Jazz Cafee: July 2021

VA - V Disc - The Songs That Went To War (WWII 50th Anniversary Collector's Edition) [4 CD, 1992/FLAC]

During World War II a strike by the Musicians Union kept professional players off records for a long period. To fill the gap, a special "V-Disc" program was instituted to provide new music for military personnel serving overseas. This attractive four-CD box set from Time-Life contains 79 performances by a wide variety of artists from the period. Most of the music is jazz but there are some numbers from pop performers; such notables as Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, San Kenton, Lionel Hampton, Glenn Miller, the Nat King Cole Trio, Muggsy Spanier, Hoagy Carmicahel, Ella Fitzgerald, Roy Eldridge, Paul Robeson, Hot Lips Page, Marian Anderson, Jack Teagarden, Louis Armstrong, Bunk Johnson, Les Paul and even Ethel Merman make strong appearances. There is a lot of valuable music on this well-conceived reissue.

Gerry Mulligan with Chet Baker - Complete Pacific Jazz Recordings (4 CD, 1996/FLAC)

Baritonist Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet of 1952-1953 with trumpeter Chet Baker was one of the most popular groups of the period and an influential force on West Coast Jazz. Mulligan's interplay with Baker looked back toward the collective improvisation of Dixieland but utilized up-to-date harmonies. This four-CD set overlaps with a previous (and now out-of-print) five-LP Mosaic box. In addition to all of the Pacific Jazz (as opposed to Fantasy and GNP/Crescendo) recordings of the Mulligan Quartet (including the hit version of "My Funny Valentine"), this box has a few slightly earlier titles that find Mulligan gradually forming the group (even utilizing pianist Jimmie Rowles on two songs), tunes from live sessions in which altoist Lee Konitz made the band a quintet, the 1957 Mulligan-Baker set called Reunion, and an Annie Ross date from the same period (leaving out the numbers that have Art Farmer in Baker's place). Despite both musicians remaining active for over 30 years, Mulligan and Baker only teamed up again on one occasion, for a 1970s Carnegie Hall concert released by CTI. The consistently delightful music on this box (much of which is classic) is highly recommended for all jazz collections.

Live-Evil is one of Miles Davis' most confusing and illuminating documents. As a double album, it features very different settings of his band -- and indeed two very different bands. The double-LP CD package is an amalgam of a December 19, 1970, gig at the Cellar Door, which featured a band comprised of Miles, bassist Michael Henderson, drummer Jack DeJohnette, guitarist John McLaughlin, saxophonist Gary Bartz, Keith Jarrett on organ, and percussionist Airto. These tunes show a septet that grooved hard and fast, touching on the great funkiness that would come on later.

Dedicated to Connie Kay after his death, this concert LP, recorded in Slovenia in 1960, found the Modern Jazz Quartet (which included pianist John Lewis, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, and bassist Percy Heath) in surprisingly inspired form, playing their usual repertoire of the time. Highlights include a 23-minute medley of John Lewis compositions, "Bag's Groove," "It Don't Mean a Thing," "Django," "How High the Moon," and "Skating in Central Park." Lewis has stated that the group never played better than during this concert. Although that statement is debatable, the MJQ certainly sounds in prime form throughout the easily recommended release.

Milt Jackson - vibraphone
John Lewis - piano
Percy Heath - bass
Connie Kay - drums

Brad Mehldau (born August 23, 1970) is an American jazz pianist. Besides leading his own group, the Brad Mehldau Trio, he has performed with many renowned artists, including Pat Metheny, Wayne Shorter, Larry Grenadier, Peter Bernstein, Jeff Ballard, Joshua Redman, Christian McBride, Michael Brecker, Chris Potter, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Brian Blade, Jimmy Cobb, classical vocalists Renée Fleming and Anne Sofie von Otter, and singer-songwriters Chris Thile and John Mayer.

This release contains all of the quartet recordings that Don Byas made for French labels between 1946 and 1954. Byas' accompaniment on these tracks consisted of renowned local musicians like Martial Solal and Pierre Michelot, as well as other illustrious American figures likes Mary Lou Williams and Beryl Booker. All of these quartets follow the traditional jazz formation of tenor sax backed by a rhythm section of piano, bass and drums.

This release contains the complete classic albums “The Montgomery Brothers & Five Others” (1958), “Montgomeryland” (1959) and “Wes, Buddy & Monk” (1958). Also included are all the songs featuring solos by Wes Montgomery from the LPs “Kismet” (1958) and A Good Git Together (1959) and, as a final bonus, a rare 1955 Montgomery Brothers version of “Love for Sale” appearing here on CD for the first time ever - taken from a long out of print compilation LP called appropriately, “Almost Forgotten”.

The Bob Brookmeyer volume in the Mosaic Select series is one of the more enlightening issues in that it not only includes his little-known debut quartet sides for Pacific Jazz in 1954, featuring Red Mitchell, but more importantly, brings back into print his classic Traditionalism Revisited, Street Swingers, and Kansas City Revisited albums from 1957 and 1958. These sides in particular showcased Brookmeyer's fantastic compositional and arrangement skills even better than his work with Gerry Mulligan. Some of the players on these sessions include Jimmy Giuffre, Jim Hall, Ralph Pena, Jimmy Raney, Paul Quinichette, and Dave Bailey. Brookmeyer was a complete traditionalist, but an unusual harmonist. His charts extrapolated the essence and melodic purity of the earlier jazz material and read it into the advanced harmonic theories of the day on the West Coast, as well as brought it's "cool" ambience to the proceedings -- whether the tempo was up or down. In addition to this music, there are tracks that first saw the light of day on the Playboy Jazz All Stars compilation, and Brookmeyer's self-titled album on Crown. The Street Swingers disc, in particular, with its quintet setting putting Hall, Raney, and Brookmeyer on the frontline, is a masterpiece. Also from 1958 is the Stretching Out album originally issued on United Artists with Zoot Sims and Al Cohn, as well as Hank Jones, Charlie Persip, and Freddie Green on guitar. This is a smoking, wonderfully up-tempo session full of many colors and textures, and showcases Brookmeyer's charts at his developmental peak. In all, there are the four complete albums, some alternate takes, and compilation sides, making this essential for not only Brookmeyer fans, but West Coast jazz collectors as well.

These rare treasures take you all across Billie's career-from '35, the year she debuted at the Apollo and first charted, to '59, the year she died. The stunning early performances include a 20-year-old Billie with Ellington in '35 and a 1937 radio broadcast from the Savoy Hotel in NY with the Basie Orchestra; you'll also hear rare rehearsal tapes, her Monterey '58 performance, songs on The Eddie Condon Show, The Tonight Show, The Steve Allen Show, an impromptu recording of Billie and friends singing My Yiddish Mamma, and more with Art Tatum, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and more! Includes 129 tracks: Swing Brother Swing; Fine and Mellow; I'll Get By; Billie's Blues; All of Me; Lover Man; Them There Eyes; You're My Thrill; I Cover the Waterfront; Porgy; Tenderly; God Bless the Child; My Man; Moanin' Low; Ghost of a Chance, and more.

A massive live set from Cannonball Adderley – and a record that really shows the growth he'd undergone in just a few short years! The album's done in close collaboration with David Axelrod – who'd handled Cannon's big live dates for Capitol in the 60s – but this record is much more freewheeling, open-ended, fuzz, funky, and electric overall! Tracks are all nice and long, and really trip out in the best way – with keyboards from George Duke in the core group, plus some heavy basslines from Walter Booker, drums from Roy McCurdy, and guitar from Mike Deasy on a number of key tracks.

Despite his precarious health, wrecked by decades of doping, Art Pepper was performing and recording at a furious pace during his last seven years, trying to make up for lost time. There is a tremendous amount of material already issued from those years -- and since this initial release from Laurie Pepper's label Widow's Taste is designated Vol. 1, there must be much more on the shelf. Hopefully the rest of the booty is as good as this one, a souvenir of Pepper's last tour of Japan, where he had become the country's number one jazz alto sax star even before he returned to performing.

This release includes Herbie Hancock's music from 1969-1971 for the Warner Brothers label, released originally as three albums, one of Herbie Hancock's most creative periods. The earliest album, Fat Albert Rotunda, features a fine sextet highlighted by tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, like Hancock a master at maintaining strong rhythmic grooves while stretching outward. The later music, with a regularly working band, becomes increasingly expansive and exploratory. Like Miles Davis on Bitches Brew, Hancock was increasingly interested in layering rhythms and textures, emphasizing percussion, electric keyboards, and potent soloists, and broadening his palette of sounds to eventually include synthesizers. There are significant contributions from the inspiring drummer Billy Hart and some potent, if neglected, soloists in multireed player Bennie Maupin (also on Bitches Brew) and trombonist Julian Priester (a Sun Ra associate), who also provided the extended compositions "Water Torture" and "Wandering Spirit Song," respectively. This is a sometimes overlooked period in Hancock's music, bracketed by the quality of his earlier acoustic music, both with Davis and as a leader on Blue Note, and his later commercial success, but it's some of his most innovative work.

Count Basie was a bandleader and pianist who was at the forefront of American big band music in the mid-twentieth century.

Rare Wes Montgomery material is hard to come by. Not counting Willow Weep for Me, the posthumous LP Verve issued in 1968 not long after the guitarist's passing, there was Resonance's 2012 set Echoes of Indiana Avenue, which contained largely live performances from 1957 and 1958. In the Beginning, released three years after Echoes, draws from a similar well of unreleased recordings, offering a heavy dose of live material along with five sides produced by Quincy Jones at Columbia Studios in 1955, plus three tracks a session at Spire Records in Fresno, California in 1949.

Sequenced in rough reverse chronological order – two live performances from November 1958 open the second disc, but the first is entirely devoted to recordings made at the Turf Club in Indianapolis in 1956, when Wes was supported by his brother Buddy on piano, Monk Montgomery on bass, Alonzo "Pookie" Johnson on tenor sax, and drummer Sonny Johnson – the end result has Montgomery turning into a slightly straighter player as the collection rolls on, but that by no means means he sounds stiff. The 1949 cuts that wrap this up veer closer to big band than to bop, and there's a slight touch of politeness to the Jones-produced cuts. That said, it's possible to hear traces of Montgomery's fluidity here, but it's the live cuts from 1956 and 1958 that truly command attention. Here, there's a palpable hunger and playfulness to the performances that give the hard bop a kinetic kick, which means this isn't merely a worthy release from a historic standpoint, it's flat-out fun to boot.

The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions is a four compact disc box set of recordings by the Miles Davis Quintet released in 2006 by the Concord Music Group. It collates on three discs the entire set of recordings that made up the Prestige Records albums released from 1956 through 1961.

The track "'Round Midnight" was released on the album Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants. The fourth disc contains live material from a television broadcast and in jazz club settings. It peaked at #15 on the Billboard jazz album chart, and was reissued on December 2, 2016, in a smaller compact disc brick packaging.

Miles Davis — trumpet
John Coltrane — tenor saxophone
Red Garland — piano
Bill Evans — piano on disc four tracks 7-10
Paul Chambers — bass
Philly Joe Jones — drums

One of the "big three" of late 20th and early 21st century jazz guitarists (along with Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell), John Scofield's influence grew in the '90s and continued into the 21st century. Possessor of a very distinctive rock-oriented sound that is often a bit distorted, Scofield (born December 26, 1951 in Dayton, Ohio) is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, fusion, and soul-jazz. He started on guitar while at high school in Connecticut, and from 1970-1973, he studied at Berklee and played in the Boston area. After recording with Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker at Carnegie Hall, Scofield was a member of the Billy Cobham-George Duke band for two years. In 1977 he recorded with Charles Mingus, and later joined the Gary Burton quartet and Dave Liebman's quintet. His own early sessions as a leader were funk-oriented. Between 1982 and 1985, Scofield toured the world and recorded with Miles Davis. Since that time he has led his own groups, played with Bass Desires, and recorded frequently as a leader for Verve, Emarcy, Gramavision, and Blue Note, using such major players as Charlie Haden, Jack DeJohnette, Joe Lovano, Eddie Harris, and a host of others.

Gerry Mulligan was certainly busy in December 1957. During a two-week period, the baritonist recorded a reunion album with trumpeter Chet Baker, documented a set of his songs with an octet that featured five top saxophonists, recorded a very obscure set with a sextet that included four strings, and cut most of an album in which his quartet teamed up with singer Annie Ross. This limited-edition three-CD set contains all of the music plus alternate takes and the last part of the Ross album, which was recorded nine months later with trumpeter Art Farmer in Baker's spot.

Altoist Hank Crawford, was one of the most soulful stylists to emerge during the 1960s. HEART AND SOUL contains 31 tracks on 2 discs spanning Crawfords's 35-plus years in jazz.

The Organ can often take a back seat in the pecking order of great Jazz instruments but under appreciate it at your peril. The likes of Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Booker T and Ray Charles, to name but a few, made the instrument their own while crafting Jazz cuts of dazzling brilliance.

Renowned for his uniquely melodic, deeply emotional and characteristically reserved soloing style, the music of Art Farmer has remained deceptively difficult to define. Rising to fame as a trumpeter before moving on to the softer tone of the flugelhorn during the early 1960s, Farmer rejected the typical bright and penetrating sounds utilised by many players at this time, in preference of a more restrained style, also favoured by the likes of Kenny Dorham and even Miles Davis in his earlier work.

John Coltrane ( + Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy ) - Live Trane: Underground [12 CD /FLAC]

Great bootleg box set

Fronted by Art Farmer and Benny Golson, the Jazztet was one of the best jazz combos during its three-year existence, from 1959 to 1962. Although their recordings are much revered now, they never obtained enough commercial success to maintain the group. According to All Music Guide critic Scott Yanow, “the Jazztet – along with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and Horace Silver’s quintet – was the definitive hard bop combo. Benny Golson’s compositions and arrangements gave the sextet a personal sound and a consistently fresh repertoire, the rhythm section (despite many changes in personnel) always swung steadily and the soloists were distinctive and inventive.”

This release consists every know recording by the Jazztet fronted by Farmer and Golson. It consists of their 6 complete studio LPs (presented in chronological order):

• Meet the Jazztet (Argo LP 664)

• Big City Sounds (Argo LP 672)

• The Jazztet and John Lewis (Argo LP 684)

• The Jazztet at the Birdhouse (Argo LP 688)

• Here and Now (Mercury SR 60698)

• Another Git Together (Mercury SR 60737)

as well as the set of the Jazztet at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival (with Duke Pearson on piano), and a single song from that period performed by the group on a “Tonight Show” TV broadcast.

This luxury bounded box contain 12 CD for a total of 236 tracks, almost all the live tracks recorded by Billie Holiday along her career.

A CD sets with the most beautiful ballads in the history of jazz.

Lyrical, imaginative, sensuous and melodic jewels from the art of music.

Precisely for those people who have maintained their taste for lasting musical values.

Jazz in its most gentle form.

Irrestible...

Jazz Ballads 6: Coleman Hawkins

Jazz Ballads 7: Django Reinhardt

Jazz Ballads 8: Oscar Peterson

Jazz Ballads 9: Errol Garner

Jazz Ballads 10: Stan Getz

Pianist and composer McCoy Tyner already had an illustrious career during his tenure with the John Coltrane Quartet, and as a leader in the 1960s. Along with the sides he recorded with Trane, Tyner led a number of excellent sessions for Impulse, among them his debut for the label, Inception, as well as Ballads and Blues: both were issued in 1962. Today and Tomorrow (containing a three-horn front line) and Reaching Fourth (with bassist Henry Grimes and drummer Roy Haynes) both appeared in 1963. He was already a fully forged identity, though the influence of and on Coltrane's sound was profound -- his playing and improvising were as much a part of the architecture of that sound as they were part of him when he signed to Blue Note in 1967. He recorded Real McCoy in 1967 with Joe Henderson, Elvin Jones, and Ron Carter, and a quartet date in 1968 called Time for Tyner with Bobby Hutcherson, Herbie Lewis, and Freddie Waits. Between these two albums was the compelling Tender Moments, which boasted on a couple of its selections a nonet. It is on this last recording that the blueprint for Tyner's next move was apparent.

Tutu (1986)

Music From Siesta (1987)

Amandla (1989)

Dingo (Selections From The Motion Picture Soundtrack) (1991)

Doo-Bop (1991)

Medeski Martin & Wood (or MMW) is an American jazz trio formed in 1991.

The band draws on influences from a number of musical traditions, from funk to Hip Hop, and is known for an unconventional style sometimes described as "avant-groove".

MMW has found moderate mainstream success—often working with noted guitarist John Scofield—and touring on the jam band circuit.

Deluxe five CD set containing all known recordings by Shelly Mann & His Men at the Black Hawk. This edition presents - for the first time ever on a single collection and in chronological order - all known recordings by the legendary Shelly Manne quintet with Joe Gordon and Richie Kamuca made at the Black Hawk, in San Francisco during 1959. This was the first time Shelly Manne and His Men recorded in a live setting and the results were so astonishing that both the original producers and the members of the group felt the need to issue most of the music recorded during the three days of sessions on a four volume collection. All known music from the gig is contained on this set.

Shepp has been criticized for his more commercial ventures such as this, but many will enjoy its accessibly light charm. Most of the numbers are standards, including "My Funny Valentine," "Lover Man," and "Lush Life," and are performed by the saxophonist backed by a solid rhythm section. Dave Burrell is wonderfully deft on piano, and he is given ample opportunity to interact with Shepp. Annette Lowman sings on several numbers, and she adds just the right touch and phrasing. Shepp is in somewhat less than perfect form, but he is clearly enjoying himself. There is a touch of a blues and R&B feel that adds to the ambiance. Unlike some of Shepp's other ventures, there are no attempted serious statements made -- only relaxing, good, swinging jazz that lifts the spirits or touches the soul, if only just a bit.

Archie Shepp - saxophone
Annette Lowman - vocals
Dave Burrell - piano
Herman Wright - bass
Steve McCraven - drums

Richard Allen "Blue" Mitchell (March 13, 1930 – May 21, 1979) was an American jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, rock, and funk trumpeter, known for many albums recorded as leader and sideman for Riverside, Blue Note and then Mainstream Records.

Count Basie (born August 21, 1904, Red Bank, New Jersey, U.S.—died April 26, 1984, Hollywood, Florida), American jazz musician noted for his spare, economical piano style and for his leadership of influential and widely heralded big bands.

Three and a half months before Thelonious Monk died, two memorable tribute concerts took place at Columbia University. The lineup of musicians was perfect: soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy (long an expert on Monk's music), Thelonious' longtime tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, trombonist Roswell Rudd, trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Richard Davis, either Ben Riley or Ed Blackwell on drums, and four different pianists. This legendary event was fortunately recorded, and the afternoon concert has been released in full on this 1997 double-CD set.

CD1 - Straight, No Chaser (1967)

CD2 - Underground (1968)

CD3 - Criss-Cross (1963)

CD4 - Monk's Dream (1962)

CD5 - Solo Monk (1965)

Contains 5 albums and 1 EP on 2 CDs:

"Modern Sounds" (Capitol)
"Shorty Rogers and his Giants" (RCA)
"Cool and Crazy" (RCA)
"Hot Blood EP" (RCA)
"Shorty Rogers Courts the Count" (RCA)
"The Big Shorty Rogers Express" (RCA)

Oklahoma born tenor saxophonist Don Byas moved easily between swing and bebop with an earthy, blues sound that brings to mind Coleman Hawkins but with a lightness of touch and rhythmic agility reminiscent of Lester Young. He successfully synthesized these two influences, in many ways updating them into the bebop era. Byas mastered the breathtaking tempos associated with Parker and Gillespie but avoided the angular, sharp phrasing- with the result that his up-tempo approach had a more rounded, swing solo sound. Byas reminds us that bebop arose out of the world of swing, and that many of the most significant jazz musicians of the forties were at home in both worlds.

10 Years Solo Live is a recording by jazz pianist Brad Mehldau. It contains solo piano tracks from 19 concerts in Europe during the period 2004–2014.

Alto saxophonist Herb Geller and his wife Lorraine Geller were married for only seven years prior to her sudden death from an undiagnosed heart ailment in 1958, but they were fortunate that they were able to work regularly together and also make several records with each other (three albums for Emarcy and an extended-play 45 rpm disc for Imperial), all of which are gathered in this two-CD compilation. Herb has been an underrated saxophonist because he has spent most of his working life in Europe following Lorraine's death, but he was among the top echelon of West Coast players during the 1950s, while Lorraine was just as capable, whether soloing or backing her husband. In addition to the standards, there are several originals by each of the Gellers, including Lorraine's laconic ballad "Domestic Harmony" and Herb's tongue-in-cheek "Love Is Like a Turtle" (a rather uptempo cooker). A variety of different rhythm sections are utilized and the source material varies in quality, some of it presumably being dubbed from rare LPs instead of master tapes.

This collection on the U.K.'s Soul Brother imprint is a very compelling look at a big slice of Freddie Hubbard's long career as a leader, and one that gets ignored for the most part. Hubbard recorded over 20 records between Backlash, his Atlantic debut in 1966, and Ride Like the Wind for Elektra in 1982, with lengthy stops at Columbia and CTI (as well some straight hard bop and post-bop outings for labels Fantasy and Pablo). In many cases, some of these original recordings were not only disregarded by more traditional jazzheads, they were regarded with outright hostility. It didn't matter to Hubbard, however, because at the time, these were among his best-selling albums and connected with the public deeply.

This 18-cut set leaves out the straighter jazz albums and his dates as a sideman – there were dozens – in favor of Hubbard's long sojourn into soul-jazz, fusion, and jazz-funk. The early soul-jazz sides on Atlantic are represented by a pair of cuts from Backlash and one each from High Blues Pressure and A Soul Experiment, before moving into his years with Creed Taylor. These years contain classics such as the title jams from Red Clay and First Light, but they go deeper and get stranger – as well as more cosmic – with the inclusion of tracks like "Povo," a wild reading of "People Make the World Go Around," and "Spirits of Trane" from Polar AC and Keep Your Soul Together. Disc two also includes far funkier jams such as "Baraka Sasa" and "Kuntu" from High Energy and Liquid Love, respectively. There are certainly albums left out from this period, even those that followed the grooved-out dictums of the tracks included, but it hardly matters since what is presented here is the best of the best, even following Hubbard's trail all the way down to albums like Splash and Born to Be Blue. In other words, this is a great introduction to the music of Hubbard after his initial Blue Note period and before he returned to his hard bop roots in the middle of the 1980s.

Live compilation for one of the 20th Century's most important & influential musicians. Recorded during several truly memorable European concerts made between 1961 & 1965. The classic performances feature Coltrane in company with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison & Elvin Jones. On three tracks the legendary Eric Dolphy joins the most famous quartet. Includes 'Naima', 'Impressions' & two contrasting & extended performances of the evergreen 'My Favorite Things', plus an awesome 48-minute performance of Coltrane's undisputed masterpiece, 'A Love Supreme'.

John Coltrane: soprano, tenor saxophone
McCoy Tyner: piano
Elvin Jones: drums
Eric Dolphy: flute, clarinet, alto saxophone, bass guitar
Reggie Workman: bass instrument
Jimmy Garrison: bass

Josef Erich Zawinul (July 7, 1932 – September 11, 2007) was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.

May 26th 2020 marks the centenary of the birth of the great jazz and pop singer Peggy Lee, and Acrobat is celebrating the occasion with two special releases, this collections of album tracks and an anthology of selected A and B sides from her singles The Centenary Singles Collection 1945-62 (ACQCD7146). Peggy Lee was one of the finest interpreters of popular songs, whether performing in the big band idiom, in small group jazz environments or with solo piano accompaniment, or in the sophisticated pop style which brought her many chart hits. Her repertoire ranged effortlessly from Great American Songbook classics to the latest pop songs, and included many of her own fine compositions.

This great-value 109-track 4-CD set comprises selected titles from 25 of her albums released on Capitol and Decca during this era - My Best To You, Rendezvous with Peggy Lee, Lover, Black Coffee, Songs In An Intimate Style, Songs from Pete Kelly's Blues, Dream Street, Songs from Walt Disney's ""Lady and the Tramp, Sea Shells, Miss Wonderful, The Fabulous Peggy Lee, The Man I Love, Jump For Joy, Things Are Swingin', I Like Men! ,Beauty and the Beat!, Latin ala Lee!, All Aglow Again!, Pretty Eyes, Christmas Carousel, OlÃ© ala Lee, Basin Street East Proudly Presents Miss Peggy Lee, If You Go, Blues Cross Country and Sugar 'N' Spice. It features performances with Nelson Riddle, Billy May, George Shearing, Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra, Dave Barbour, Benny Carter, Gordon Jenkins, Hal Mooney, Victor Young, Sy Oliver, Joseph Lilley and Jack Marshall. Its a marvellous showcase for her talent and versatility working across a range of musical styles and concepts.

A double CD collection of Blue Note music from the late 1960's.

Remembered for his warm, lyrical tone and impeccable sense of rhythm, Art Farmer was not just a highly accomplished trumpet player, he also helped establish the flugelhorn as a leading solo instrument in jazz - and later, introduced the flumpet , a hybrid of the two instruments, which he helped invent. Along with his twin brother, double bassist Addison Farmer, he produced many landmark albums throughout his career, as both a bandleader and as a sideman or as part of The Jazztet, a collective built around the trumpeter and tenor saxophonist Benny Golson.

Mosaic Records -- that venerable jazz and blues collector's label that issues completely necessary packages by legendary, if sometimes obscure, artists in limited editions on both LP and CD -- is a name synonymous with the finest quality in sound, annotation, and packaging, and they are branching out. Mosaic Select is a side label dedicated to bringing to light the work of musicians whose role in the development of jazz was seminal but whose catalog was small, or whose work was neglected or otherwise overlooked. These editions, in two or three CD sets, just like their other boxes, are numbered and limited. The music on this collection features both of trombonist and composer Grachan Moncur's Blue Note LPs as well as his four historic collaborations with Jackie McLean, the albums One Step Beyond, Destination Out, Hipnosis, and 'Bout Soul.

Tony Bennett - Complete Columbia Singles Vol. 1-6 (2011)

The discography of American traditional pop and jazz singer Tony Bennett consists of 60 studio albums, 11 live albums, 33 compilation albums, three video albums, one extended play and 83 singles.

Almost all of Bennett's albums have been released by Columbia Records. The biggest selling of his albums in the US have been I Left My Heart in San Francisco, MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett, Duets: An American Classic and Duets II, all of which were certified platinum by the RIAA for shipping one million copies. Nine other albums of his have gone gold in the US, including several compilations.

Horace Silver (born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva, September 2, 1928 – June 18, 2014) was an American jazz pianist and composer.

Silver is known for his distinctive playing style and pioneering compositional contributions to hard bop. He was influenced by a wide range of musical styles, notably gospel music, African music, and Latin American music, and sometimes ventured into the soul jazz genre.

From the time of his first Blue Note recording in 1964 to his final session for the label in 1967, Sam Rivers made stunning progress as an avant-garde innovator. Starting with an inside/outside hard bop foundation, Rivers quickly took his music as far out as he could while maintaining a recognizable structure; his work fearlessly explored wildly dissonant harmonies and atonality, dense group interaction, cerebral rumination, and passionately intense, free-leaning solos.

The Complete Blue Note Sam Rivers Sessions traces that development chronologically (and flawlessly) over the course of three discs, including the entirety of his four albums as a leader: the relatively straightforward Fuschia Swing Song [sic], the avant-bop masterpiece Contours, the radical standards album A New Conception, and the galvanizing, brilliant avant-garde classic Dimensions and Extensions (which also comprised Rivers' half of the split double-LP Involution with Andrew Hill). Five alternate takes are also added to the program, including three of "Downstairs Blues Upstairs." What amazes just as much as Rivers' imaginative originality is how consistently rewarding all three discs are. Rivers may not be quite as much a household name as some of his equally forward-thinking peers, but any jazz fan remotely interested in the avant-garde should know that this set constitutes some of the finest avant-garde jazz Blue Note ever released -- the music here should be considered a cornerstone of any self-respecting avant-garde collection.

The Last Waltz: The Final Recordings is an 8-CD box set live album by jazz pianist Bill Evans with Marc Johnson and Joe LaBarbera recorded during a nine night residency at Keystone Korner in San Francisco in 1980 and released on the Milestone label in 2000.