Even so, the jams stayed fresh and creative throughout. They clearly weren't mailing it in.

Some highlights from the nine tunes played on this day:

Pepper's gently swinging "Ophelia" is the only selection that also surfaced on his last ever concert. Here, the bass solo is superior, and Art's second solo is much more extended. This tune contains perhaps Pepper's most expressive and intricate playing of the entire set.

Art always enjoyed the playfulness and rhythmic complexity of mambos, and true to form, included one for this concert, "Mambo De La Pinta." Magnusson's ever-present, looping low notes anchor the beat while simultaneously keeping the melody in focus enough for Pepper to improvise freely. But it's Leviev's slowly building solo performance that's most inspired on this song.

I always looked at the old standard "Cherokee" as a litmus test for the ability to play blazing, extended bop lines ever since Charlie Parker made it his calling card in the early forties. Pepper was not one to shy away from running through such a gauntlet. He states the theme indirectly before giving way to Leviev's blazing right-hand runs that frankly, sound a little out of control at times.

Afterwards, Pepper's alto proceeds to soar for five minutes straight, with hardly a false note and lots of flair and change ups. Burnett gets into the act afterwards via some three way call and response with Leviev and Pepper.

"Dedicated" is an original Pepper "dedicated" to John Coltrane, a man whose music and playing style Art deeply admired — to the point of him incorporating some of the great tenorist's techniques into his own. This song employs that trance-like 3/4 rhythm that 'Trane favored in the Atlantic years, and as Pepper plays a little like JC, Leviev is playing very much like McCoy Tyner. Per Mrs. Pepper, Art hadn't played this song before or since.

The twenty-minute closer is a tune Pepper wrote only the year prior, "Make A List (Make A Wish)." It's a classic jazz groover that Magnusson keys with a very insistent, steady bass. Around midpoint of the song, he changes his hypnotic line for just a minute to trade fours with Pepper, who ruminates for several minutes riding on that groove. The whole band seemed to be enjoying themselves so much that they didn't want it to end.

It's hard to believe that this recording was a bootleg, by the way; the sound quality is uniformly good. Unless the recorder was a real pro, Wayne Peet did a bang-up job on the mastering.

The 2-CD set is nicely supplemented by some well-written liner notes by Laurie. At the end of it, she describes Leviev's recent reaction after hearing these discs:

"We were so good." He sounded awed. "We were so good!"