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.