Though Jimmy Raney recorded under his own name as early as 1953, it's this 1956 set that is regarded as his arrival as a leader. Raney is as fine an arranger as he is a guitarist. These eight tracks with Bob Brookmeyer on trombone ? another fine arranger in a soloist's role ? shine with the ease and fluidity of the best of the cool sessions recorded at the dawn of hard bop. One of the finest examples of the interplay between Raney and Brookmeyer occurs at the beginning of the album's second track, "How Long Has This Been Goin' On," where the pair engage in a brief contrapuntal dialogue before Brookmeyer solos on the melody and Raney fills the space behind him gently by whispering his chords and fills through the trombonist's phrasing before taking his own solo and slipping an inverted harmonic pattern on the tune's lyric line. The pair re-engage about halfway through before Dick Katz solos on piano with a bluesy series of runs in the upper reg...