A wonderful collector's edition of jazz pianists' records in almost all styles from the first ragtimes to modern jazz.
Over the course of four CDs, this is the essential musical history of the loudest island in the world, with the emphasis on essential. It starts in the time before ska, and brings it all up to the dominance of dancehall in the '90s. Along the way there's ska, rocksteady, reggae, and dub; 95 great tracks, every single one a classic. About the only major artist not represented is Lee Perry, and his productions sneak in there. Steve Barrow's notes will carry you through the story. This is about as perfect as they come, in both form and content.
People call Chicago The Home Of The Blues. It may not be where the blues came from but it s where the blues came to live. It’s the place where Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Jimmy Reed laid down the songs that inspired the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. The blues was the bedrock on which Jimmy Page created Led Zeppelin, the band that helped to change pop music forever. Chicago was the mecca for Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Elmore James and a host of others who arrived in the city to make their fortune. The process had begun decades earlier, when record companies first came to town.
Chest of 10 CDs, an essential guide to delve into 'pre-bebop jazz': there are all of them: from the first 'dixieland' bands, including Bessie Smith, Fats Waller, Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong, King Oliver , Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, Sidney Bechet, Art Tatum, Louis Prima, Benny Goodman, Django Reinhardt, Lionel Hampton, Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Glenn Miller Charlie Christian…
The resulting 2 box set, unlike any other available today, groups together the main vocalists in the story of jazz from the first half of the 20th century. Each of these 20 CDs offers in more or less the same proportion, the purest of African-American song with gospel and blues singers, from truculent Ma Rainey to majestic Bessie Smith, sophisticated Sarah Vaughan to popular Louis Prima, the folk-related tones of Charlie Patton to the honeyed voice of Frank Sinatra.