Warner Jazz Incontournables

This album is part of a series of budget imports from Warner that pulls from their huge archives to highlight some of jazz's most classic musicians. Compilations, especially budget-line collections, tend to be either boring greatest-hits lists that any fan would already own or poorly recorded live tracks that sound like they were issued from the inside of somebody's bathtub. This series is neither, combining quality live tracks with the truly classic studio recordings from each artist. A nice version of "Take Five" is included from the Newport Jazz Festival, as well as other classic Fantasy recordings like "Jeepers Creepers" and "I'll Never Smile Again."