Avid Jazz here presents four classic Milt Jackson albums, including original LP liner notes on a finely re-mastered double CD.
‘The Jazz Skyline’, ‘Milt Jackson Quartet’, ‘Telefunken Blues’, ‘Plenty Plenty Soul’ plus three tracks with the Thelonious Monk Quartet. ‘The Jazz Skyline’ finds Milt in 1957 in a relaxing blowing session, perhaps a thousand miles away from the more structured and complex music he was making with his other ‘day’ band, John Lewis and The Modern Jazz Quartet. For the ‘Quartet’ sessions two years earlier in 1955 Jackson is joined by Horace Silver, Percy Heath and Connie Kay in a set comprising mostly standard material, but none the less intriguing for that…
A superior bop-based pianist who has worked with a countless number of top jazz artists, Lou Levy started on piano when he was 12…
Singer/actress Lena Horne's primary occupation was nightclub entertaining, a profession she pursued successfully around the world for more than 60 years, from the 1930s to the 1990s. In conjunction with her club work, she also maintained a recording career that stretched from 1936 to 2000 and brought her three Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989; she appeared in 16 feature films and several shorts between 1938 and 1978; she performed occasionally on Broadway, including in her own Tony-winning one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, in 1981-1982; and she sang and acted on radio and television.
If you asked a passing stranger who the most famous female jazz singer was, Ella Fitzgerald would almost certainly be the first name to spring to mind. Sometimes called The First Lady Of Song , her record sales testify to the fact that she was the most popular US female jazz singer for over 50 years. In a career that started with her first recording in 1936 and lasted until the early Nineties despite coronary bypass surgery in 1986, she recorded over 200 albums that sold over 40 million copies and won 13 Grammy awards. In 1955 Fitzgerald left Decca Records and joined the newly founded Verve. This 3 disc compilation showcases the wide-ranging vocal capabilities of a legendary singer as she delivers some of the most famous songs from her repertoire, sung at the height of her career.
We could have taken the easy way out. The original 1993 box set was out of stock. We could simply have printed more copies and filled orders. Of course, we didn’t. This is Bear Family Records and we don’t take shortcuts. We’ve invested more than 1000 hours in re-writing, recompiling and re-mastering this box. The brilliant engineering by Christian Zwarg will leave you shaking your head in admiration. You won’t quite recognize some of your favorite Fats Domino tracks because they’ve never sounded this good.
Johnny Henry Smith II, born June 25th 1922, became one of America's most revered cool jazz guitarist. This 4CD set features eight of Johnny Smith's most potent, dynamic and rewarding albums on which he served as band-leader, recorded for the Roost label between 1955 and 1960. Containing all of this most underrated Jazz master's finest compositions and performances, the collection will work equally well for those new to Smith's music and those who merely require a delightful reminder of his most extraordinary work and most unusual talent.
15 complete original Sinatra albums and 43 bonus tracks on a limited edition 9CD box set. Legendary records from Frank Sinatra's golden age as a popular sophisticated vocalist released on Capitol with three on the singer's own label Reprise - with accompaniment from orchestras conducted by Nelson Riddle, Billy May and Johnny Mandel. Digitally remastered. Includes detailed booklet.