Music » Compilation Jazz Music

Release Date: 2000-03-07, Audio CD, RCA

This 1963 recording occupies a special place in Mingus's work, his most brilliantly realized extended composition. The six-part suite is a broad canvas for the bassist's tumultuous passions, ranging from islands of serenity for solo guitar and piano to waves of contrapuntal conflict and accelerating rhythms that pull the listener into the musical psychodrama. It seems to mingle and transform both the heights and clich?s of jazz orchestration, from Mingus's master, Duke Ellington, to film noir soundtracks. The result is a masterpiece of sounds and textures, from the astonishing vocal effects of the plunger-muted trumpets and trombone (seeming to speak messages just beyond the range of understanding) to the soaring romantic alto of Charlie Mariano. Boiling beneath it all are the teeming, congested rhythms of Mingus and drummer Dannie Richmond and the deep morass of tuba and baritone saxophone. This is one of the greatest works in jazz composition, and it's remarkable that Mingus dredged this much emotional power from a group of just 11 musicians. --Stuart Broomer

Mercurial bassist and bandleader Charles Mingus was signed to Columbia Records for the briefest of time during 1959. His Columbia recordings, however, remain some of the most inspired, mood-jumping jazz in history. The flowing sadness of "Goodbye Porkpie Hat" (unedited here for the first time on CD!) rings like a funeral chorus that pitches headlong into a celebration of Lester Young's life and improvising flexibility, rather than his death. And there's the funky furnace blast of "Boogie Stop Shuffle" (also unedited!), which reaches its glory with Booker Ervin's Texas tenor sax, wrapped tight in bluesy tone. With the index of emotions captured, these songs nail why Mingus is possibly the most relevant jazzer for the '90s generation. He swings and shouts and hollers and somersaults. His tunes either induce foot-stomping with their intensity or reach for poignant yearning with their lyrical tapestry of orchestral colors. --Andrew BartlettLimited Millennium Edition. Packed in a Heavy Weight Card Wallet that Faithfully Recreates the Original Vinyl Sleeve, Right Down to the Inner Bag. The Wallet Will Come in a Plastic Cover.

Recorded over two evenings in Los Angeles in 1964 and arranged in order, this recording presents the great Thelonious Monk at the peak of his considerable talents--and with his most enduring sidemen, including saxophonist Charlie Rouse and drummer Ben Riley. This version also restores 11 (!) cuts to their entirety (previous versions edited or offered shortened bass and drum solos). Aside from the now-complete versions of the set's songs, this It Club also offers three previously unreleased songs ("Teo," "Bright Mississippi," and "Just You, Just Me") and 20-bit digital remastering. The result is perhaps as close as we can come to a great-sounding complete show by one of the most fertile minds in the history of jazz. While not one of Monk's wilder live sessions, this set nonetheless effortlessly communicates the pianist's offbeat genius. From the first note, the sound (which thanks to the remaster, begs for high volume) is classic Monk: inquisitive right-hand chord exploration, thundering left-hand exclamations, and intoxicating runs up and down the keyboard fly from his fingers while the band gives him enough room so that every thought, strategy, and wild hare is allowed to range free. Highlights include an exquisitely gorgeous "I'm getting Sentimental over You", a spicy "Rhythm-A-Ning," and an uptempo "Bright Mississippi." With excellent liner notes by Bob Blumenthal and some new photos, this package rates as a must-buy for all Monkophiles. --S. Duda

With his inexhaustible technique, trademark sound, and limitless imagination, tenor and soprano saxophonist John Coltrane was one of jazz's most dominant musicians. This collection covers his important Atlantic Records sessions recorded from 1959 to 1960 (chronicled in their entirety on Heavyweight Champion). The tunes signal an important transitional phase from Trane's stints with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk to his emergence as a leader in his own right. "Giant Steps" "Naima," and "Cousin Mary"--featuring pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Art Taylor--crystallized Trane's supersonic "sheets of sound" style. "Like Sonny," an Afro-Latin dedication to his friend and contemporary Sonny Rollins with Wynton Kelly on piano, reveals Trane's stylistic debts to Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins. His historic renditions of "My Shining Hour," "Body and Soul," "Summertime," and "My Favorite Things" highlight Coltrane's ability to remake a song into his own image, as well as introduce his influential sound on the soprano sax. These landmark recordings show the development of Coltrane's "great" quartet as well as forecast his iconoclastic excursions into the outer limits of rhythm and tonality, which grew during until his death in 1967. --Eugene Holley, Jr.

Release Date: 1998-04-07, Audio CD, Verve

Japanese Extended Resolution (Xrcd) 20Bit Remaster.

Release Date: 1998-02-11, Audio CD, Ojc

Release Date: 1991-05-21, Audio CD, Polygram Records

In the mid-1960s Bill Evans was involved in numerous recording projects, from film soundtrack work and playing with a symphony orchestra to duets with guitarist Jim Hall and solo and multitracked piano. As a result, he spent very little time in the studio with one of his finest working units, the trio with bassist Chuck Israels and drummer Larry Bunker. Each of Evans's trios found a different balance of elements, usually hinging on the pianist's musical relationship with his bass player. Israels is less given to virtuoso flights and aggressive countermelody than Scott LaFaro or Eddie Gomez, instead picking his notes for maximal harmonic and melodic effect, while maintaining a secure time feel. His style provides a different focus for the pianist, less reactive and more continuous, and it emphasizes Evans's capacity for rhythmically aggressive, boppish playing. John Carisi's "Israel," a tune dating from Miles Davis's Birth of the Cool, has Evans fastening on the rhythmic undercurrent generated by Israels and Bunker, and it continues with his linear approach to the solo on his own "Elsa." With familiar musicians and tunes, Evans produces one of his most relaxed and sustained recordings of the period. --Stuart Broomer