Jazz Philharmonic

This compilation in the Verve Jazz in Paris reissue series gathers three separate recording sessions originally issued on various French EP discs. The first four tracks were recorded for the movie Les Tricheurs, with Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, and Gus Johnson backing various horn soloists. The title track is a blues, composed on the spot, featuring Stan Getz and Roy Eldridge; the trumpeter easily wins the solo battle as Getz is a bit sloppy with several reed squeaks during his chance. Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, and Eldridge each are individually featured performing originals with the rhythm section, with Gillespie taking top honors for his driving bop tune "Mic's Jump"…

Some songs are so deeply rooted in the attitude to life of a region that one can rightly call them 'Hits.' Broadway and its motion picture shows and theaters were synonyms of national cultural identity for New York and the American way of life. The names and melodies of composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Benny Goodman were omnipresent in New York. They are part of national history, just as the film in Babelsberg in Berlin developed a unique cultural flowering after the First World War. Talented composers such as Friedrich Hollander, Walter Jurmann, and Peter Kreuder became famous overnight through films like 'The Blue Angel.' The famous hit 'Falling in Love Again' (the German translation writes literally: 'I am attuned to love from head to toe') and the legs of the beautiful Marlene Dietrich enchanted Berlin and the whole world. With the invention of sound film, a new, sparkling musical genre emerged: dance and film music, which developed its specific sound through jazz bands.

A single moment can change a life forever. That happened to the Jewish baroness and heiress Pannonica (Nica) de Koenigswarter (1913-1988), née Rothschild. On hearing Thelonious Monk’s ‘Round Midnight’ on a trip to New York at the beginning of the 1950s, she was so totally captivated by the music, she turned her back on her native Europe and on all the glamour of her previous existence, and became one of the great supporters of American jazz.

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO), comprising 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players today, has been the Jazz at Lincoln Center resident orchestra since 1988 and spends over a third of the year on tour across the world. Featured in all aspects of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s programming, this remarkably versatile orchestra performs and leads educational events in New York, across the U.S. and around the globe; in concert halls; dance venues; jazz clubs; public parks; and with symphony orchestras; ballet troupes; local students; and an ever-expanding roster of guest artists.

His first classical album having been released simultaneously with his second jazz album, Think of One, the 21-year-old Wynton Marsalis found himself in the position of being the most celebrated purveyor of both the classical and jazz repertoire since Benny Goodman. His debut takes him to the core of the small solo trumpet concerto repertoire with three pieces from the classical period by Haydn, Hummel, and Leopold Mozart, and thus, directly into competition with more experienced, full-time classical trumpeters. Technically, there is nothing wanting in Marsalis' playing; he pulls off the fanciest, most difficult figurations with hardly a care. .