Dancin Jazz

What an absolute joy this album is, surely Mitchell's most brilliant since his late-'60s masterpieces like Congliptious and Old Quartet. His Sound Ensemble, at the time comprised of four young and relatively unproven musicians, is the perfect foil for his compositions, able to handle the most abstract ideas as well as the down and dirty funky ones. The opening piece, "Sing/Song," is a perfect case in point, beginning with delicately lyrical, even pastoral flute work, seguing into a staccato quasi-march and from there into seemingly chaotic drones and welters, before ultimately emerging into the sunniest, most relaxed melody you can imagine, with trumpeter Hugh Ragin holding court…

1999 Japan released compilation CD from Herbie Hancock's Sony catalogue.

This Is How I Feel About Jazz is a 1957 album by Quincy Jones. Jones arranged and conducted three recording sessions during September 1956, each with a different line-up, from a nonet to a fifteen piece big band. Musicians on the album include Art Farmer, Phil Woods, Lucky Thompson, Hank Jones, Paul Chambers, Milt Jackson, Art Pepper, Zoot Sims, and Herbie Mann. The bonus tracks on the CD release include compositions by Jimmy Giuffre, Lennie Niehaus and Charlie Mariano.

This 10-CD set is as good a compendium of the genius of Louis Armstrong as anyone could wish for. It’s all here: the early years with the King Oliver and Fletcher Henderson bands, the glorious period of the Hot Fives and Sevens, the big band recordings of the Thirties, the collaborations with contemporaries such as Ella Fitzgerald. Then there are the later recordings, when Satchmo’s celebrity empowered him to soar over many political and racial divides. There’s also a fascinating unreleased Hollywood Bowl concert from 1956, a CD of “out-takes” from recording sessions, and a revealing interview with Dan Morgenstern.