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.
It was during the 1960s that Quincy Jones became a world renowned Jazz musician and composer of film soundtracks, but it was not until about the middle of the decade that success of this nature began to come his way, soon after he had composed the score for Oscar nominated The Pawnbroker. Indeed, during the first few years of the 1960s he lived as a working musician, bandleader and the musical director of Barclay Records - the French imprint of Mercury - but could barely earn enough to pay the bills. This however, did not prevent Quincy from continuing to perform and release music of a quite superlative nature.
Miles Davis and storied producer/arranger Quincy Jones shared a long friendship and working history, despite the jazz trumpeter's legendary reputation as an intimidating and difficult collaborator. Their last partnership comes to light Tuesday in Miles Davis With Quincy Jones and the Gil Evans Orchestra Live at Montreux 1991, a concert from the Montreux Jazz Festival captured shortly before Davis died. Evans died in 1988.
One of the most important figures in all of jazz and one who both witnessed and contributed to the genre's development through the bop age, Lionel Hampton was revered as a skilled and creative musician, as an exceptional composer and as a charismatic and exemplary bandleader. He was the first player to showcase the vibraphone as a leading instrument, and was a talented pianist, drummer and singer too. During his career, Hampton worked alongside numerous other jazz greats including Louis Armstrong, Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, and Quincy Jones - among others - both as a sideman and as leader. Hampton provided opportunities to those who he saw as the upcoming generation of musicians and his keen ear in this regard helped the careers of many future legends. During the 1950s in particular, Hampton and his groups produced some of their finest and most challenging work and it is from this era that the contents of this compilation are drawn. Although not again reaching the same peak as he had done in his glory years, Lionel Hampton remained active for much of the rest of his life, receiving numerous accolades in the process. Among these was being named an American Goodwill Ambassador by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in '57, he was also awarded a National Medal Of Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1996.
AVID Jazz here presents four classic Clark Terry related albums, including original LP liner notes on a finely re-mastered and low priced double CD. “Introducing Clark Terry”; The Dave Bailey Sextet-”One Foot In The Gutter”; “Clark Terry With Thelonious Monk” and Jimmy Hamilton’s- “It’s About Time”…