Leo Parker

2009 eight CD box set. The Blue Note Highlights Collectors Box was compiled by Jazz icon Hans Mantel commemorating the 70th Birthday of Blue Note Records. This box set contains four single CD's, and two double CD's, each with their own specific theme. The emphasis is on Blue Note's golden era between 1955 and 1967 with all material taken from commercially available recordings.

Dizzy Gillespie - Groovin' High (1945-46) {Savoy Jazz Japan SV-0152 rel 1992}
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© 1945-46, 1992 Savoy Jazz / Nippon Columbia | SV-0152
Jazz / Be Bop / Swing / Big Band / Trumpet

It's 1940s and Dizzy Gillespie's big band are at their absolute peak! Listening to this record makes me wonder why there ever became such a thing as jazz snobbery. This music doesn't sound like the domain for snobs. In fact it showcases jazz in a crucial and innovative place. Here we are in this place where swing and be-bop have long ago cross polinated eachother (one needed to have the other anyway:we all know in what way",you've got Dizzy whose at once both a great intellectual musician as well as being able to make it move. And here you have him playing with these…well nowadays you'd have to call them all stars such as Dexter Gordon, Milt Jackson, Charlie Parker, Cozy Cole, Sonny Stitt, Kenny Clarke…the list goes on like that and BIM BAM BOOM you've got big band be-bop!

One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time, Fats Navarro had a tragically brief career yet his influence is still being felt. His fat sound combined aspects of Howard McGhee, Roy Eldridge, and Dizzy Gillespie, became the main inspiration for Clifford Brown, and through Brownie greatly affected the tones and styles of Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, and Woody Shaw. Navarro originally played piano and tenor before switching to trumpet. He started gigging with dance bands when he was 17, was with Andy Kirk during 1943-1944, and replaced Dizzy Gillespie with the Billy Eckstine big band during 1945-1946. During the next three years, Fats was second to only Dizzy among bop trumpeters.

John Coltrane - Settin' The Pace (1958) {2008 Prestige Rudy Van Gelder Remaster}
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© 2008 Concord / Prestige | PRCD-30646 | 24-bit Mastering
Jazz / Bop / Cool / Hard Bop

Coltrane does not do the old Dexter Gordon/Leo Parker duet number, "Settin' the Pace," in this set. The overall title merely refers to his preeminence in the jazz world at the time the recording was released in the early Sixties.
Recorded in 1958, this session comes from a time when Trane had already played in the Miles Davis quintet and the Thelonious Monk quartet, and was frequenting Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio in recording situations backed by the Red Garland trio. This threesome–Garland, Paul Chambers, and Arthur Taylor–was a Prestige entity on its own, but had already released such albums with Coltrane as Traneing In and Soultrane. Settin' the Pace, with its heady combination of seldom-done pop material and Jackie McLean's intriguing "Little Melonae," continued the excellent quartet series at a time when Trane was making jazz history at the head of yet another powerful foursome.

Serge Chaloff - The Complete Serge Chaloff Sessions 1946-56 [4CD BoxSet] {1993 Mosaic Remaster}
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© 1993 Mosaic Records | MD4-147
Jazz / Bop / Saxophone

This is the type of project the Mosaic label does best: releasing the complete output as a leader of a classic jazz musician including obscurities and a couple of fairly well-known sessions. Serge Chaloff, one of the top baritone-saxophonists in jazz history, is featured as the leader of bop-based small groups on sessions originally out on Dial, Savoy, Futurama, Motif, Storyville, and Capitol. Such sidemen as trumpeters Red Rodney and Herb Pomeroy, tenorman Al Cohn, altoist Charlie Mariano and Boots Mussuli, vibraphonist Terry Gibbs, and pianists Ralph Burns, George Wallington, Dick Twardzik, Russ Freeman, Barbara Carroll, and Sonny Clark have solo space, but it is the somewhat forgotten Chaloff who rightfully is the main focus.

Miles Davis - All Stars Recordings (2000) {Definitive Records DRCD 11164 rec 1947-1950}
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© 1947-50, 2000 Definitive Records / Disconforme | DRCD 11164
Jazz / Bop / Trumpet

This CD is a compilation of some of Miles Davis's earliest recordings as a sideman from the late 1940s. His formative years are represented here in a large group setting. The groups featured here are scaled down or actual big bands. This CD is probably most dominated by the arrangements of Tadd Dameron, arguably the definitive arranger-composer of the bop era.

One can fault this CD for having brief playing time (a dozen selections totaling less than 33 minutes) and for not including the alternate takes, but the music is beyond criticism. When trombonist J.J. Johnson burst on the scene in the mid-'40s, his speed, fluency and quick ideas put him at the top of his field, where he remained for over a half century. This 1992 CD has the trombonist's first three sessions as a leader, music that qualifies as classic bebop. Johnson is matched with either altoist Cecil Payne, baritonist Leo Parker or tenor great Sonny Rollins (on one of his first dates) in quintets that also include Bud Powell, Hank Jones or John Lewis on piano; Leonard Gaskin, Al Lucas or Gene Ramey on bass; and Max Roach or Shadow Wilson on drums…