The Archivist
April 2009 By Scott Yanow
Classic OKeh & Columbia Benny Goodman
Comprehensive collections of the King of Swing
April 2009 By Scott Yanow
Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band
Mosaic Records
While pianist-arranger-composer Toshiko Akiyoshi headed a fine big band in New York after moving cross-country in 1982, the orchestra that she led in Los Angeles in the 1970s was arguably her greatest accomplishment. The three-CD Mosaic Select set Toshiko...
April 2009 By Scott Yanow
Zoot Sims With Bucky Pizzarelli
Inner City
In the late 1970s and ’80s, Inner City was a label whose quality and quantity of releases were consistently impressive. Irv Kratka recorded and leased music that spanned from swing and Dixieland to bop, hard bop, fusion and unclassifiable mood music. Out...
December 2008 By Scott Yanow
Tatum Art
Storyville
Art Tatum had the ability to scare people, especially other pianists. The first time a young Oscar Peterson was played an Art Tatum record, he refused to play piano for months, feeling he could never measure up to Tatum’s level. When Hank Jones initially...
December 2008 By Scott Yanow
Jonah Jones at the Embers
Mosaic Singles
From Mosaic Singles comes Jonah Jones’ At the Embers and George Wein Is Alive and Well in Mexico. Trumpeter Jones was one of the few swing-era survivors who became a major hit more than a decade after that era ended. He performed Dixieland, swing and pop...
December 2008 By Scott Yanow
Kind of Blue: 50th Anniversary Collector's Edition
Sony/Legacy
It’s back! Actually, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue has never gone away, yet it is regularly reissued, this time as Kind of Blue: 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (Sony/Legacy). Should collectors purchase Kind of Blue for the fifth time? This new version...
December 2008 By Scott Yanow
To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story
RCA/Legacy
Nina Simone, a classically trained pianist and a very socially conscious singer and songwriter who fit into her own unique musical category, was of greatest interest to the jazz world during the period (1957-73) that is emphasized on the three-CD/one-DVD...
December 2008 By Scott Yanow
Live at the 1994 Monterey Jazz Festival
MJF Records
The second batch of music drawn from the Monterey Jazz Festival and released by MJF Records includes a few real winners. Fairly conventional are Shirley Horn’s Live at the 1994 Monterey Jazz Festival (although I will always remember how the boisterous crowd...
December 2008 By Scott Yanow
Giants of the Big Band Era
Acrobat Music
The Acrobat Music label has been leasing and putting out vintage jazz from a variety of sources. Of its most recent eight sets, Benny Goodman’s Giants of the Big Band Era includes 18 studio recordings that made the charts during 1935-46 (no great surprises...
