So has ‘Out of Town’ succeeded where ‘Firing Squad’ failed? Well the whole notion of virtually placing the listener in peril – ‘you’re facing the firing squad’ is anathema to all forms of jazz. It dealt with controversial subjects aplenty but it did so in third person. Any second person would have been the more typical ‘how could you do me wrong’ variety.

By avoiding topicality, we’re left with a narrative familiar to many traditional structures. It is natural and neutral so there’s not a major stretch to have grouped instruments blasting in unison (in this respect, it has the cheek and irreverence; the upbeat stroll, to suit the cacaphony). No one will mistake it for something that Calloway left in a cab or Miller left in a glen but we are faced always with that dilemma whether to replicate the sentiment of the time in mere pastiche or adapt our own sensibilities and observations to the form.

Can we finish with ragtime, given that bebop is not a lyricist’s medium:

I’m Holding Out

My hands are tied
Around for the ride
I take it in my stride
I'm holding out

The place  has changed
The people estranged
Gone to great pains
to say I'm holding out

My friends already fled
No accounting for the dead
Exhibitions in 
Inhibitions ex
shed 
still I'm holding out