In the steps of Larkin

Last month, when unveiling my all-time top ten favourite albums, I predicted that the list would probably have changed by the autumn. In fact, it changed within days of filing my copy.

For along came Larkin’s Jazz, which I think is the finest, most scholarly and above all wonderfully entertaining and affecting CD collection that has come my way since starting this column nine years ago.

I have already written about it briefly in the Telegraph, after it first landed on my doormat almost a month ago, but further listening, and reading the superbly annotated 56-page booklet that accompanies it, has deepened my admiration for this four-CD set, compiled with manifest love and care by Trevor Tolley and John White, the latter a friend and colleague of Larkin’s for many years at Hull University. The fact that this cornucopia of riches from Proper Records is available on Amazon for £9.99