VA- The Verve Story 1944-1994 [4 CD, 1994]

 

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.

Charlie Watts And The Tentet - Watts At Scott's [2 CD, 2004]

 

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).

Miles Davis - The Last Word, The Warner Bros. Years [8 CD, 2015]

 

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.

Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet+1 - 3 Nights In Oslo [5 CD, 2010]

 

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.

John Coltrane- Coltrane '58 The Prestige Recordings [5 CD, 2019]

 

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.

Miles Davis - The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions [August 1969-February 1970] [4 CD, 1998 ]

 

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 - The Dizzy Gillespie Story 1939-1950 (4 CD, 2001)

 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. ”

Charles Mingus - A Kind of Mingus [10 CD, 2009]

 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. 

Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis - Live In Cuba [2 CD, 2010]

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.