If, at all, Herbie Hancock has ever made a wrong decision, then it was to give the name V.S.O.P. to one of the fieriest bands he ever had, as this is supposed to be the label for a cognac which paled for at least four years. Miles Davis, on the other hand, could have regretted in hindsight, that he did not honour the invitation of Hancock to play as a guest at the 1976 Newport Jazz Fest. Freddie Hubbard took the trumpet part to join a group of Davis alumni: Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. They played straight-ahead, so to say, but with a vigour that only jazz-rock musicians can display, nothing of paleness there, full power instead. They recorded this album three years later in Japan at an open-air festival, and they are on fire all the way through, displaying huge dynamism and vast perspectives, all five of them breathing as one. They only played originals until the encore, showing compositional bravado, exciting harmonic changes, and intriguing dialogues. They take us along the full scale of emotions from Eyes of the Hurricane to Fragile.