God bless Chick. Just when you think he couldn’t get any nuttier he gives us an hour-long six-movement concerto for orchestra and jazz quintet based on (gasp!) the continents. And yes, thanks to condensing the Americas into one continent he manages to include both Australia and Antarctica, unlike the designers of the Olympic Rings. Although I have a declared hatred of much ‘third-stream’ music, this is pretty charming stuff, and would sound just dandy on the porch of your beach home with a nice merlot. Better news: in spare studio time the quartet put down some lovely standards and Chick recorded some stellar little improv pieces, and the second disc they comprise is just sublime. Until the 50-blu ray box set inspired by L. Ron Hubbard’s hat collection, this may be the definitive Chick, for better or for worse.

Richard Mohr is a friend of Readings