Kid Ory - The Complete Verve Sessions (8 CD, 1999/FLAC)

 Kid Ory is known best for the work he did in the mid-1920s with the men who had once been his employees. Many essential King Oliver recordings feature Ory, and he is perhaps most famous as the trombone voice on Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five sessions. Ory’s ensemble playing on “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue” would be enough, by itself, to earn Ory pride of place among tailgate trombonists.

Come the Depression, Ory hung up his horn and went to work on a chicken farm outside of Los Angeles. Later, he found employment in a railroad office. It wasn’t until 1942 that Ory got back into the music business: His career enjoyed a renaissance starting in 1944 when Orson Welles hired the pioneering trombonist to lead a band for his radio broadcasts.

By the mid-’50s, when Ory started recording for Norman Granz at Verve, Ory’s second blooming was in full flower. He was touring Europe and the United States to packed houses. Audiences in France were so enthusiastic that Ory supposedly mistook their exuberance for aggression-he thought he was being jeered when he was actually being cheered. A recording of that night’s performance opens the Mosaic set, and in that hyper-charged atmosphere one will hear the closest Ory comes to the sort of raw rowdiness that is typical of so many trad trombonists today.

• Kid Ory - trombone, vocals
• J.C. Higginbotham, Jack Teagarden - trombone
• Alvin Alcorn, Red Allen, Teddy Buckner, Andrew Blakeney - trumpet
• Phillip Gomez, Buster Bailey, Caughey Roberts, Robert McCracken - clarinet
• Cedric Haywood, Claude Hopkins, Lionel Reason, Bob Van Eps - piano
• Wellman Braud, Frank Haggerty - guitar
• Johnny St. Cyr - banjo, guitar
• Arvell Shaw, Charles Oden, Morty Corb, Bob Boyack - bass
• Kansas Fields, Earl Watkins, Jesse Sailes, Alton Redd, Doc Cenardo - drums

 

Louis Armstrong - The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings, Vol. 1 - 3 (3 CD, 2003/FLAC)

 

Louis Armstrong compilation of early work, recorded between 12 November 1925 through 23 June 1926. Released 22 April 2003 on Columbia/Legacy label, catalog# 86999, US.

Legacy has seen fit - and rightfully so - to reissue the complete recordings of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Seven as individual volumes instead of just a box set. This is a solid way to go for collectors trying to fill holes. It's also the best way for a beginner, not only with Armstrong's music but that of early-recorded jazz, to become acquainted with the development of improvisation in the music. Volume 1 concentrates on the Hot Five material from 1925 and 1926. The first band included Armstrong, Kid Ory on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, pianist Lil Hardin, and banjo boss Johnny St. Cyr. These 20 recordings were made for the Okeh label. The blues model on which all of these tunes were based is extrapolated upon and remade in the image of first the ensemble and then in the image of the soloist. From "My Heart" and the amazing "Oriental Strut" to "Lonesome Blues," to "Come Back Sweet Papa," to the introduction of scat singing in Lil Hardin's "Skid-Dat-De Dat," the exuberance and professionalism just drip from these tunes. But notions of harmonic invention are also present, places where the soloist slips outside the changes and moves toward reaching a musical unity with the ensemble by whatever means necessary as long as it swung. The sound here is as good as it gets for the time, and after one or two listens, the hiss is barely recognizable. What's important is the fidelity of the music, and it's excellent.

McCoy Tyner & Freddie Hubbard Quartet - Live at Fabrik Hamburg 1986 (2022 Hi-Res FLAC)

 Live At Fabrik presents pianist McCoy Tyner's trio with bassist Avery Sharpe and drummer Louis Hayes and guest artist Freddie Hubbard on trumpet and flugelhorn. In actuality, Hubbard's power-packed presence transforms the unit into a co-led quartet, as the cover art acknowledges. The 2 x CD album is, in effect, the chronicle of a summit meeting between two giants of post-bop jazz—one of them, Hubbard, on the rebound from a fall from grace occasioned by his embrace of fusion in the 1970s, the other, Tyner, a bandleader who had never let his standards drop.

• Freddie Hubbard: trumpet
• McCoy Tyner: piano
• Avery Sharpe: bass
• Louis Hayes: drums.

 

Louis Armstrong - Columbia Jazz Masters Series Volumes 1-7, 1925-31 (1988-1993) [FLAC]

Originally released in LP format in 1961 as the 1st of 4 volumes compiling OKeh singles recorded by Louis Armstrong between 12 November 1925 through 12 December 1928, in chronological order. Columbia acquired OKeh Records in 1926, for its catalog of jazz and blues. Sony purchased Columbia in 1988 acquiring a broad catalog including jazz, pop, rock.

Louis Armstrong – The Hot Fives, Volume I 

Louis Armstrong – The Hot Fives & Hot Sevens, Volume II 

Louis Armstrong – The Hot Fives & Hot Sevens, Volume III 

Louis Armstrong – Volume 4 - Louis Armstrong And Earl Hines 

Louis Armstrong – Volume 5 - Louis In New York

Louis Armstrong – Vol. 6: St. Louis Blues 

Louis Armstrong – Volume 7 - You're Drivin' Me Crazy 

Brian Bromberg - A New Day (1986, 24-96 FLAC)

 Recorded October 1985 through June 1986 at Mad Hatter Recording Studios, Los Angeles

• Brian Bromberg - fretless & fretted electric & piccolo basses, keyboards, emulator II,drum machine
• Ernie Watts - tenor sax
• Alex Acuna - drums, percussion
• Freddie Hubbard - flugelhorn
• Joe Farrell - flute, tenor and soprano saxes
• Kei Akagi - keyboards, piano
• Guy Moon - keyboards
• Arthur Statman - keyboards
• Greg Armstrong - alto sax
• Carl Cherry - drums

Side 1
A1 - Summertime 4:37
A2 - Sunrise 6:24
A3 - Take A Walk In The Park With Me 7:05
A4 - Shana 5:30

Side 2
B1 - Mushy Tushy 6:00
B2 - It's A New Day 6:12
B3 - My Funny Valentine 6:04
B4 - Oriental Ho-Down 6:24 

Benny Goodman — The Complete Capitol Small Group Recordings Of Benny Goodman 1944-1955 (4 CD, 1993/FLAC)

 Benny Goodman took some stylistic chances during his 11-year tenure with Capitol. He listened closely to, then flirted with, bebop during this time, not altering his own swing-based playing but inserting it into a bop framework. He also played traditional swing in various small groups. The sessions covered on this most recent Mosaic four-disc (six-album) set were originally issued on a number of 10" and 12" albums, as well as the CDs BG in Hi Fi and The Benny Goodman Story, a Japanese issue. It shows Goodman mixing and matching idioms, retaining his own style and vision, and ultimately opting to return to the music he felt most comfortable making and playing. Despite some variation in sound quality caused by the music originally being issued on 16" acetate discs, the performance quality certainly compensates for it, and the discographical information and session histories are as exhaustive as possible. 

Abbey Lincoln - Through The Years [1956-2007] (3 CD, 2009/FLAC)

Anyone who has followed Abbey Lincoln’s career with any regularity understands that she has followed a fiercely individual path and has paid the cost for those choices. Through the Years is a cross-licensed, three-disc retrospective expertly compiled and assembled by the artist and her longtime producer, Jean-Philippe Allard. Covering more than 50 years in her storied career, it establishes from the outset that Lincoln was always a true jazz singer and unique stylist. Though it contains no unreleased material, it does offer the first true picture of he range of expression. Her accompanists include former husband Max Roach, Benny Carter, Kenny Dorham, Charlie Haden, Sonny Rollins, Wynton Kelly, Benny Golson, J.J. Johnson, Art Farmer, Stan Getz, and Hank Jones, to name scant few.

Stan Getz - The Complete Columbia Albums Collection (8 CD, 2011/FLAC)

 With his beautiful, Lester Young-inspired tone, his grace with a melody, and his willingness to gently push boundaries, tenor saxophonist Stan Getz was known as "The Sound" for good reason. Coming to fame with the Woody Herman band in the '40s, he held his own through both the swing and bebop eras, then found renewed commercial success in the early '60s when a João Gilberto collaboration, "The Girl from Ipanema," was a big hit and ushered in a bossa nova boom. Getz loved playing with bold young players like Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke, and he didn't shy away from new technology, championing the Echoplex for a time. This wonderful set includes the albums he recorded for Columbia Records between 1972 and 1979 (most of which he produced himself), as well as the soundtrack LP to a Dutch film called Forest Eyes from 1979, and a bonus disc of Getz at Carnegie Hall for the 40th anniversary of the Woody Herman band that also includes live sets from the 1977 Montreux Jazz and the 1979 Havana Jam festivals. It's beautifully packaged, and Getz is Getz throughout.

Art Farmer - The Complete Albums Collection 1961-1963 (4 CD, 2016/FLAC)

1961 saw one of the most important shifts in Art Farmer s career. Having played primarily trumpet up until that point, Farmer switched to the softer tone of the flugelhorn, and for the rest of his life it would remain his instrument of choice. The first recorded instance of this change featured on the album Perception (Argo 1961), featuring Harold Mabern on piano, bassist Tommy Williams and drummer Roy McCurdy.

 

VA - The Complete H.R.S. Sessions [6 CD, 1999/FLAC]

 

The Hot Record Society, a New York-based group of jazz recording enthusiasts organized in 1937 by Stephen W. Smith, quickly evolved from a clearinghouse and auction outlet for collectors into a real recording organization. Across ten years from 1937 through 1947, HRS recorded such outfits as Pee Wee Russell's Rhythmakers (an ad hoc group formed by members of Count Basie's and Eddie Condon's bands), Sidney Bechet and Muggsy Spanier, Rex Stewart's Big Seven, Brick Fleagle's Orchestra, Sandy Williams' Big Eight, Jimmy Jones, J.C. Higginbotham, Joe Thomas, Harry Carney, Buck Clayton, Trummy Young, the Billy Taylor Quartet, Russell Procope, Dicky Wells, Babe Mathews and Joe Thomas, and Billy Kyle. It's all here, 124 tracks encompassing everything from prewar New Orleans jazz to the early bop period of the mid-'40s, and while there are gaps -- Smith went for years without recording after the outbreak of the Second World War, owing to a government priority for shellac (the substance that 78s were made from) that barely kept the major labels in business -- it's a good account of what happened with jazz over the decade represented here. Some of the selected material is a little odd, owing to choices made based on copyright accessibility (or nonexistence), and there are perhaps too many alternate takes for the novice listener. On the other hand, the sources are excellent, the recording venue was very fine, and the Mosaic people have done their usual excellent remastering job, so that, say, Budd Johnson's tenor sax and Jimmy Jones' piano on "Sunny Side Up" and "Strollin' Easy" sound incredibly clean and close, and Freddie Green's guitar gets one of its better showcases of the era. And the Brick Fleagle sides, starting with the extraordinary "Brick's Boogie," are almost worth the price of admission by themselves, just to hear what this overlooked, prodigiously talented musician had to offer in his prime, 60 years earlier.

Elvin Jones - The Complete Blue Note Sessions [8 CD, 2000]

 

This limited-edition eight-disc set combines all of Elvin Jones' Blue Note recordings from April 1968 through July 1973. This 65-track set contains the LPs Puttin It Together, Ultimate Elvin Jones, Poly-Currents, Coalition, Genesis, Merry Go Round, Live at the Lighthouse, Mr. Jones, and The Prime Element.

Jones makes his presence as a band leader undeniable on these sessions allowing the musicians to stretch out while directing the evolution of the pieces. The closest comparison would be to Art Blakey; Jones was a band leader, drum master, and someone who knew instinctively who would fit in his bands, whether it was a wide range of established jazz veterans or some that would go on to achieve that status. Some of this is quite adventurous and, while certainly not taking the extreme direction of John Coltrane's group after Jones and McCoy Tyner left it, moments of this modal hard bop music approach that level of intensity.

David Sanborn discography [1975-2015]

 

David Sanborn (born July 30, 1945) is an American alto saxophonist. Though Sanborn has worked in many genres, his solo recordings typically blend jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He released his first solo album Taking Off in 1975, but has been playing the saxophone since before he was in high school. Sanborn has also worked extensively as a session musician, notably on David Bowie's Young Americans (1975).

One of the most commercially successful American saxophonists to earn prominence since the 1980s, Sanborn is described by critic Scott Yannow as "the most influential saxophonist on pop, R&B, and crossover players of the past 20 years." Sanborn is often identified with radio-friendly smooth jazz However, Sanborn has expressed a disinclination for both the genre itself and his association with it.

David Sanborn-(1975)-Beck & Sanborn (with Joe Beck)

David Sanborn-(1975)-Taking Off

David Sanborn-(1976)-Love Songs

David Sanborn-(1976)-Sanborn

David Sanborn-(1977)-Promise Me The Moon

David Sanborn-(1978)-Heart To Heart

David Sanborn-(1980)-Hideaway

David Sanborn-(1981)-Voyeur

David Sanborn-(1982)-As We Speak

David Sanborn-(1983)-Backstreet

David Sanborn-(1984)-Straight To The Heart

David Sanborn-(1986)-Double Vision (with Bob James)

David Sanborn-(1987)-A Change Of Heart

David Sanborn-(1988)-Close-Up

David Sanborn-(1991)-Another Hand

David Sanborn-(1992)-Upfront

David Sanborn-(1994)-Hearsay

David Sanborn-(1994)-The Best Of David Sanborn

David Sanborn-(1995)-Pearls

David Sanborn-(1996)-Sanborn Best ! - Dreaming Girl

David Sanborn-(1996)-Songs from the Night before

David Sanborn-(1999)-Inside

David Sanborn-(2002)-The Essentials

David Sanborn-(2003)-Time Again

David Sanborn-(2005)-Closer

David Sanborn-(2008)-Here and Gone

David Sanborn-(2010)-Only Everything

David Sanborn-(2013)-Quartette Humaine (with Bob James)

David Sanborn-(2015)-Time And The River

Thelonious Monk - The Evolution of an Artist (4 CD, 2008/FLAC)

 

Four classic Monk's albums on Evolution series of german BHM label

Judy Garland - The Garland Variations: Songs She Recorded More Than Once (5 CD, 2014)

 

A set consisting of five compact discs of songs performed by a single artist might seem like a bonanza to the singer's loyal fan base. It also could be daunting even to fervent followers when each song is followed by anywhere from one to four different recorded versions of the same number. 

Judy Garland opens JSP Records’  5-CD box set The Garland Variations: Songs She Recorded More Than Once (JSP 975) with “Everybody Sing,” the kind of rousing showstopper she was practically born to sing. Sessions for the song from MGM’s Broadway Melody of 1938 began when Garland was on the cusp of just fifteen years old, but the power of her vocal instrument was already in place. But even when belting with a force to rival the mighty Merman, there was always something unfailingly intimate – or personal – about a Judy Garland performance. There’s plenty of that intimacy, as well as that power, on this illuminating new set produced by JSP’s John Stedman and compiled and annotated by Lawrence Schulman.

Art Van Damme - Swinging The Accordion On MPS (5 CD, 2006/FLAC)

 The hippest cat ever to swing an accordion, Art Van Damme dared go where no man had gone before: jazz accordion. He started taking accordion lessons at the age of nine, and moved on to classical studies after his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1934. After leaving school. he played in a trio in local clubs under big band leader Ben Bernie hired him in 1941. He soon returned to Chicago, though, and continued to work the club circuit there throughout World War Two.

Van Damme was inspired by swing recordings, particularly Benny Goodman's, and in the late 1930s, he began experimenting, adapting Goodman solos to the accordion. Throughout his career, he would often be compared to Goodman, since the two were both classically trained, technical masters of their instruments, and versatile and creative jazz soloists. He formed a quintet with several of his studio colleagues, and recorded his first album, for the small label, Music Craft, in 1944.

More Cocktail Capers LPHe joined the staff of NBC Radio in Chicago in 1945 and remained a studio musician for over 15 years, even after he became a recording artist in his own right. His early style fits into a small but at the time quite popular niche between the cocktail piano sound and the accordion/guitar/organ sound of the Three Suns. 

Herbie Hancock – The Complete Columbia Album Collection, 1972-1988 [34 CD, 2013]

 

Gathered here for the first time are all of the recordings Herbie Hancock (b. 1940) made for Columbia Records U.S. and CBS/Sony Records Japan between 1972 and 1988--a stunningly creative, 17-year period, yielding 31 albums. Eight of the titles in this set have never been released outside of Japan. This collection of 34 newly-remastered CDs showcases Herbie's virtuosity in a dazzling display of musical styles. It is a testament to his fearlessness, innovation, and ever-evolving curiosity, as well as his significant commercial success--the platinum certifications of Head Hunters and Future Shock.

Django Reinhardt - Chronological Classics 1934-1953 (15 CD)

 

Django Reinhardt was the first hugely influential jazz figure to emerge from Europe -- and he remains the most influential European to this day, with possible competition from Joe Zawinul, George Shearing, John McLaughlin, his old cohort Stephane Grappelli and a bare handful of others. A free-spirited gypsy, Reinhardt wasn't the most reliable person in the world, frequently wandering off into the countryside on a whim

 

 

Pharoah Sanders - In The Beginning 1963-1964 [4 CD, 2012] (FLAC+320)

 RIP (October 13, 1940 – September 24, 2022)

Pharoah Sanders In the Beginning 1963 - 1964 - four CD set documents the first recordings of the iconic tenor saxophonist, Pharoah Sanders, prior to his well-known association with John Coltrane. Beginning with two previously unreleased sessions with Ornette Coleman alumni Don Cherry and Paul Bley, followed by Pharoah's debut date as a leader for ESP-Disk and concluding with the first issue ever of the complete the December 30 and 31, 1964 Sun Ra at Judson Hall concerts, Sanders only known recordings with the Arkestra the set also includes rare recorded interviews with Sanders, Cherry, Bley and Ra by ESP-Disk's music producer Michael D. Anderson. With Coltrane, Sanders would become known for extremely atonal blowing using extended techniques, but on his September 20, 1964 ESP session (as on most of his work as a leader) he does not go to those extremes.

 

Miles Davis - The First Great Quintet [Studio 1955-56] [2021 remaster FLAC-HD]

 In the summer of 1955, after Miles Davis performed at the Newport Jazz Festival, he was approached by Columbia Records executive George Avakian, who offered him a contract if he could form a regular band. Davis assembled his first regular quintet to meet a commitment at the Café Bohemia in July with Sonny Rollins on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. By the autumn, Rollins had left to deal with his heroin addiction, and later in the year joined the hard bop quintet led by Clifford Brown and Max Roach.

At the recommendation of drummer Jones, Davis replaced Rollins with John Coltrane, beginning a partnership that would last five years and finalizing the Quintet's first line-up. Expanded to a sextet with the addition of Cannonball Adderley on alto saxophone in 1958, the First Great Quintet was one of the definitive hard bop groups along with the Brown-Roach Quintet and the Jazz Messengers, recording the Columbia albums Round About Midnight, Milestones, and the marathon sessions for Prestige Records resulting in four albums collected on The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions.

Miles Davis Quintet:   

Miles Davis, trumpet
John Coltrane, tenor saxophone
Red Garland, piano
Paul Chambers, double bass
Philly Joe Jones, drums

Miles Davis - The Complete Columbia Album Collection - [52 albums - 70 CD, 2009/FLAC]

 

Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection is a box set by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in 2009. It contains all the official releases on the Columbia Records label.

 

Billy Cobham– The Atlantic Years 1973-1978 [8 CD, 2015] (FLAC + 320)

 

At the dawn of the 1970s, Billy Cobham built his legend with his bandleader debut, Spectrum . Raw, daring and overflowing with adrenalin, the album topped the Billboard Jazz charts. Having played for Miles Davis, Horace Silver and Mose Allison, Billy Cobham had joined the legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1971, before signing to Atlantic as a solo artist in 1973. Worshipped today as a titan of drumming, Billy Cobham's career is now in its fifth decade.

Herbie Hancock & Carlos Santana – Live Under Sky 1981 [2020/FLAC]

 

Live Under the Sky was an annual multi-day summer jazz festival held in Tokyo's 10,000-capacity Denen Hall, featuring the cream of local and international talent. The climax of 1981's festival, broadcast by NHK radio was a jointly headlined set by Herbie Hancock and Carlos Santana, together with a band including Wynton Marsalis, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. A joyous blend of jazz and Latin-tinged funk, it is presented in full here, together with background notes and images. 

•     Double Bass – Ron Carter
•     Drums – Anthony Williams
•     Electric Guitar – Carlos Santana
•     Grand Piano, Keyboards – Herbie Hancock
•     Percussion – Armando Peraza, Orestes Vilato, Raul Rekow
•     Trumpet – Wynton Marsalis

A1 Watermelon Man > Evil Ways > Watermelon Man 25:33

B1 'Round Midnight 7:24

B2 Parade 9:54

B3 Unknown #1 7:47

C1 A Quick Sketch 17:39

C2 Love Theme From Spartacus 8:37

C3 Unknown #2 (Fade Out) 2:59

D1 Unknown #2 (Cont.) 3:24

D2 Unknown #3 5:55

D3 Europa 9:08

D4 Saturday Night 11:28

Hossam Ramzy discography [1986-2011]

   

Hossam Ramzy (15 December 1953 – 10 September 2019) was an Egyptian percussionist and composer. He worked with Western artists like Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Siouxsie Sioux, as well as with Arabic music artists like Rachid Taha and Khaled. 

Ramzy was born into a wealthy Cairo family. He began playing the darbuka and tabla at an early age. He moved to Saudi Arabia for a time and learned traditional Bedouin music styles. In the 1970s he moved to London and began playing with saxophonist Andy Sheppard. His collaborations with jazz musicians earned him the nickname "The Sultan of Swing". In 1989 he worked with Peter Gabriel on the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. This brought him to the attention of artists such as Frank Asher and the Gipsy Kings.

Charlie Parker - A Studio Chronicle 1940-1948 [5 CD, 2003] (FLAC + 320)

  

A Studio Chronicle 1940-1948 is a five-disc box set detailing what producer Ted Kendall considers to be the essential studio recordings of saxophonist Charlie Parker. Included here are not only the innovative bebop sides that made Parker a living legend, but also the early Kansas City swing recordings he appeared on while playing with the Jay McShann Orchestra. The result is a studio history of Parker's development from a struggling farm kid turned musician to the most important figure in jazz history next to Louis Armstrong. Given that these recordings are widely available, the real attraction here is the faithful-to-the-original remastered sound, the historically enlightening liner notes, and the overarching critical aesthetic that these are the Bird cuts to check out. Also, given that the tracks are presented with few repeats on discs in chronological order makes this better listening than Atlantic's Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings 1944-1948. Oddly though, the only place Kendall delineates what labels these tracks were originally released on -- mostly Dial and Savoy -- is in the track listing and there only by label numbers. Despite this confusing omission, Kendall has produced a superb collection that illuminates more than it overlooks.

Jay McShann collection 1956-2007 [FLAC]

 The great veteran pianist Jay McShann (also known as Hootie) enjoyed a long career and it is unfair to primarily think of him as merely the leader of an orchestra that featured a young Charlie Parker. He was mostly self-taught as a pianist, worked with Don Byas as early as 1931 and played throughout the Midwest before settling in Kansas City in 1936. McShann formed his own sextet the following year and by 1939 had his own big band. In 1940 at a radio station in Wichita, KS, McShann and an octet out of his orchestra recorded eight songs that were not released commercially until the 1970s; those rank among the earliest of all Charlie Parker records (he is brilliant on "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Lady Be Good") and also feature the strong rhythm section team McShann had with bassist Gene Ramey and drummer Gus Johnson. The full orchestra recorded for Decca on two occasions during 1941-1942 but they were typecast as a blues band and did not get to record many of their more challenging charts (although very rare broadcasts have since surfaced and been released on CD by Vintage Jazz Classics). In addition to Bird (who had a few short solos), the main stars were trumpeter Bernard Anderson, the rhythm section, and singer Walter Brown. McShann and his band arrived in New York in February 1942 and made a strong impression, but World War II made it difficult for any new orchestras to catch on. There was a final session in December 1943 without Parker, but McShann was soon drafted and the band broke up. After being discharged later in 1944, McShann briefly re-formed his group but soon moved to Los Angeles, where he led combos for the next few years; his main attraction was the young singer Jimmy Witherspoon.

McShann was in obscurity for the next two decades, making few records and mostly playing in Kansas City. In 1969 he was rediscovered and McShann (who had first sung on records in 1966) was soon a popular pianist/vocalist. Sometimes featuring violinist Claude Williams, he toured constantly, recorded frequently, and appeared at many jazz festivals, being active into the mid-'90s. Jay McShann, who recorded through the years for Onyx (the 1940 radio transcriptions), Decca, Capitol, Aladdin, Mercury, Black Lion, EmArcy, Vee Jay, Black & Blue, Master Jazz, Sackville, Sonet, Storyville, Atlantic, Swingtime, and Music Masters among others, was a vital pianist and an effective blues vocalist who keept a classic style alive. A live album, Hootie Blues, recorded in 2001 in Toronto and released in 2006 by Stony Plain, showed that McShann could still bring it at the age of 85. He died at the age of 90 on December 7, 2006.

1957 Jimmy Witherspoon & Jay McShann & His Band - Goin' To Kansas City Blues

1991 Paris All-Star Blues Featuring Jay McShann - A Tribute To Charlie Parker

1992 Ralph Sutton, Jay McShann - Last Of The Whorehouse Piano Players

1997 Jay McShann & Duke Robillard Band - Hootie's Jumpin' Blues

1998 Jay McShann - My Baby With The Black Dress On

1999 Jay McShann - What A Wonderful World

2000 The Jay McShann Trio - Hootie

2003 Jay McShann - Goin' To Kansas City

2006 Jay McShann - Hootie Blues