While this fine double album is great to listen to, its real value is as a historical document. Bringing together the known recordings from a 1946 performance of Woody Herman and the Herd at Carnegie Hall (some of which have never been released, others of which were previously scattered across two albums), this album marks several important moments in the history of Herman's music and jazz in general. At the time of this performance, Carnegie Hall was still the exclusive bastion of classical music -- though Herman's band had already played there, this performance still marked one of the first jazz concerts to be performed at the famed New York venue. Perhaps further highlighting Herman's respect in the classical community, this show was also the debut of a piece composed for the Herman band by Igor Stravinsky, titled "The Ebony Concerto." Unfortunately, the pieces of the recording of the concerto at this performance were lost, so it is only reproduced in fragments on this recording. Overall, this recording captures the band in a shining moment, when they were at their creative and commercial peak, only months before they would disband (due to unfortunate family problems). Verve has presented well-designed and informative packaging, including liner notes which give some sense of the meaning of this concert and, thankfully, take time to explain the quality of the recording (which ranges from average to truly awful, mostly because of surface noise -- unavoidable due to the technology of the time). Reissues of older material from popular jazz artists often tread in the territory of cheap copies and useless rehashes, but this is a collection that has some true worth.