Label: Prestige Jazz 2024

Released to celebrate the 70th anniversary of these sessions and the 75th anniversary of Prestige Records, "Miles '54" brings together 20 tracks recorded by the saxophone legend in 1954.

The return of Funk, Inc., one of the most popular soul jazz combos of the Seventies, is a remarkable story. Formed in 1969 by organist Bobby Watley, the Indiana-based group was signed to Prestige Records two years later by producer Bob Porter. The band’s inspired blend of impassioned jazz improvisation and riveting funk grooves was given a highly enthusiastic reception by disc jockeys and record buyers across the country, as well as by critics.

Charlie Mariano (1923-2009), a Boston native born to Italian immigrants, discovered his passion for jazz in the late 1930s after being inspired by Lester Young and Johnny Hodges. He quickly embraced the alto saxophone as his instrument and began jamming around Boston. Drafted in 1942, Mariano spent three years in an Army Air Corps band. Upon being discharged, he enrolled at Schillinger House to pursue his studies, but soon, influenced by the groundbreaking work of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, he also immersed himself in Boston's vibrant modern jazz scene of the late 1940s, joining Ray Borden's orchestra and also performing at venues such as Hi-Hat, Wally's Paradise, and Eddie Levine's club.

Born in Detroit in 1932, Dorothy Ashby can be easily recognized as the woman who gave the harp a jazz voice. In her hands, the harp, an originally classical instrument which seemed to just scare people, became a highly versatile swinging voice able to drive a whole jazz rhythm section. Recorded in 1958 by master Rudy Van Gelder and originally released on the Prestige label, Hip Harp is a perfect example of Ashby's artistry. At the head of a fine quartet featuring the great Frank Wess on flute, Herman Wright on bass, and master Art Taylor on drums, Ashby creates a unique combination of deeply jazz elements expressed through a totally new sound.

John Wright’s 1960 debut album “South Side Soul” was originally released on the Prestige label and recorded at Van Gelder Studios. Along with Wright (piano), the album features Wendell Robert (bass) and Walter McCants (drums). This reissue features remastered audio from the original master tapes and is available on 192/24 hi res digital.

Groovy is an album by jazz pianist Red Garland and his trio, released in 1957 on Prestige Records.

Spiritual Jazz 16is a focus on Riverside and its associated sister labels. Riverside itself was founded in 1953 by Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer, and became an important purveyor in that decade and beyond of what would be marketed as of modern jazz. That coinage was itself an amorphous, umbrella term that essentially created a demarcation from the vocabulary of pre-war classic jazz and inter-war big band swing, thus recognizing that improvising artists were breaking new creative ground that would subsequently give rise to a flurry of sub-genres, for example bebop, hard bop, cool, modal and Latin jazz. And it's from this multiplicity of sub-genres that we choose the deepest, most vibrant selections that the vast, pan-generational catalogue of Keepnews & Grauer has to offer.

Back on the Scene is an album by American jazz trombonist Bennie Green recorded on March 23, 1958 and released on Blue Note later that year.

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a roughly five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz.

One of the best by Red Garland for Prestige – a totally cooking record that features some great added conga work from Ray Barretto!