Giant 1956

Shorty Rogers - You Shorty, Me Tarzan! (1959) {MGM–Giant Steps GSCR032 rel 2010}
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© 1956-59, 2010 MGM / Giant Steps Records / Cherry Red Records | GSCR 032
Jazz / Cool / West Coast Jazz / Stage & Screen / Trumpet

Assembled is the rare percussive soundtrack to Tarzan the Ape Man that featured the likes of Bud Shank, Bob Cooper, Frank Rosolino and other famed West Coasters. Said Shorty: "At first, I was slightly apprehensive when MGM approached me to write and record the soundtrack for a Tarzan movie, but I needn't have concerned myself. They just said, make it exciting with plenty of drumming, and left me alone to get on with it. So I approached it as if I was really making a new Giants album, which is what it really was. I don't want to sound discourteous, but the album we made was much better that the actual movie". Also included is an equally rare 'live' appearance by the Big Band version of the Giants from an appearance on the TV show the Stars of Jazz.

First and foremost, Quincy Jones is a musician, composer and arranger of some of the finest music of the 20th Century, and this 4 CD Set houses his very finest work. Eight original albums released by Jones on Mercury and other labels between 1960 and 1963, on which he was leader or co-leader, remain, certainly for jazz fans, the great man’s finest hour. This set includes these integral albums in their entirety and in pristine re-mastered form, complete with full musician lists and release details, to make for perhaps the best collection yet of Quincy Jones’s jazz recordings which pre-date almost everything this giant of a man remains most famous for.

Tubby Hayes - Jazz Genius: The Flamingo Era (2010) {3CD Set Fantastic Voyage FVTD050 rec 1956-1961}
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© 1956-61, 2010 Fantastic Voyage / Future Noise Music | FVTD050
Jazz / Bebop / Bop / Hard Bop / Saxophone

Released in 2010, Jazz Genius: The Flamingo Era is the ideal sequel to Proper's Little Giant, which examined saxophonist Tubby Hayes' recording activity as sideman and leader during the years 1954-1956. Jazz Genius follows his progress from 1956 through 1961, an exciting period during which he enlarged upon the Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie/James Moody influences by continuing to absorb what was in the air while tapping into his own intuitive gifts, branching out from tenor and baritone saxes to demonstrate a developing facility on both vibraphone and flute. Drawn from six different albums, these 41 selections were originally recorded for the Ember label which was operated by Jeff Kruger, owner of the Flamingo Club in Soho.

Lee Konitz - The Complete 1956 Quartets (2010) {2CD Set American Jazz Classics AJC 99017}
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© 1956, 2010 American Jazz Classics | AJC 99017
Jazz / Cool / Saxophone

2 CD set. The complete contents of the original Atlantic label LPs Worthwhile Konitz & Inside Hi Fi, which contain all of Konitz' 1956 quartet recordings. Among the highlights are the sides featuring Konitz, Jimmy Rowles, Leroy Vinnegar and Shelly Manne. This exact formation would never record again. Other tracks feature Sal Mosca, Billy Bauer, Peter Ind, Arnold Fishkin and Dick Scott. The complete 1957 LP The Real Lee Konitz also originally issued by Atlantic has been added as a bonus. It showcases Konitz in a quartet setting again on most of the album.

Miles Davis - Chronicle: The Complete Prestige Recordings 1951-1956 (1987) {Prestige, 8PCD 012-2}
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© 1951-56, 1987 Prestige / Fantasy / ZYX | 8PCD 012-2
Jazz / Bop / Hard Bop / Trumpet

This CD compilation presents, on 8 discs, 17 recording sessions made between 1951 and late 1956 by the extraordinary trumpeter, leader, composer, and perpetual catalyst–Miles Davis. Featured in this collection are such major artists as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Lee Konitz, and the original Davis Quintet: John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones. The expanse of Miles Davis's recordings for Prestige Records, the California analogue to New York's Blue Note, is huge. In terms of artistic development, the eight CDs in this box span Davis's development from tentative searching through the full bloom of his first great quintet, whose frontline boasted Davis and a young John Coltrane.

Thad Jones - The Complete Blue Note/UA/Roulette Recordings (1997) {3CD Set, Mosaic MD3-172 rec 1956-1960}
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© 1956-60, 1997 Mosaic Records / EMI-Capitol Music | MD3-172
Jazz / Hard Bop / Mainstream Jazz / Trumpet

The Complete Blue Note/UA/Roulette Recordings of Thad Jones is a wonderful limited-edition three-disc box set, containing everything the trumpeter recorded for the labels in the late '50s. Jones was a fantastic hard bop trumpeter, and the set captures him in all of his glory, making it of interest to serious hard bop connoisseurs.

Tadd Dameron with John Coltrane - Mating Call (1956) {Prestige RVG Remaster PRCD-30163 rel 2007}
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© 1956, 2007 Prestige / Concord | PRCD-30163 | 24-bit remaster
Jazz / Hard Bop / Bop / Piano / Saxophone

This November 1956 date marked the first recording of the deeply moving ballad “Soultrane,” and the first exposition as well of the lovely line “On a Misty Night” (based on “September in the Rain”), a number Dameron would later explore himself in other contexts. This is not a typical Tadd Dameron date in that his music is not played by a large ensemble or even a quintet. He is represented as a composer but not as an arranger. Yet his pungent themes come through strongly, carried by the searing, probing tenor saxophone of John Coltrane.