Make Mine Music 1946

Louis Armstrong - The Complete Louis Armstrong Decca Sessions 1935-1946 (2009) {7CD Box Set Mosaic MD7-243}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.70 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 1.14 Gb | Cover | 5% repair rar
© 1935-46, 2009 Decca / Mosaic Records | MD7-243
Jazz / Swing / Early Jazz / Big Band / Vocal Jazz / Trumpet

This is the first-ever major retrospective of this period. For the most part, the recordings represent Louis Armstrong leading the big band. Never had Louis sounded more secure, more hip, or more like a star. His example was an important beacon that popular standards were a legitimate repertoire for significant jazz recording stylists.

Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup - A Music Man Like Nobody Ever Saw (2016) {5CD Box Set Bear Family BCD 17352 rec 1941-1962}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.03 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 746 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 1.57 Gb | 5% repair rar
© 1941-62, 2016 Bear Family Records | BCD 17352
Blues / Delta Blues / Chicago Blues / Electric Blues

In the world of music, there was never anyone quite like ARTHUR 'BIG BOY' CRUDUP. Rooted in the Mississippi Delta, his style was propulsive, melodic, original, and profoundly soulful. If he wasn’t 'The Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll', as one LP proclaimed, there’s no doubt that rock ‘n’ roll owes a debt to his songs, including That’s All Right Mama, My Baby Left Me, Rock Me Mamma, So Glad You’re Mine, and Mean Ol’ Frisco Blues, as much as to his tight, swinging brand of rural blues.

Thanks to a certain high ranking Nazi official whose penchant for jazz music caused him to violate the aggressively racist policies of his own government, Django Reinhardt was able to perform his music throughout most of the Occupation without being deported, involuntarily sterilized, or exterminated along with many of his fellow Gypsies. Nevertheless, weary of an imposed police state and shaken by Allied "precision" bombardment of Paris, Reinhardt and his second wife Naguine attempted to flee to Switzerland by way of Thonon-les-Bains at Lac Leman in 1943. Apprehended and jailed at Thonon, they were set free by the same fortuitous fluke in the Nazi establishment. Given the disruptive nature of these harrowing circumstances, it is not surprising that the only recordings known to have been made with Reinhardt in attendance during the year 1944 are three sides cut on November 3…

Dancer, actor, and singer Fred Astaire worked steadily in various entertainment media during nine decades of the 20th century. The most celebrated dancer in the history of film, with appearances in 31 movie musicals between 1933 and 1968 (and a special Academy Award in recognition of his accomplishments in them), Astaire also danced on-stage and on television (garnering two Emmy Awards in the process), and he even treated listening audiences to his accomplished tap dancing on records and on his own radio series. He appeared in another eight non-musical feature films and on numerous television programs, resulting in an Academy Award nomination and a third Emmy Award as an actor. His light tenor voice and smooth, conversational phrasing made him an ideal interpreter for the major songwriters of his era, and he introduced dozens of pop standards, many of them written expressly for him, by such composers as Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Burton Lane, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Arthur Schwartz, Harry Warren, and Vincent Youmans.

Bennett, whose recorded legacy has been gathered in a 76-disc boxed set titled The Compete Collection, has been doing that for over 60 years: saving our souls with the greatest songs ever written. The Complete box is an absolute necessity, first because it contains several previously unreleased albums, like On the Glory Road and From This Moment On, a live concert taped in Las Vegas that collectors have been salivating over since 1964.

One of jazz's finest clarinetists, Artie Shaw never seemed fully satisfied with his musical life, constantly breaking up successful bands and running away from success. While Count Basie and Duke Ellington were satisfied to lead just one orchestra during the swing era, and Benny Goodman (due to illness) had two, Shaw led five, all of them distinctive and memorable.