This is our all-time best seller. Selected ‘Jazz Album of the Week’ in the New York Times and on numerous ‘Best Recordings of the Year’ lists upon its original release, these live recordings from Carnegie Hall and Syracuse, New York, are now remastered and repackaged and include additional, previously unreleased Dolphy performances of Gunther Schuller’s Third Stream masterpiece Variants on a Theme by Monk. An incredible sampling of Dolphy’s artistry from ’62 to ’63, in action with his own quartet, in contemporary chamber music settings created for him by Schuller and in the heat of an all-star jam session on “Donna Lee”… Dolphy was never more brilliant.
Between 1976 and 1979, Jimmy McGriff was often featured in the disco-style productions of Groove Merchant house arranger Brad Baker. The records usually surrounded the great organist with a huge army of studio musicians, big horn sections, string parts and often heard McGriff playing keyboards other than organ. THE MEAN MACHINE, from 1976, was the first of these productions and McGriff doesn't even play organ here.