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