Up Horace Parlan

This collection provides a great value, especially if you total up the costs of each album separately. There are a few issues of which you should be aware. Sound quality is acceptable, but not spectacular. Audiophiles will hate these discs, but I assure you that they are listenable. More importantly, these are not cheesy 'needle drop' transfers from scratchy LPs. Plus these are from albums recorded in the late 1950s/early 1960s during an era when recording technology was rapidly improving. If you compare these to some of the albums to which I've linked below you will see that the ones in this collection do not have bonus tracks. In all cases you are getting tracks that were released on the original album. The six albums span four discs.

This Warren Vache CD is a bit unusual, for it features the trumpeter, best known for his work in the mainstream and small-group swing field, playing quite a few selections that fall stylistically into bop and hard bop. Joined by tenor saxophonist Bill Easley, trombonist Joel Helleny, guitarist Howard Alden, pianist Richard Wyands, bassist Michael Moore and drummer Alvin Queen, Vache digs into such numbers as Horace Parlan's "The Arrival," "Strangers In Paradise," Billy Strayhorn's "Isfahan" and Sam Jones' "Says You." Highlights include a jubilant "Pick Yourself Up" (which has one of Vache's two effective vocals) and a pair of tongue twisters: Bud Freeman's "The Eel's Nephew" and Flip Phillips' "The Claw." No matter how complex the piece, Vache (who contributed "On Y Va") plays throughout in prime form, showing that he could be one of the top latter-day beboppers if that were his main goal.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk's nearly one-dozen long-players on the Mercury Records family of labels – including the Smash and Limelight subsidiaries – are gathered on this massive ten-disc compilation. Actually, it is 11 discs if you count the surprise bonus CD. Additionally, Rahsaan: The Complete Mercury Recordings of Roland Kirk lives up to its name by augmenting those albums with more than two-dozen previously unissued sides.