What the hell is Blue Note Records CEO Bruce Lundvall doing sitting next to Verve Music Group CEO Ron Goldstein? And why are the heads of these rival labels wearing smiles instead of evil eyes? Aw, come on, the jazz community is a family. Really, it is. And what do families do? Families share. So each label is sharing parts of their catalog with the other for an upcoming series of CDs they call “definitive” collections of artists who, over the years, have recorded for both labels.
If you’re the kind of collector who files your albums by label, don’t get your knickers in a bunch just yet. Out of the 14 Definitive CDs to be released Sept. 24, seven will bear the Blue Note logo and the other seven will belong to Verve. Blue Note will release compilations by Cannonball Adderley, Chet Baker, Nat “King” Cole, Bud Powell, Jimmy Smith, Art Tatum and McCoy Tyner, while Verve’s team is made up of Clifford Brown, Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, George Shearing, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and Joe Williams.
The Definitive series discs will include the popular tunes you’ve either come to love or loathe, plus rarer cuts, forgotten gems and whatnot taken not just from Blue Note and Verve discs, but from the catalogs of other labels the two have either acquired or have release rights to, including Decca, EmArcy, Impulse!, Mercury, MGM, Pacific Jazz, Roost and Roulette.
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