Jazz Cafee: March 2021

Sarah Vaughan- The Complete Sarah Vaughan On Mercury.Vol.1- Great Jazz Years; 1954-1956 [6 CD, 1987]

Sarah Vaughan recorded extensively for Mercury/EmArcy during the 1950s and 1960s. Through much of that time, Vaughan's operatic voice was matched against overripe orchestrations or arrangements more suitable to a pop icon than one of the most versatile instruments in history. The exhaustive 4 CD box set overview of Vaughan's work with Mercury/EmArcy is essential only to completists or the most avid fans. Vol. 1, however, which collects material from 1954-1956 over six CDs, shows Vaughan at her best, including sessions with trumpeter Clifford Brown and drummer Roy Haynes. Most of the excellent performances from Swingin' Easy are included here.

James Moody (March 26, 1925 – December 9, 2010) was an American jazz saxophone and flute player and very occasional vocalist, playing predominantly in the bebop and hard bop styles.

Moody had an unexpected hit with "Moody's Mood for Love," a 1952 song written by Eddie Jefferson that used as its melody an improvised solo that Moody had played on a 1949 recording of "I'm in the Mood for Love." Moody adopted the song as his own, recording it with Jefferson on his 1956 album Moody's Mood for Love and performing the song regularly in concert, often singing the vocals himself.

The 2013 box set The Original Mono Recordings, brings together all nine of the albums the legendary jazz trumpeter recorded for Columbia that were originally released in mono, including 1957's 'Round About Midnight, 1957's Miles Ahead, 1958's Milestones, 1959's Jazz Track, 1959's Porgy and Bess, 1959's Kind of Blue, 1960's Sketches of Spain, 1961's Someday My Prince Will Come, and 1964's Miles & Monk at Newport. Remastered using the original master tapes and with pristine versions of the LPs as comparative benchmarks for sound, these mono versions have a warmth and immediacy that, at the very least, match the stereo versions, and to some ears may even outdo them.

Milton "Shorty" Rogers (born Milton Rajonsky; April 14, 1924 – November 7, 1994) was one of the principal creators of West Coast jazz. He played trumpet and flugelhorn and was in demand for his skills as an arranger.

Coleman Hawkins reached a new level of creativity during the 1940's. This box-set focuses on those yeard, presenting the original master of the tenor sax in a wide variety of settings, including his encounters with young modernists like Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk.

George Allen Russell was an American jazz pianist, composer and theorist. He is considered one of the first jazz musicians to contribute to general music theory with a theory of harmony based on Jazz rather than European music that was outlined in his textbook 'The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization.'

This specially-priced set includes nine classic albums from Black Saint/Soul Note. Included are Electronic Sonata for Those Loved by Nature (I and II), Othello Ballet Suite, Vertical Form VI, Listen to the Silence, Trip to Prillarguri, New York Big Band, The Essence of George Russell and Live in an American Time Spiral.

John Coltrane's legendary Prestige recordings as a sideman to a host of jazz luminaries including Gene Ammons, Tadd Dameron, Red Garland, and Sonny Rollins.

The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings is a 1995 box set album by the American singer Frank Sinatra. The release coincided with Sinatra's 80th birthday celebration.

The original 1995 packaging had the 20 discs encased in a small, leather-bound trunk. When it was re-released in 1998, it was repackaged in a more-standard (and cheaper) cardboard format.

As the title implies, the set claims to contain every song ever recorded in the studio during Sinatra's career with Reprise Records,but strangely misses the 49-second "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You (Reprise)" included as the closing track from the 1961 album I Remember Tommy and also leaves off a remake of "Body and Soul" and "Leave It All To Me" (a song written by Paul Anka), in addition to several alternate versions of songs included in the set. The set is the largest ever released for Sinatra to-date, containing 452 tracks on twenty compact discs.

Wardell Gray - The Wardell Gray Story [4 CD, 2003]

In keeping with high standards set by the U.K.'s Proper label, Proper Box 55 easily qualifies as the finest single-package anthology ever devoted to the works of tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray (1921-1955). His best recordings, which are well represented throughout this four-CD set, reveal the combined influences of Lester Young and Charlie Parker.

Curtis DuBois Fuller (born in Detroit, December 15, 1934) is a United States hard bop trombonist, primarily known as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

Trombonist Curtis Fuller, who developed his sound out of the style of J.J. Johnson, recorded prolifically as a leader from 1957-1962. After recording three dates for Prestige and New Jazz within a seven-day period in 1957, Fuller made four albums for Blue Note from 1957-1958, and after three albums for Savoy, he cut a lone session for United Artists in 1959. All of the five Blue Note and United Artists records (plus an alternate take of "Down Home") are on this excellent three-CD limited box set, released in 1996.

Verve Records, founded in 1956 by Norman Granz, is home to the world’s largest jazz catalogue and includes recordings by artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Stan Getz and Billie Holiday, among others. It absorbed the catalogues of Granz's earlier labels, Clef Records, founded in 1946, Norgran Records, founded in 1953, and material previously licensed to Mercury Records. Verve also served as the original home of acts such as The Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa. The restructured Verve Records is now part of the Verve Label Group, which is owned by Universal Music Group. This company is also home to historic imprints including Verve Forecast Records, Impulse! Records and Decca Records.

When the Rolling Stones' Charlie Watts last recorded a jazz group at one of Ronnie Scott's clubs, the year was 1992, and the result was the largely unlistenable A Tribute to Charlie Parker With Strings (Continuum). Watts assembled a group of muscular improvisers, but he lacked a firm handle on the subtleties of jazz drumming. His snare syncopations were unbearably labored, his kick drum leaden and downbeat-addicted. Bernard Fowler's overly serious narration, drawn from the text of Watts' 1964 children's book, Ode to a High Flying Bird, didn't help matters. Oddly, an earlier studio EP called From One Charlie, with the same group and many of the same tunes, featured Watts in a far more flattering light.

Watts at Scott's, a new two-disc recording from Ronnie Scott's London club, comes as a relief. Watts is still no virtuoso, but he has the hang of it, and he knows how not to encumber his very hip band. The core of the Tentet is in fact Watts' working quintet, with altoist Peter King, trumpeter Gerard Presencer, pianist Brian Lemon and bassist Dave Green. Joining them are six strong players: tenor saxophonist Julian Arguelles, vibist Anthony Kerr, trumpeter Henry Lowther, trombonist Mark Nightingale, baritone player Alan Barnes and percussionist Luis Jardim (for a total of 11 band members, in fact).

In 1985, Miles Davis shocked the music world by moving from Columbia to Warner Bros.. He immediately started working on an album called Perfect Way after a tune by Scritti Politti, later renamed Tutu by producer Tommy LiPuma. When Tutu (a tribute to Desmond Tutu) was released in 1986, it re-ignited Miles Davis’ career, crossing over into the rock and pop markets and winning him two Grammy Awards. A definitive collection of the later part of Miles Davis’ work, lavishly packaged and remastered, from the Warner Bros studio albums Tutu, Amandla and Doo-Bop, the Dingo and Siesta soundtracks, live recordings with Quincy Jones, and the likes of Kenny Garrett, Foley and Adam Holzman.

The boxset features 5 discs, all recorded over 3 nights in Oslo 19-21st of February 2009.

This five-disc collection makes good on a promise always inherent if unstated in the sturdy Brötzmann Chicago Tentet schematic: Given the diversity and versatility of its participants, it’s the perfect vehicle for a Festival program all by its lonesome. The 11 players (when you count reedist/brass player Joe McPhee properly as the invaluable plus-one) have long-standing associations within and without the larger group. Chicago has always been a signifier of geographical inception rather than membership, with half the Tentet’s constituents hailing from European compass points. Having formed under Brötzmann’s ostensible leadership early in the last decade, the ensemble is now very much an assemblage of collaborators. As with their inaugural project released by Okkadisk as a lavish three-disc box back in 1997, this set balances girth with greatness in documenting an early 2009 stand.

Coltrane’s breakout year, when his mature sound first grabbed ears and his own recordings began to sell consistently, was 1958. This release chronicles the exciting story session by session, featuring all 37 tracks Coltrane recorded as a leader or co-leader for the independent Prestige Records label in those twelve months. This collection captures him in creative high gear—developing the signature improvisational style that journalist Ira Gitler famously dubbed “sheets of sound.” The timely release marks the 70th year since the founding of Prestige and comes just after the 60th anniversary of these recordings.

The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions is a four-disc box set of music recordings by trumpeter Miles Davis. The set collects tracks that Davis recorded between August 19, 1969 and February 6, 1970, including the 1970 double album Bitches Brew in its entirety. However, the title of the box set is somewhat of a misnomer: outside of the Bitches Brew tracks themselves, none of the other tracks appeared on Bitches Brew upon its original release, nor were they recorded during the same August 1969 sessions that resulted in Bitches Brew.

The box set includes some tracks that had never been previously released, one of which, the Wayne Shorter composition "Feio," has since appeared as a bonus track on compact disc reissues of Bitches Brew. Other tracks in the box set had previously appeared on the albums Live-Evil, Big Fun, and Circle in the Round.

Dizzy Gillespie's contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time (some would say the best), Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up copying Miles Davis and Fats Navarro instead, and it was not until Jon Faddis' emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy's style was successfully recreated. Somehow, Gillespie could make any "wrong" note fit, and harmonically he was ahead of everyone in the 1940s, including Charlie Parker. Unlike Bird, Dizzy was an enthusiastic teacher who wrote down his musical innovations and was eager to explain them to the next generation, thereby insuring that bebop would eventually become the foundation of jazz.

Miles Davis - Olympia Concerts Live (1960, 1973) [5 CD, 1999]

This remarkable concert at the Paris Olympia in March 1960 features the same group(less Cannonball Adderley) that recorded 'Freddie Freeloader' on Miles Davis's classic album 'Kind of Blue' a year or so earlier but they sound very different here. John Coltrane was reluctant to be part of this European tour and was anxious to leave Miles and start his own band. Despite this he's in absolutely blistering form although some members of the audience are clearly perturbed by the intensity of his playing. The recording quality is excellent and it's a mystery why this concert hasn't received more attention. ”

Bassist, composer, arranger, and bandleader Charles Mingus cut himself a uniquely iconoclastic path through jazz in the middle of the 20th century, creating a musical and cultural legacy that became universally lauded. As an instrumentalist he had few peers -- he was blessed with a powerful tone and pulsating sense of rhythm, capable of elevating the instrument into the frontline of a band. Intensely ambitious yet often earthy in expression, simultaneously politically radical and deeply traditional spiritually, Mingus' music took elements from everything he had experienced -- from gospel and blues, New Orleans jazz, swing, bop, Latin music, modern classical music, and even the jazz avant-garde, and adapted it for ensembles ranging from trios and quartets to sextets and orchestras.

LIVE IN CUBA captures nine-time Grammy Award-winner Wynton Marsalis and the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s dazzling first—and only—performances in Cuba.
Recorded in front of a clamorous, sold-out crowd at Havana’s Mella Theatre in October 2010, this two-disc album captures the big band’s unforgettable tracing of the connections between American jazz and Afro-Cuban music. LIVE IN CUBA is the inaugural release from Blue Engine Records, a project showcasing the music of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

All of You: The Last Tour 1960 compiles recordings captured during trumpeter Miles Davis' tour of Europe in 1960. Featured throughout is saxophonist John Coltrane, who had already embarked on his own solo career but re-joined Davis for this tour. Also backing Davis here are the other members of his original quintet with Coltrane, including pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb. Also featured here is a radio interview that Coltrane recorded with Carl-Eric Lindgren in Stockholm. These are high-energy recordings that find Davis and his group reworking their '50s aesthetic for a more aggressive, outward-looking vibe that prefigures his later work.

Kamasi Washington - Heaven and Earth [3 CD, 2018]

Heaven and Earth is the fourth studio album by American jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington. It was released on June 22, 2018, through Young Turks Recordings. Both CD and LP versions of the album contain an extra disc called "The Choice" which is hidden within a closed part of the packaging which must be cut open to access the disc.

The Charlie Shavers & Ray Bryant Quartet - Complete Recordings 1958-1964 (FLAC) [3 CD, 2005]

Complete Recordings Vol.1 1958-59

Pure and simple genius from trumpeter Charlie Shavers – a player with a sweet tone and a fluid groove – stepping out here with great accompaniment from pianist Ray Bryant! The CD brings together work from the albums Charlie Digs Paree and Charlie Digs Dixie – both originally recorded for MGM Records in the late 50s, and done in a clean, uncluttered style that really brought a strong focus to Shaver's solos, but also gave some excellent rhythmic support from Bryant – working here at the height of his early powers, in a mode that's clearly relaxed enough to get with the spirit of each different session.

Every jazz fan knows Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman, and of course Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins. But only a small circle of connoisseurs would be able to tell who Claude Hopkins was, where Dodo Marmarosa played or what the Goofus Five did. Music lovers usually have their favourites, and jazz in its long history has experienced many changes and produced many important artists. You don’t have to know every one of them – or love them all.

When Verve producer Norman Granz brought Lionel Hampton and Oscar Peterson together for the first time in 1953, he fostered one of the great collaborations in the august history of the label. The two laid down some of the most memorable small-group recordings in all of jazz over the space of two years, and you'll find the COMPLETE sessions here, over six hours of music, most of it on CD for the first time!

Jazz keyboard player Chick Corea's Return to Forever emerged as one of the key jazz-rock fusion bands of the 1970s. Like Weather Report and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, they were formed by an alumnus of Miles Davis' late-'60s bands with the intention of furthering the jazz-rock hybrid Davis had explored on albums like Bitches Brew. At the time, this was seen as a means of creativity, a new direction for jazz, and as a way of attracting the kinds of large audiences enjoyed by rock musicians. Return to Forever started out as more of a Latin-tinged jazz ensemble, but Corea, influenced by the Mahavishnu Orchestra of John McLaughlin and some of the progressive rock bands coming out of Great Britain, notably Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, moved the group more toward rock, achieving considerable commercial success. A later re-orientation of the band gave it more of a big-band style before Corea folded the unit, retaining the Return to Forever name for occasional tours and other projects.

Import 10 CD collection containing 200 well selected songs from the golden era of the European Trad-Jazz scene, many of them appearing on CD for the first time. In the 1950s, stars of the traditional Jazz filled huge venues and songs like 'Ice Cream' from Chris Barber became huge hits. Of course, you will find the big legends of this genre: Chris Barber, Ken Colyer, Papa Bue, Mister Acker Bilk but also the next generation of great Jazz musicians can be found here.

For those new to the music of Tony Bennett, Improv was a label started by Tony Bennett and businessman Bill Hassett. Bennett was fed up with the suits at Columbia Records, who were trying to make him sing rock & roll. When his contract expired at the beginning of the 1970s, he and Hassett formed a label to help him realize his aesthetic ambitions, and Improv was born. Bennett recorded five albums for the label between 1975 and 1977 before it went bankrupt. These recordings may not have sold well -- due largely to distribution problems -- but all of them were critically acclaimed. On these sides, Bennett is in awesome company throughout, with talent ranging from Bill Evans and Earl Hines to Ruby Braff to Marian McPartland to Buddy Tate and Charlie Byrd.

For decades, composer and saxophonist Wayne Shorter has led one of the more impressive quartets in jazz. With pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade, the 85-year-old saxophonist has explored the connections between chamber music and jazz. This band rehearses on-stage, creating innovative architectures via in-the-moment dialogue and improvising with unbridled freedom that never gives way to excess. Emanon is their first recording in five years and conceptual in nature. It comprises a four-part suite in a studio date from 2013 with the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, and two 2016 live discs of the quartet playing the Emanon material with other tunes.

Satchmo Era by Louis Armstrong was released Jul 27, 2001 on the Phantom label. THE SATCHMO ERA collects a whopping 400 tracks by jazz legend Louis Armstrong. Over 20 hours of music recorded between 1923 & 1947. Each exclusive picture disc comes in it's own standard jewelcase & all are housed together in a sturdy box. Includes 12 page biography.

Chick Corea - The Musician (Live 3 CD, 2017)

The 3 discs cover all of Chick iconic bands, compositions and artistic partnerships all lovingly rerecorded live over the course of one month at the Blue Note in NYC.

Pianist Lennie Tristano was an early inspiration and a major influence on the playing of altoist Lee Konitz and tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh. Their very notable and highly original Capitol recordings of 1949 -- with the quiet metronomic rhythm section, advanced melodic improvising and reharmonizations -- stood apart from the typical bop of the period. By 1955, when the earliest performances on this limited-edition 1997 six-CD set were recorded, the trio was not working together very often; in fact, Tristano was mostly functioning as a teacher, only surfacing for occasional records and club dates. Despite the title of the box, Tristano, Konitz and Marsh never all appeared on the same Atlantic record. However, their individual projects and collaborations during the era were of consistently high quality. Included on the set are a live quartet date with Konitz and Tristano, a couple of the pianist's solo and trio sessions (including a few controversial items where he overdubbed and even sped up piano parts), several Konitz quartet sets (with such sidemen as pianists Sal Mosca and Jimmy Rowles and guitarist Billy Bauer), a Marsh trio/quartet album, and a stimulating meeting between Konitz and Marsh (with Mosca and Bauer) in a sextet. Four of the performances were previously unreleased, and one of the Konitz albums was formerly only available in Japan. Although the inventive music often utilizes familiar chord changes, there are plenty of surprises in the cool-toned solos, and this is well worth acquiring by bop collectors.

The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. They have been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for over forty years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classical music. More than 900 works have been written for them.

This five-CD set contains the very best band recordings of Jelly Roll Morton's career. There are 111 performances in this reissue, including all of the alternate takes. Bypassed are the pianist's recordings with the vaudevillian clarinetist Wilton Crawley, singers Lizzie Miles and Billie Young, and two songs he performed on a radio broadcast in 1940; otherwise, all of his Victor recordings are here. The classics (most from the 1926-1928 period) include the remarkable "Black Bottom Stomp," "Grandpa's Spells," "The Pearls," "Wolverine Blues" (a trio with clarinetist Johnny Dodds and drummer Baby Dodds), "Shreveport Stomp," "Low Gravy," "Strokin' Away," and "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say," but listeners will have their own favorites. In general, this is New Orleans jazz at its best, with Jelly Roll Morton (as with the best jazz composer/bandleaders) creating his own world of music.

The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis big band was one of the finest jazz orchestras of the late '60s, but its Solid State LPs had been long out of print for decades before Mosaic wisely reissued all of the music (plus seven previously unissued performances) on this deluxe but limited-edition five-CD set. With Jones' colorful and distinctive arrangements, soloists such as trumpeters Danny Stiles, Marvin Stamm, and Richard Williams; trombonists Bob Brookmeyer and Jimmy Knepper; the reeds of Jerome Richardson, Jerry Dodgion, Joe Farrell, Billy Harper, Eddie Daniels, and Pepper Adams; and pianists Hank Jones and Roland Hanna; plus a rhythm section driven by bassist Richard Davis and drummer Mel Lewis, this was a classic band. Highlights among the 42 performances include "Mean What You Say," "Don't Git Sassy," "Tiptoe," "Fingers," "Central Park North," and the original version of "A Child Is Born," but nearly every selection is memorable.

Return to Forever Live (and Return to Forever Live: The Complete Concert) is the final album by fusion band Return to Forever. It was recorded live at the Palladium in New York City on May 20 and 21 1977 as part of the Musicmagic tour to support the album of the same name. This was the only tour to feature the Musicmagic lineup, which included original members Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, and Joe Farrell, along with newly added member Gayle Moran on piano and a six-piece horn section.

Weather Report discography

Weather Report was an influential jazz fusion band of the 1970s and early 1980s combining jazz and latin jazz with art music, ethnic music, r&b, funk and rock elements (in varying proportions throughout their career).

Charles Mingus - The Jazz Workshop Concerts 1964-65 [7 CD, 2012]

"Charles Mingus - The Jazz Workshop Concerts 1964-65 (Town Hall, Amsterdam, Monterey '64, Monterey '65 & Minneapolis)" - It chronicles the essential live performances of this genius of modern music as his compositions achieved a depth and complexity we would come to know as Mingus's most signature work. It includes (on the earlier recordings) the brilliant Eric Dolphy, along with Jaki Byard, Dannie Richmond, Johnny Coles, and Clifford Jordan -- certainly one of the best assemblages of musicians ever. And the music, recorded across the world's concert stages and intended for release by Charles Mingus Enterprises, dashes once and for all every previously-held notion about what is, and isn't, jazz.

Just as Art Tatum could make a piano sound like an orchestra, Joe Pass could do the same with a guitar, and this four-CD distillation of his Pablo recordings features him in a variety of settings, both live and studio, solo and group, and acoustic and electric. And disc four features him as an oh-so-sympathetic accompanist for artists like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.

Nina Simone- The Philips Years [7 CD, 2016]

Nina Simone's combination of classical training, smokey-alto vocal delivery and the influence of modern jazz made her a novel and inspiring jazz singer and instrumentalist. And her very name is synonymous with the passion, talent and raw emotion that she put into every note she sang and played. The Phillips Years is a fine collection of seven albums released by Simone during her tenure on the label from 1964-1967. Simone's albums covered topics as diverse as romance, politics, Broadway, civil rights and more.

Frank Sinatra - The Columbia Years 1943–1952: The Complete Recordings [12 CD, 1993]

The Columbia Years 1943–1952: The Complete Recordings is a 1993 box set album by the American singer Frank Sinatra.

This twelve-disc set contains 285 songs Sinatra recorded during his nine-year career with Columbia Records.

Big Bands : The Encyclopedia Of Jazz [100 CD, 2008] - CD 11-20

Legendary guitar genius Larry Coryell has reclaimed some of his early roots here with an explosive new cd on Tone Center records. Backed by stalwart session men Steve Smith (drums) and Tom Coster (kbrds) this is the stuff that Coryell admirers have been waiting for, especially after some recent and relatively sedate "smooth jazz" ventures.