“SWING REUNION.” Various players. Book of the...

“SWING REUNION.” Various players. Book of the Month 71-7627 (Camp Hill, Pa. 17012). Assembled for a live concert at New York’s Town Hall last March, these seven mature citizens (Louis Bellson, 61, and guitarist Remo Palmier, 62, are the babies of the group) offer compelling evidence that the Swing Era was a time for dazzling small combos as well as for big bands.

Heard in every configuration from one (Red Norvo’s unaccompanied version of Ellington’s “Dancers in Love”) to seven (three numbers for which Teddy Wilson is added to the team), these men seem to stimulate one another to optimum levels. Only Wilson, who has not been well lately, lacks the impact and elegance of yore, playing uneven medleys of Gershwin and Strayhorn. On most of the tunes he is absent, leaving the chordal underpinning to Freddie Green’s rhythm guitar and the late George Duvivier’s bass.

Everyone has a solo speciality: Palmier’s “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” and Duvivier’s “E.K.E.’s Blues” stand out, but the key figure and lone horn player is Benny Carter, whose alto sax has seldom been more elegantly wistful than in his own “Evening Star.” Carter even gets to sing (his first recorded vocal in 48 years) the trivial lyrics of “All That Jazz.”

There’s an irony here. The notes, gratuitously discussing Carter’s alleged lack of a true feeling for the blues (an idiom that would, we are told, “seem alien to him”) ignore the presence of the blues in the title tune, written by and brilliantly featuring Carter! You don’t have to join the Book of the Month Club; just shell out $24.95 for this three-record, four-star set.