By 1960, ideas of what might constitute orchestral jazz were gathering force. Brubeck and Bernstein’s label Columbia had already released the Miles Davis/Gil Evans collaborations “Miles Ahead” and “Porgy and Bess” (“Sketches of Spain” to follow), and bringing Lenny and Dave together was a major label’s dream.

Five decades on, though, no one’s claiming this as an agenda-setting record like “Miles Ahead”. Howard (brother of Dave) Brubeck’s Dialogues for jazz combo and orchestra was too much of a stylistic hotchpotch to lodge itself in anyone’s memory for long. Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces crashes into Gershwin’s Concerto in F, with slabs of Bach, Broadway, 12-note technique and a single show-stopping moment – the kind-heartedly lyrical second movement which today’s Brubeck Quartet still performs as a stand-alone item.

But the Quartet glide serenely through this uneven terrain, wholly confident of their creative identity. As the rhythm section locks into a groove after the hectic orchestral prologue (at 1'30"), their exhilaration is palpable – yes indeed, a jazz group and orchestra can cohabit! Paul Desmond’s melodically transformational introductory solo snuggles into the NYPO strings; Dave’s contemplative second-movement solo pushes beyond the emotional fourth wall; Joe Morello’s funky drum-fills happy-slap against the NYPO wind, all suggesting that, in this dialogue, the jazz has all the ideas.

When Brubeck returned the favour by reinterpreting songs from West Side Story and Wonderful Town, he probed Bernstein’s melodic DNA, unlike Oscar Peterson’s West Side Story which skated off Bernstein’s jazz surface. On “Maria”, Desmond teases with a chromatically altered intervallic brainworm; “I Feel Pretty” wails, Brubeck shapeshifting the harmonic changes and waltz feel. And as a bonus: Jazz Impressions of Japan, including the first version of the classic “Koto Song”.