Gershwin Songbook were not just major enterprises but badly misunderstood ones. Even critics sympathetic to the pianist have bemoaned the brevity of the tracks and consequent thinness of improvisation; that is fundamentally to ignore Oscar's overriding purpose, which was to focus on the composers' art, not his own. So forget about OP the concert virtuoso and wallow instead in two dozen immaculately intelligent tributes to an incomparable talent, incorporating a succession of arrangements that commemorate the imagination and depth of Peterson's musical brain. If wishing to sample, go for the 1959 "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off", a miniature masterpiece distinguished for its wit, exquisite touch and infallible pulse. But don't hang about: the 1952 album appeared (briefly) on vinyl in the mid 1980s, while its 1959 companion has been unavailable for well over a generation. --Richard Palmer