Bill Evans - Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956-1980) [5 CD, 2021/FLAC]

 Bill Evans would have earned his place in the jazz history books if only for his role on Miles Davis’ landmark 1959 set Kind of Blue.  But the pianist-composer and modal jazz innovator recorded over 50 live and studio albums as a leader before his untimely death in 1980 at the age of just 51, leaving behind a legacy of some of the most beautiful jazz ever committed to tape.  In addition to Davis, he also served as a sideman to musicians including Chet Baker, Cannonball Adderley, Charles Mingus, and Lee Konitz.  Now, Craft Recordings is celebrating Evans’ expansive discography with his first ever career-spanning box set.  Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956-1980) is due from the label on June 25.  The thematically-organized 5-CD box set premieres a previously unreleased live set from 1975 recorded at Oil Can Harry’s in Vancouver, British Columbia.  That concert, titled On a Friday Evening, will be issued the same day as a standalone release in 2-LP, CD, and digital formats .

Milton Nascimento - Millennium (2000/FLAC)

 

International singing superstar and songwriter Milton Nascimento may have his roots in Brazil, but his songs have touched audiences all over the world. Born in Rio, Nascimento’s adoptive parents, both white, brought him to Tres Pontas, a small town in the state of Minas Gerais, when he was two. His mother sang in a choir and at local music festivals, often accompanied by Milton. Nascimento’s father was an electronics tinkerer, math teacher, and at one point ran a local radio station where a young Milton occasionally worked as a DJ. He began singing as a teenager. When he was 19, Nascimento moved to the capital Belo Horizonte and began singing wherever and whenever he could. Finally he caught a break when the pop singer Elis Regina recorded one of his songs, “Canção do Sal,” in 1966. Regina got him a showcase on a popular Brazilian TV program, and after performing at Brazil’s International Song Festival the following year, his career was launched.

Duke Ellington - The Reprise Studio Recordings (5 CD, 1999/FLAC)

 Not much has been said about Duke Ellington's Reprise Records period, and even less that's enthusiastic, mostly owing to the fact that his output there ran between two extremes: dazzlingly inventive conceptual pieces juxtaposed with re-recordings of classic big-band material, and pop-jazz efforts built around covers of current popular songs. Amid that wildly divergent body of work, it's no surprise that the live material from The Great Paris Concert and Ellington's Greatest Hits eclipsed much of his Reprise studio work. Thus, this five-CD box is the first opportunity that most listeners will have had to assess the music properly.

VA - Pacific Jazz II Collection (6 CD, 1989/FLAC)

 

Very rare 1989 UK 6-CD set, digitally remastered and transfered from the original masters, featuring Gerry Mulligan, Gerry Mulligan & Chet Baker, Bud Shank, Bob Brookmeyer, Richard Twardzik/ Russ Freeman Trios and Chico Hamilton.

Stan Kenton - Complete Capitol Studio Recordings of Stan Kenton 1943-47 (7 CD, 1995/FLAC)

 Documenting Stan Kenton's always controversial but never sleepy music, the seven-CD Complete Capitol Studio Recordings of Stan Kenton 1943-47 features the orchestra at a time when it was reaching its greatest popularity, evolving from using the artist's charts into the Pete Rugolo era. In addition to some unreleased tracks, there are also several rare sessions included that were recorded at the time strictly for radio airplay. Most of Kenton's biggest hits ("Artistry in Rhythm," "Eager Beaver," "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine," "Tampico," "Southern Scandal," "Artistry Jumps," "Intermission Riff," "Across the Alley From the Alamo," and "The Peanut Vendor") are here, as are many concert works. A classic reissue. 

Miles Davis Quintet - 1955-56 - Complete Studio Recordings - The Master Takes (4 CD, 1998/FLAC)

 In the first half of 1955 Miles Davis was in a much better shape than he was in a long time. After kicking his heroin habit at his father’s house in 1953, he came back to New York City a more complete musician. His tone on the trumpet improved and so his ability to lead groups of musicians at recording sessions and in clubs. The quality of his 1954 studio output for Prestige exceeded most of his early 1950s recordings and yielded some of the best records in his career thus far: Walkin’, Bag’s Groove and Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants. He was ready to move on to the next stage of his career, gain wider recognition and prestige than what his current label (Prestige, ironically) could give him and no less important – make more money. Two factors in his professional life were lacking and prevented him from reaching his goals – a bigger, nationwide record label, and a stable working band of excellent musicians. But starting in June 1955 events started unfolding at an accelerated pace for Miles. 

Mel Tormé – The Mel Tormé Collection 1944-1985 (4 CD, 1996/FLAC)

 

Mel Torme has always resented his famous nickname, "The Velvet Fog," not because it's inaccurate, but because it only captures one small aspect of his music-making. He does have a velvety baritone that creates a breathy intimacy on certain romantic ballads. But he has done much, much more in a 67-year professional career that began when he was a four-year-old novelty singer for Chicago's Coon-Sanders Nighthawk Band in 1929. That career is nicely summarized in the 4 CD, 92-track box set, "The Mel Torme Collection: 1944-1985

Bobby Hutcherson - Mosaic Select 26 (3 CD, 2007/FLAC)

 Among the relatively small community of vibraphonists, Bobby Hutcherson is not only one of the most influential, he's clearly the most widely versed and consistent too. In a career now nearing its sixth decade, Hutcherson has played mainstream to Third Stream and soul jazz to free jazz. A mainstay of the Blue Note label in the 1960s and 1970s, he released ten discs as a leader between 1965 and 1969, and also played on albums by artists including Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Jackie McLean, Joe Henderson, Tony Williams and Grachan Moncur III.

While the 1970s was a decade when most artists dabbled, to a lesser or greater extent, with the integration of electric instruments and rock rhythms, Hutcherson remained relatively unswayed. So while the five 1974 through 1977 sessions that make up Mosaic Select 26 find the vibraphonist incorporating electric piano, and giving an occasional nod to a more pop-centric approach, for the most part Hutcherson continued to do what he did best: put together strong working ensembles capable of handling a diversity of material that nevertheless remain stylistically in the center of the mainstream. The majority of this material has never been reissued domestically in the US in any format, and much of it is seeing release on CD here for the first time, outside a few tracks that have appeared on compilations. 

Jaco Pastorius - Holiday For Pans : Full Complete Sessions (1980-82) [3 CD, 1999]

 

3CD release of the full session recordings of the "Holiday For Pans" album.

"Holiday For Pans" originally released in CD in 1993 only in Japan.


Recorded at Power Station, KCC Studio and Jingle Studio in New York City, 1980 - 1982.

Dinah Washington - Original Album Series (5 CD, 2015/FLAC))

 

CD1 Dinah '62

CD2 In Love

CD3 Drinking Again

CD4 Dinah '63

CD5 Back To The Blues