Charlie

On Nov 24th, 1980, Dizzy Gillespie invited 5 jazz legends - Milt Jackson, James Moody, Hank Jones, Ray Brown & Philly Joe Jones - to join him onstage in Montreal to play tribute to the legendary Charlie Parker. A limited quantity bootleg LP of the concert soon appeared and then disappeared from the marketplace and the tapes lay dormant for over 30 years. The pristinely restored “Concert of the Century” is now available on audiophile 180 gram 2LP vinyl and CD via the Justin Time Essentials Collection.

Collectables combines two very different back-to-back recordings made by guitarist Charlie Byrd for Columbia in the mid-'60s. Travellin' Man (issued in 1965) is a live gig at the Showboat in Washington D.C., a club he was playing in - and owned - 36 weeks out of the year. He is featured with his bass playing brother Joe, and the rather astonishing drummer Bill Reichenbach. The program consists of everything from originals like the title cut and the country and bluegrass tinged opener "Mama I'll Be Home Someday" to Michel Legrand's "I Will Wait for You." With tunes like the Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim standard "Do I Hear a Waltz," Billy Strayhorn's "U.M.M.G.," and Django Reinhardt's "Nuages" sandwiched in between. It' is a hard swinging date where Byrd, a great melodic improviser, turns original arrangements inside out and pours his love for bossa and blues into everything he plays…

Good Night Songs documents a 2003 concert by a trio of two saxophonists—John Tchicai and Charlie Kohlhase—with guitarist Garrison Fewell. Though the lineup is unusual, the results are mesmerizing throughout this two-disc set. Tchicai rose to prominence in the 1960s avant-garde scene in New York. He recorded with Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, John Coltrane, and even John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Forty years later he continues to produce music that is pure, passionate and beyond categorization.