Buddy Defranco The Artistry of Buddy Defranco

Avid Jazz presents four classic Buddy De Franco albums plus, including original LP liner notes on a finely re-mastered double CD.
“Buddy De Franco”; “The Artistry of Buddy De Franco”; “Mr. Clarinet”; “Pretty Moods” plus selections from “Jazz Tones”.
Reading the original liner notes from all our classic Buddy De Franco selections one strand of opinion stands out head and shoulders above all others. Since 1945 when he started his long run of Poll Winners victories in Metronome and Downbeat magazines, he had become the new kid on the block a.k.a. Mr Clarinet! All the notes refer to there being only two really fully recognisable giants of the jazz clarinet up to the emergence of Buddy De Franco…

Billie Holiday. The first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American pop vocals forever. More than a half-century after her death, it's difficult to believe that prior to her emergence, jazz and pop singers were tied to the Tin Pan Alley tradition and rarely personalized their songs; only blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey actually gave the impression they had lived through what they were singing. Billie Holiday's highly stylized reading of this blues tradition revolutionized traditional pop, ripping the decades-long tradition of song plugging in two by refusing to compromise her artistry for either the song or the band…