Multi-wind player/composer William "Buddy" Collette has been active in jazz for almost four decades, and though many have heard him, most don't even know it. Pity, as he was one of the first - maybe THE first - major jazz soloist on the flute. (He also plays saxophone.) Collette has been active and very influential as a teacher (his pupils include Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and James Newton), has appeared on dozens of recordings (jazz and non-, including albums with Mingus and Newton), and he's been heard on TV and in movies (CITIZEN KANE, Groucho Marx's game show-band YOU BET YOUR LIFE). Too-few of his recordings are available, which makes IN CONCERT all the more valuable. On this fine big-band album, Collette plays flute, clarinet & tenor sax, and all the all of the compositions and arrangements are his. While we're deprived of his lyrical flute (for which he is best known), the imaginative, sumptuous compositions and orchestrations more than make up for it. Stylistically, Collette's tunes here fall in between the more elegant and stylized works of Duke Ellington and Benny Carter, and the brash modernity of Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, Gil Evans and Woody Herman. The music swells with good humor and swings madly, yet avoids predictability at every turn. The tunes have unique quirks 'n' turns, but never for the sake of "ain't-we-clever." All the soloists - featured are Garnett Brown, Britt Woodman, Al Viola, Ndugu Chancelor and a cameo from Chico Hamilton - play with a superb balance of mad abandon and restraint. (One of the first jazz cellists, Fred Katz, is part of the ensemble too.) No one dominates the spotlight - the spotlight stays on the music, where it belongs.