Standing room only in the aisles, and it was easy to see why. Although The Birth of the Cool is one of the most admired recordings in Miles Davis’s repertoire, performances have been very rare indeed. Gerry Mulligan, one of the original participants, released a stylish re-creation of the nonet sessions a decade and a half ago, but this concert — supervised by the Guildhall’s Scott Stroman — was the first full UK concert based on the score discovered in a warehouse in 1995.

If they are not quite as celebrated as Kind of Blue, the recordings have a beauty all of their own, combining jazz exuberance with the poise of a chamber group. It may be an exaggeration to say that Davis and his muse, Gil Evans, created the “cool” sensibility single-handed — Dave Brubeck’s own chamber group, for instance, deserves credit too. But it’s fair to say that The Birth brought all the elements into perfect focus.

What a joy to hear the arrangements dusted down after all this time. The acoustics may have been less than ideal, yet the spirited and precise playing of the Renga Ensemble — a group that brings together LPO musicians and members of the London Jazz Orchestra — did full justice to the spirit of the originals.

Stroman, understandably enough, indulged in a few liberties, expanding the line-up slightly, and allowing soloists, including the pianist Nikki Iles, to stretch out on solos. From where I was sitting, well towards the rear, it wasn’t possible to hear much of Joseph Maher’s violin or Susan Thomas’s flute, but there was ample compensation in the sprightly interplay of Martin Hathaway’s alto sax and Mick Foster’s baritone.

The trumpeter Henry Lowther etched a serene path through Davis’s own composition, Boplicity. There was not quite the same sparkle to the in-house pieces — mostly by Stroman — which constituted the first half of the programme. If you needed proof that contemporary jazz musicians have all but lost the ability to write pithy, memorable tunes, look no farther. There is still an awful lot we can learn from the era of the 78rpm.

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