The Complete Blue Note Sixties Sessions is an attractive six-disc box set featuring all of Dexter Gordon's '60s recordings for the label in chronological order. Such classic albums as Dexter Calling and Go! were recorded during these years, and they are presented in their entirety, as are two complete sessions that have been previously unavailable on CD and several unreleased alternate takes. For serious Gordon fans and musicologists, it's an essential collection, but its very thoroughness makes it less appealing to casual fans, who would be better off acquiring the individual albums.
HE COMPLETE BLUE NOTE SESSIONS contains the previously released albums PREACH BROTHER (84107), ELDER DON (84121), and SHOUTIN' (84145). Includes liner notes by Dudley Williams, Joe Goldberg and Robert Levin. This is part of the Blue Note Limited Edition Connoisseur series. Don Wilkerson may not attract much attention – either now or when he was recording in the early '60s – but he was an interesting character. Like many tenor saxophonists of his era, the Texan followed in the hard-swinging soul-jazz that grew out of hard bop, but he didn't settle into an easy groove – he drove his music hard, injecting it with a healthy dose of the blues and an undercurrent of nascent black power. An intriguing mix, to be sure, and on three albums for Blue Note between 1962 and 1963 – Elder Don, Preach, Brother!, Shoutin' – he was at his peak, and they're all included here on this double-disc The Complete Blue Note Sessions.
To say that this limited-edition six-LP Mosaic box is overflowing with classics is an understatement. Included are a variety of small-group sessions (with overlapping personnel) from the early days of Blue Note. The Edmond Hall Celeste Quartet has five songs that are the only existing examples of Charlie Christian playing acoustic guitar; clarinetist Hall, Meade Lux Lewis (on celeste), and bassist Israel Crosby complete the unique group. The king of stride piano, James P. Johnson, is heard on eight solos; other combos are led by Johnson, Hall (who heads four groups in all), trumpeter Sidney DeParis, and trombonist Vic Dickenson (heard in a 1952 quartet with organist Bill Doggett).
From the start of his solo recording career in 1962, when he was 22, Herbie Hancock was a very original pianist/composer. Strangely enough, despite the explorative nature of much of his music, Hancock was also quite accessible, recording the future hit "Watermelon Man" on his debut date. This six-CD set is a must for all jazz collectors who do not already own Hancock's Blue Note albums, for the box contains the complete contents of the pianist's albums Takin' Off, My Point of View, Inventions & Dimensions, Empyrean Isles, Maiden Voyage, Speak Like a Child, and The Prisoner.
This limited-edition eight-disc set combines all of Elvin Jones' Blue Note recordings from April 1968 through July 1973. This 65-track set contains the LPs Puttin It Together, Ultimate Elvin Jones, Poly-Currents, Coalition, Genesis, Merry Go Round, Live at the Lighthouse, Mr. Jones, and The Prime Element. Jones makes his presence as a band leader undeniable on these sessions allowing the musicians to stretch out while directing the evolution of the pieces.
A soul survivor in every sense of the term, this alto saxophonist is one of the few remaining jazz artists who made a major impact on the jazz community via an extensive run with producer Alfred Lion and the Blue Note label (Horace Silver being another Blue Note legend that comes to mind). From his first recordings for the label with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, it was clear that Lou Donaldson put melody and sound at a premium, coming up with an amalgam that combined the creamy smoothness of Johnny Hodges with the quicksilver bop inflections of Charlie Parker.
Larry Young, one of the most significant jazz organists to emerge after the rise of Jimmy Smith, is heard on this limited-edition six-CD set at the peak of his creativity. Formerly available as nine LPs, the set includes the original Larry Young albums Into Somethin', Unity, Of Love and Peace, Contrasts, Heaven on Earth, and Mother Ship, while drawing from the compilations 40 Years of Jazz, The History of Blue Note (Dutch), The World of Jazz Organ (Japanese), and The Blue Note 50th Anniversary Collection Volume Two: The Jazz Message, and also including guitarist Grant Green's Talkin' About, Street of Dreams, and I Want to Hold Your Hand.
Altoist Jackie McLean has recorded so many fine albums throughout his career, particularly in the '60s for Blue Note, that Mosaic could have reissued his complete output without any loss of quality. This four-CD limited-edition box set contains six complete LPs worth of material plus one "new" alternate take. The music (which also features trumpeters Charles Tolliver and Lee Morgan; pianists Herbie Hancock, Larry Willis, and Harold Mabern, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, bassists Cecil McBee, Bob Cranshaw, Larry Ridley, Herbie Lewis, and Don Moore, drummers Roy Haynes, Billy Higgins, Clifford Jarvis, Jack DeJohnette, and Billy Higgins) is explorative (showing the influence of Ornette Coleman) but without totally disregarding McLean's bebop roots. ~ AllMusic