Mosura 1961

Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were (and are) two of the main stems of jazz. Any way you look at it, just about everything that's ever happened in this music leads directly – or indirectly – back to them. Both men were born on the cusp of the 19th and 20th centuries, and each became established as a leader during the middle '20s. Although their paths had crossed from time to time over the years, nobody in the entertainment industry had ever managed to get Armstrong and Ellington into a recording studio to make an album together. On April 3, 1961, producer Bob Thiele achieved what should be regarded as one of his greatest accomplishments; he organized and supervised a seven-and-a-half-hour session at RCA Victor's Studio One on East 24th Street in Manhattan, using a sextet combining Duke Ellington with Louis Armstrong & His All-Stars. This group included ex-Ellington clarinetist Barney Bigard, ex-Jimmie Lunceford swing-to-bop trombonist Trummy Young, bassist Mort Herbert, and drummer Danny Barcelona. A second session took place during the afternoon of the following day.

In several respects, this is a very strange album, though the music isn't strange at all and is in fact quite typical vintage Jimmy Reed. First, despite what the title might lead you to believe, this is not a live recording; all 23 of the tracks were done in the studio. Not only that, they weren't even performed at New York's famed venue Carnegie Hall, although producer Calvin Carter would later claim they were; instead, everything was cut elsewhere.
According to Pete Welding's notes to the record in the year (1961) the double LP was first issued, one-half is devoted to "recreations of some of Jimmy's most celebrated and biggest-selling recordings," while "the second LP here is Jimmy's celebratory recreation of his highly successful appearance at august Carnegie Hall this past May"…

The first-ever album from vibist Gary Burton - a very young player at the time of recording, but one who's definitely worth the "new vibe man" promised in the title! The style here is maybe a bit more conventionally swinging than some of Burton's records from later years - a trio setting with Gene Cherico on bass and the great Joe Morello on drums - but both rhythm players are already pretty hip with their timings, and really push Burton into spacious, chromatic territory that's completely sublime - a sound that already marks the musician as really bringing something fresh to his instrument.
A year before New Vibe Man in Town was recorded, Gary Burton joined guitarist Hank Garland for Jazz Winds from a New Direction, which is added as the last six tracks on this CD…

Freddy (or Freddie) King is acknowledged as one of the great electric blues guitarists of all time. Here are both of Freddy's classic all-instrumental electric blues albums for the King label, Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King (1961) and Freddy King Gives You a Bonanza of Instrumentals (1965), together on one 24-track CD! "Hide Away," "The Stumble" and "San-Ho-Zay" are the numbers that made King's rep and influenced guitarists on both sides of the Atlantic.

Kenny Dorham was always underrated throughout his career, not only as a trumpeter but as a composer. Whistle Stop features seven of his compositions, none of which were picked up later by any of the Young Lions of the '90s despite their high quality and many fresh melodies. Dorham teams up with tenor-saxophonist Hank Mobley (who had recorded with him previously, along with Art Blakey and Max Roach), pianist Kenny Drew, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones for a set of lively, fresh, and consistently swinging music. This is a generally overlooked near-classic set.

Sinatra's Swingin' Session!!! And More is a fast, driving album, the speediest and hardest swing collection Frank Sinatra ever recorded. The majority of the album is a re-recording of six of the eight songs from his first LP, Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra, as rearranged by Nelson Riddle…