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First published 2010
Copyright © Brian Morton and the Estate of Richard Cook, 2011
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-195900-9
INTRODUCTION
ABBREVIATIONS
RECORDINGS
BEGINNINGS
EUBIE BLAKE: Memories of You
ORIGINAL DIXIELAND JAZZ BAND: The Original Dixieland Jazz Band 1917–1921
JAMES P. JOHNSON: Carolina Shout
EUREKA BRASS BAND: New Orleans Funeral And Parade
JELLY ROLL MORTON: The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings
BABY DODDS: Baby Dodds
GEORGE ‘POPS’ FOSTER: George ‘Pops’ Foster
THE ’20s
JELLY ROLL MORTON: The Piano Rolls
LADD’S BLACK ACES / ORIGINAL MEMPHIS FIVE: The Complete Ladd’s Black Aces 1921–1924
LADD’S BLACK ACES / ORIGINAL MEMPHIS FIVE: Original Memphis Five: Columbias 1923–1931
NEW ORLEANS RHYTHM KINGS: New Orleans Rhythm Kings 1922–1925: The Complete Set
KID ORY: Ory’s Creole Trombone
THE GEORGIANS: The Georgians 1922–23 / 1923-24
PERRY BRADFORD: And The Blues Singers In Chronological Order
ARMAND PIRON: Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra
ORIGINAL INDIANA FIVE: The Original Indiana Five: Volume 1
JOE ‘KING’ OLIVER: King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band: The Complete Set
FREDDIE KEPPARD: The Complete Set 1923–1926
JIMMY BLYTHE: Messin’ Around Blues
GEORGIA MELODIANS: Georgia Melodians 1924–1926
FIVE BIRMINGHAM BABIES: Heart Breakin’ Baby
LOVIE AUSTIN: Lovie Austin 1924–1926
RED NICHOLS: The Red Heads Complete 1925–1927
WILLIE ‘THE LION’ SMITH: Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith 1925–1937
FLETCHER HENDERSON: The Harmony & Vocalion Sessions: Volumes 1 & 2
LOUIS ARMSTRONG: Complete Hot Five And Hot Seven Recordings: Volumes 1–3
OSCAR ‘PAPA’ CELESTIN/SAM MORGAN: Papa Celestin & Sam Morgan
EDDIE LANG: The Quintessential Eddie Lang 1925–1932
JOHNNY DODDS: Johnny Dodds 1926
JELLY ROLL MORTON: Jelly Roll Morton 1926–1928
TINY PARHAM: Tiny Parham 1926–1929
BIX BEIDERBECKE: At The Jazz Band Ball
FRANKIE TRUMBAUER: Frankie Trumbauer 1927–1928
DUKE ELLINGTON: Duke Ellington 1927–1929
MIFF MOLE: Slippin’ Around
EDDIE CONDON: Eddie Condon 1927–1938
MEADE ‘LUX’ LEWIS: Meade Lux Lewis 1927–1939
DICKY WELLS: Dicky Wells 1927–1943
JOHNNY HODGES: Classic Solos 1928–1942
MCKINNEY’S COTTON PICKERS: Put It There / Cotton Picker’s Scat
EARL HINES: Earl Hines Collection: Piano Solos 1928–1940
JIMMIE NOONE: Jimmie Noone 1928–1929
JABBO SMITH: Jabbo Smith 1929–1938
BENNIE MOTEN: Band Box Shuffle 1929–1932
LUIS RUSSELL: The Luis Russell Story
HENRY ‘RED’ ALLEN: Henry ‘Red’ Allen & His Orchestra 1929–1933
COLEMAN HAWKINS: Coleman Hawkins 1929–1934
THE ’30s
JIMMIE LUNCEFORD: Jimmie Lunceford 1930–1934
CAB CALLOWAY: The Early Years 1930–1934
JOE VENUTI: Joe Venuti 1930–1933
CASA LOMA ORCHESTRA: Casa Loma Stomp / Maniac’s Ball
DON REDMAN: Shakin’ the Africann
ART TATUM: Art Tatum 1932–1934
NAT GONELLA: Nat Gonella And His Georgians
CHICK WEBB: Rhythm Man / Strictly Jive
JACK TEAGARDEN: I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues
MILLS BLUE RHYTHM BAND: Blue Rhythm
BENNY CARTER: Benny Carter 1933–1936
THE SPIRITS OF RHYTHM: The Spirits Of Rhythm 1933–1945
WINGY MANONE: Wingy Manone 1934–1935
TINY BRADSHAW: Breakin’ Up The House
DJANGO REINHARDT: Django Reinhardt, 1935–1936
BENNY GOODMAN: The Complete Small Group Sessions
FATS WALLER: Fats Waller 1934–1935
JESS STACY: Ec-Stacy
TOMMY DORSEY: The Best Of Tommy Dorsey And His Clambake Seven 1936–1938
JOE MARSALA: Joe Marsala 1936–1942
ANDY KIRK: Andy Kirk 1936–1937
ROY ELDRIDGE: The Big Sound Of Little Jazz
BILLIE HOLIDAY: The Billie Holiday Collection: Volume 2
JIMMY DORSEY: Amapola
TEDDY WILSON: Teddy Wilson Volume 1 – Too Hot For Words
EDMOND HALL: Edmond Hall 1936–1944
COUNT BASIE: The Original American Decca Recordings
EDDIE SOUTH: Eddie South 1937–1941
LIONEL HAMPTON: Lionel Hampton 1937–1938
CLAUDE HOPKINS: Claude Hopkins 1932–1934
DUKE ELLINGTON: Duke Ellington 1937–1938
BENNY GOODMAN: At Carnegie Hall 1938: Complete
CHU BERRY: Chu Berry 1937–1941
AVERY ‘KID’ HOWARD: Prelude To The Revival: Volume 1
EDGAR HAYES: Edgar Hayes 1937–1938
BUNNY BERIGAN: Bunny Berigan 1937
HARRY JAMES: Harry James 1937–1939
DIZZY GILLESPIE: The Complete RCA Victor Recordings
GEORGE CHISHOLM: Early Days 1935–1944
BOBBY HACKETT: Bobby Hackett 1938–1940
SAVOY SULTANS: Al Cooper’s Savoy Sultans 1938–1941
ZIGGY ELMAN: Ziggy Elman 1938–1939
PETE JOHNSON: Pete Johnson 1938–1939
GENE KRUPA: Gene Krupa 1939–1940
MUGGSY SPANIER: Muggsy Spanier 1939–1942
COLEMAN HAWKINS: Coleman Hawkins 1939–1940
BUD FREEMAN: Bud Freeman 1939–1940
ARTIE SHAW: Artie Shaw 1939
CHARLIE CHRISTIAN: The Genius Of The Electric Guitar
WOODY HERMAN: Woody Herman 1939
JOHN KIRBY: John Kirby 1939–1941
HARLAN LEONARD: Harlan Leonard And His Rockets 1940
SIDNEY BECHET: Sidney Bechet 1940–1941
CLAUDE THORNHILL: Snowfall
DUKE ELLINGTON: Never No Lament
DUKE ELLINGTON: The Duke At Fargo
THE ’40s
HOT LIPS PAGE: Hot Lips Page 1940–1944
REX STEWART: Rex Stewart And The Ellingtonians
LESTER YOUNG: The Complete Aladdin Sessions
LUCKY MILLINDER: Lucky Millinder 1943–1947
GEORGE LEWIS: George Lewis & His New Orleans Stompers: Volumes 1 & 2
STUFF SMITH: The Stuff Smith Trio 1943
MILDRED BAILEY: Mildred Bailey 1943–1945
COUNT BASIE: The Jubilee Alternatives
ART HODES: The Jazz Record Story
DUKE ELLINGTON: Black, Brown And Beige
NAT COLE: Nat King Cole 1943–1944
JAZZ AT THE PHILHARMONIC: Best Of The 1940s Concerts
TINY GRIMES: Tiny Grimes 1944–1949
ERROLL GARNER: Erroll Garner 1944–1945
DON BYAS: Don Byas 1944–1945
SID CATLETT: Sid Catlett 1944–1946
CHARLIE PARKER: The Complete Savoy And Dial Studio Recordings / Newly Discovered Sides
TRUMMY YOUNG: Trummy Young 1944–1946
SIDNEY BECHET: King Jazz: Volume 1
BUNK JOHNSON: Bunk’s Brass Band And Dance Band 1945
MARY LOU WILLIAMS: The Zodiac Suite
BOYD RAEBURN: Jubilee Performances 1946
WOODY HERMAN: Blowin’ Up A Storm!
MUTT CAREY: Mutt Carey And Lee Collins
WOODEN JOE NICHOLAS: Wooden Joe Nicholas
KENNY CLARKE: Klook’s The Man
BILLY ECKSTINE: Billy Eckstine 1944–1946
CHARLIE PARKER: Charlie Parker With Strings: The Master Takes
DAVE BRUBECK: The Dave Brubeck Octet
ILLINOIS JACQUET: Illinois Jacquet 1945–1946
DODO MARMAROSA: On Dial: The Complete Sessions
LENNIE TRISTANO: The Complete Lennie Tristano
LOUIS JORDAN: Louis Jordan 1946–1947
JOHN HARDEE: John Hardee 1946–1948
TYREE GLENN: Tyree Glenn 1947–1952
DJANGO REINHARDT: Pêche À La Mouche
LOUIS ARMSTRONG: Louis Armstrong 1947
LOUIS ARMSTRONG: Complete New York Town Hall And Boston Symphony Hall Concerts
DEXTER GORDON: Dexter Gordon On Dial: The Complete Sessions
FATS NAVARRO: The Complete Fats Navarro On Blue Note And Capitol
THELONIOUS MONK: Genius Of Modern Music: Volumes 1 & 2
TONY PARENTI: Tony Parenti & His New Orleanians
CHARLIE BARNET: The Capitol Big Band Sessions
CHARLIE VENTURA: Complete 1949 Pasadena Concert
LEE KONITZ: Subconscious-Lee
MILT JACKSON: Wizard Of The Vibes
TURK MURPHY: Turk Murphy’s Jazz Band Favourites
FLIP PHILLIPS: Flippin’ The Blues
BUD POWELL: The Amazing Bud Powell: Volumes 1 & 2
MILES DAVIS: The Complete Birth Of The Cool
LU WATTERS: Doing The Hambone At Kelly’s: Volumes 1 & 2
THE ’50s: 1951–1955
GEORGE SHEARING: Verve Jazz Masters: George Shearing
HUMPHREY LYTTELTON: The Parlophones: Volumes One–Four
ELLA FITZGERALD: The Enchanting Ella Fitzgerald: Live At Birdland 1950–1952
JOE BUSHKIN: Piano Moods / After Hours
STAN GETZ: The Complete Roost Recordings
WARDELL GRAY: Memorial: Volumes 1 & 2
STAN KENTON: City Of Glass
STAN KENTON: The Innovations Orchestra
CHICO O’FARRILL: Cuban Blues: The Chico O’Farrill Sessions
LOUIS ARMSTRONG: California Concerts
CHARLES MINGUS: The Complete Debut Recordings
KID THOMAS (VALENTINE): Kid Thomas And His Algiers Stompers
SIDNEY BECHET: The Fabulous Sidney Bechet
JIMMY FORREST: Night Train
BILLIE HOLIDAY: Lady In Autumn
SHARKEY BONANO: At Lenfant’s Lounge
GEORGE WALLINGTON: George Wallington Trios
HOWARD RUMSEY: Sunday Jazz A La Lighthouse: Volumes 1–3
GERRY MULLIGAN: The Original Quartet
WILBUR DE PARIS: Uproarious Twenties In Dixieland / Rampart Street Ramblers / New New Orleans Jazz
LESTER YOUNG: The President Plays
RED RODNEY: Red Rodney Quintets
SHORTY ROGERS: The Sweetheart Of Sigmund Freud
FREDDY RANDALL: Freddy Randall And His Band
CHARLIE PARKER: The Quintet: Jazz At Massey Hall
BEN WEBSTER: King Of The Tenors
CLIFFORD BROWN: Memorial Album
GEORGE LEWIS: Jazz Funeral In New Orleans
ELMO HOPE: Trio And Quintet
J. J. JOHNSON: The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson: Volumes 1 & 2
VIC DICKENSON: The Essential Vic Dickenson
BENGT HALLBERG: All-Star Sessions 1953–1954
LARS GULLIN: Danny’s Dream
ART TATUM: The Complete Pablo Solo Masterpieces
ART TATUM: The Tatum Group Masterpieces: Volume 1
MEL POWELL: Borderline-Thigamagig
JAMES MOODY: Moody’s Mood For Blues
ART BLAKEY: A Night At Birdland: Volumes 1 & 2
BLUE MITCHELL: The Thing To Do
LENNIE TRISTANO: Lennie Tristano / The New Tristano
JUNE CHRISTY: Something Cool: The Complete Mono And Stereo Versions
AL HAIG: Esoteric
PERCY HUMPHREY: Percy Humphrey’s Sympathy Five
JIMMY RANEY: A
BUD SHANK: Jazz In Hollywood
CHRIS BARBER: The Complete Decca Sessions 1954/55
JOHN DANKWORTH: The Vintage Years
JOHNNY ST CYR: Johnny St Cyr
BENNY GOODMAN: B.G. In Hi-Fi
OSCAR PETTIFORD: Nonet & Octet 1954–55
CHARLES THOMPSON: For The Ears
RICHARD TWARDZIK: Complete Recordings
DINAH WASHINGTON: Dinah Jams
LENNIE NIEHAUS: The Quintets & Strings
SARAH VAUGHAN: Sarah Vaughan
BARNEY KESSEL: To Swing Or Not To Swing
HAMPTON HAWES: The Trios: Volumes 1 & 2
CHICO HAMILTON: Live At The Strollers
ERROLL GARNER: Concert By The Sea
JOE NEWMAN: The Count’s Men
RUBY BRAFF: 2 × 2: Ruby Braff And Ellis Larkins Play Rodgers And Hart
RED CALLENDER: Swingin’ Suite
LAMBERT, HENDRICKS & ROSS: Sing A Song Of Basie
FRANK MORGAN: Gene Norman Presents Frank Morgan
CARL PERKINS: Introducing
CLIFFORD BROWN: Alone Together
THE ’50s: 1956–1960
HELEN MERRILL: Helen Merrill With Clifford Brown And Gil Evans
PEE WEE ERWIN: Complete Fifties Recordings
JO JONES: The Essential Jo Jones
COLEMAN HAWKINS: The Stanley Dance Sessions
CURTIS COUNCE: The Complete Studio Recordings: The Master Takes
J. R. MONTEROSE: J. R. Monterose
MEL TORMÉ: Sings Fred Astaire
TEDDY CHARLES: The Teddy Charles Tentet
CHARLES MINGUS: Pithecanthropus Erectus
TAL FARLOW: The Swinging Guitar Of Tal Farlow
CHET BAKER: Chet Baker And Crew
BOB BROOKMEYER: Brookmeyer
CHARLIE SHAVERS: Horn O’Plenty
HERBIE NICHOLS: The Complete Blue Note Recordings
CHRIS CONNOR: Chris Connor
BILL PERKINS: Grand Encounter
ELLA FITZGERALD: Sings The Cole Porter Songbook
SERGE CHALOFF: Blue Serge
TADD DAMERON: Fontainebleau
STÉPHANE GRAPPELLI: Jazz In Paris: Improvisations
GEORGE RUSSELL: Jazz Workshop
KENNY DORHAM: ’Round About Midnight At The Café Bohemia
FRIEDRICH GULDA: Friedrich Gulda At Birdland
MELBA LISTON: And Her ’Bones
MARK MURPHY: Crazy Rhythm: His Debut Recordings
ROLF ERICSON: Rolf Ericson & The American Stars
DIZZY GILLESPIE: Birks Works: The Verve Big-Band Sessions
SONNY ROLLINS: Saxophone Colossus
DUKE ELLINGTON: Ellington At Newport 1956 (Complete)
NAT COLE: After Midnight
SONNY STITT: New York Jazz
CECIL TAYLOR: Jazz Advance
MAX ROACH: Alone Together
MAYNARD FERGUSON: The Birdland Dreamband
PHINEAS NEWBORN JR: Here Is Phineas
OSCAR PETERSON: At The Stratford Shakespearean Festival
SANDY BROWN: McJazz And Friends
QUINCY JONES: This Is How I Feel About Jazz
RANDY WESTON: Jazz À La Bohemia
KEN COLYER: Club Session With Colyer
BOB DOROUGH: Devil May Care
JIMMY GIUFFRE: The Jimmy Giuffre 3
THELONIOUS MONK: Brilliant Corners
KAI WINDING: Trombone Panorama
ANITA O’DAY: Anita Sings The Most
ART PEPPER: Meets The Rhythm Section
RED NORVO: Music To Listen To Red Norvo By
GIGI GRYCE: And The Jazz Lab Quintet
ART TAYLOR: Taylor’s Wailers
ART BLAKEY: Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk
HERB GELLER: That Geller Feller
PHIL WOODS: Phil & Quill
CLIFFORD JORDAN / JOHN GILMORE: Blowin’ In From Chicago
RED MITCHELL: Presenting Red Mitchell
CLARK TERRY: Serenade To A Bus Seat
PAUL QUINICHETTE: On The Sunny Side
CURTIS FULLER: With Red Garland
MILES DAVIS: Miles Ahead
RED GARLAND: Red Garland Revisited!
JOHNNY GRIFFIN: A Blowing Session
CONTE CANDOLI: Conte Candoli Quartet
MARTY PAICH: The Picasso Of Big Band Jazz
HERB POMEROY: Life Is A Many-Splendored Gig
PAUL CHAMBERS: Bass On Top
BUDDY DEFRANCO: Wholly Cats: Complete Plays Benny Goodman And Artie Shaw Sessions, Volumes 1 & 2
BILL HARRIS: Bill Harris And Friends
WARNE MARSH: Music For Prancing
JOE ALBANY: The Right Combination
COUNT BASIE: The Complete Atomic Mr Basie
SONNY ROLLINS: A Night At The Village Vanguard
WILBUR WARE: The Chicago Sound
TONY SCOTT: A Day In New York
JIMMY SMITH: Groovin’ At Smalls’ Paradise
JIMMY DEUCHAR: Pal Jimmy!
JIMMY CLEVELAND: Cleveland Style
BERNT ROSENGREN: Jazz Club 57
SONNY CLARK: Cool Struttin’
AHMAD JAMAL: At The Pershing / Complete Live At The Pershing Lounge
VICTOR FELDMAN: The Arrival Of Victor Feldman
PEE WEE RUSSELL: Swingin’ With Pee Wee
CANNONBALL ADDERLEY: Somethin’ Else
MICHEL LEGRAND: Legrand Jazz
LOU DONALDSON: Blues Walk
BUD POWELL: The Amazing Bud Powell: Volume 5 – The Scene Changes
MAL WALDRON: Mal/4: Trio
ROY HAYNES: We Three
DAVID ‘FATHEAD’ NEWMAN: Fathead
RAY BRYANT: Alone With The Blues
GERRY MULLIGAN: What Is There To Say?
FRANK ROSOLINO: Free For All
IRA SULLIVAN: Nicky’s Tune
SUN RA: Jazz In Silhouette
BARNEY WILEN: Jazz Sur Seine
MILES DAVIS: Kind Of Blue
WYNTON KELLY: Kelly Blue
ABBEY LINCOLN: Abbey Is Blue
TERRY GIBBS: One More Time
EDDIE ‘LOCKJAW’ DAVIS: Very Saxy
CAL TJADER: Monterey Concerts
BLOSSOM DEARIE: Blossom Dearie
FRANK STROZIER: Fantastic Frank Strozier
TUBBY HAYES: The Eighth Wonder
JACKIE MCLEAN: New Soil
DONALD BYRD: Byrd In Hand
DAVE BRUBECK: Time Out
KENNY BALL: Back At The Start
ALBERT NICHOLAS: The New Orleans–Chicago Connection
HAROLD LAND: The Fox
BENNY GOLSON: Groovin’ With Golson
HORACE SILVER: Blowin’ The Blues Away
JIMMY HEATH: The Thumper
SHELLY MANNE: At The Black Hawk
ORNETTE COLEMAN: The Shape Of Jazz To Come
JON HENDRICKS: A Good Git-Together
CHARLES MINGUS: Mingus Dynasty
JOHN COLTRANE: Giant Steps
NAT ADDERLEY: Work Song
WES MONTGOMERY: Incredible Jazz Guitar
ART FARMER: Meet The Jazztet
HANK MOBLEY: Soul Station
FREDDIE REDD: The Music From The Connection
JOHN LEWIS: Golden Striker / Jazz Abstractions
MODERN JAZZ QUARTET: Dedicated To Connie
JIMMY HAMILTON: Swing Low Sweet Clarinet
FRANK WESS: The Frank Wess Quartet
ANDRÉ PREVIN: Plays Songs By Harold Arlen
AL COHN: You ’n’ Me
FREDDIE HUBBARD: Open Sesame
TEDDY EDWARDS: Teddy’s Ready
MAX ROACH: We Insist! Freedom Now Suite
RENÉ THOMAS: Guitar Groove
CHARLES MINGUS: Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus
CLARK TERRY: Color Changes
STEVE LACY: The Straight Horn Of Steve Lacy
GIL EVANS: Out Of The Cool
PAUL GONSALVES: Gettin’ Together
BUDD JOHNSON: Let’s Swing
DUTCH SWING COLLEGE BAND: Live In 1960
CHARLIE BYRD: The Guitar Artistry of Charlie Byrd
ERIC DOLPHY: Far Cry
THE ’60s
Part 1: 1961–1965
GENE AMMONS: The Gene Ammons Story: Gentle Jug
JIM ROBINSON: Jim Robinson’s New Orleans Band
EDDIE HARRIS: Exodus To Jazz / Mighty Like A Rose
OLIVER NELSON: Blues And The Abstract Truth
BILL BARRON: Modern Windows Suite
BOOKER LITTLE: Out Front
HANK CRAWFORD: From The Heart
JAKI BYARD: Out Front!
JOE HARRIOTT: Abstract
BUCK CLAYTON: Buck Clayton All Stars 1961
GEORGE RUSSELL: Ezz-thetics
DEXTER GORDON: Doin’ Alright
HOWARD MCGHEE: Maggie’s Back In Town!
BILL EVANS: The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings 1961
STAN GETZ: Focus
RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK: We Free Kings
LEE KONITZ: Motion
YUSEF LATEEF: Eastern Sounds
BOBBY TIMMONS: In Person
BENNY CARTER: Further Definitions
MILT JACKSON: Bags Meets Wes
IKE QUEBEC: It Might As Well Be Spring
ACKER BILK: Stranger On The Shore / A Taste Of Honey
GRANT GREEN: Born To Be Blue
AL GREY: Snap Your Fingers
JUNIOR MANCE: Junior’s Blues
PERRY ROBINSON: Funk Dumpling
BABS GONZALES: Sunday Afternoon At Small’s Paradise
JIMMY GIUFFRE: Free Fall
DIZZY REECE: Asia Minor
WALT DICKERSON: To My Queen
SHEILA JORDAN: Portrait Of Sheila
KENNY BURRELL: Bluesy Burrell
CECIL TAYLOR: Nefertiti, The Beautiful One Has Come
OSCAR PETERSON: Night Train
MONGO SANTAMARIA: Watermelon Man
CHARLES MINGUS: The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
JIMMY RUSHING: Five Feet Of Soul
SHIRLEY SCOTT: Soul Shoutin’
BILL EVANS: Conversations With Myself
ELLIS MARSALIS: The Classic Ellis Marsalis
SATHIMA BEA BENJAMIN: A Morning In Paris
BIG JOHN PATTON: Along Came John
JOE HENDERSON: Page One
PAUL DESMOND: Glad To Be Unhappy
GRACHAN MONCUR III: Evolution
BOBBY HUTCHERSON: The Kicker
LEE MORGAN: The Sidewinder
RONNIE SCOTT: When I Want Your Opinion, I’ll Give It To You
ERIC DOLPHY: Out To Lunch!
JOHNNY HODGES: Everybody Knows Johnny Hodges
LEE MORGAN: Search For The New Land
DENNY ZEITLIN: Cathexis
ANDREW HILL: Point Of Departure
STAN GETZ: Nobody Else But Me
ALBERT AYLER: Spiritual Unity
TED CURSON: Tears For Dolphy
ARCHIE SHEPP: Four For Trane
TONY WILLIAMS: Life Time
LUCKY THOMPSON: Lucky Strikes
HORACE SILVER: Song For My Father
HUBERT LAWS: The Laws Of Jazz
DON RENDELL / IAN CARR: Shades of Blue / Dusk Fire
CHARLES MCPHERSON: Be Bop Revisited
SAM RIVERS: Fuchsia Swing Song
HARRY ARNOLD: Big Band 1964/65: Volumes 1 & 2
WAYNE SHORTER: Speak No Evil
JOHN COLTRANE: A Love Supreme
BLUE NOTES: Live In South Africa, 1964
DON FRIEDMAN: Dreams And Explorations
GIORGIO GASLINI: L’Integrale; Anthologia Cronologica: Volumes 3 & 4
HERBIE HANCOCK: Maiden Voyage
BREW MOORE: I Should Care
RAMSEY LEWIS: The In Crowd
PETE LA ROCA: Basra
STAN TRACEY: Under Milk Wood
WOODY HERMAN: Woody’s Winners / Jazz Hoot
JOHN COLTRANE: Ascension
DAVE PIKE: Jazz For The Jet Set
BOOKER ERVIN: Lament For Booker Ervin
LARRY YOUNG: Unity
ORNETTE COLEMAN: At The Golden Circle, Stockholm: Volumes 1 & 2
DON CHERRY: Complete Communion
KRZYSZTOF KOMEDA: Astigmatic
LOWELL DAVIDSON: Lowell Davidson Trio
HUGH MASEKELA: The Lasting Impressions Of Ooga Booga
SUN RA: The Magic City
MICHAEL GARRICK: October Woman
FRANK WRIGHT: The Complete ESP-Disk Recordings
PAUL BLEY: Closer
MILES DAVIS: The Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel
Part 2: 1966–1970
ALBERT AYLER: Live In Greenwich Village: The Complete Impulse Recordings
THE JAZZ CRUSADERS: Live At The Lighthouse ’66
CHARLES LLOYD: Dream Weaver
ALEX WELSH: Strike One
DUKE PEARSON: Prairie Dog
DUKE ELLINGTON: The Far East Suite
ROSCOE MITCHELL: Sound
STANLEY TURRENTINE: The Spoiler
BUDDY RICH: Swingin’ New Big Band
CECIL TAYLOR: Conquistador!
JOSEPH JARMAN: Song For
CHICK COREA: Tones For Joan’s Bones
SONNY SIMMONS: Music From The Spheres
MARION BROWN: Three For Shepp
MCCOY TYNER: The Real McCoy
JOHN HANDY: New View!
CEDAR WALTON: Cedar!
CLIFFORD THORNTON: Freedom & Unity
DON ELLIS: Electric Bath
GLOBE UNITY ORCHESTRA: Globe Unity 67 & 70
THELONIOUS MONK: Underground
JAZZ COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA: Communications
STEVE MARCUS: Tomorrow Never Knows
HAROLD MABERN: A Few Miles From Memphis
JIMMY ROWLES: Our Delight
OSCAR PETERSON: My Favorite Instrument
RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK: The Inflated Tear
PETER BRÖTZMANN: Machine Gun
ELVIN JONES: Live At The Village Vanguard
SONNY CRISS: Sonny’s Dream
EDDIE JEFFERSON: Body And Soul
GARY BURTON: Country Roads And Other Places
ANTHONY BRAXTON: For Alto
ALAN SILVA: Skillfulness
CARLA BLEY: Escalator Over The Hill
HERBIE MANN: Memphis Underground
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN: Extrapolation
TONY OXLEY: The Baptised Traveller
RALPH SUTTON: Live At Sunnie’s Rendezvous 1969: Volumes 1 & 2
MILES DAVIS: In A Silent Way
PHAROAH SANDERS: Karma
CHARLIE HADEN: Liberation Music Orchestra
NOAH HOWARD: The Black Ark
SUNNY MURRAY: Sunshine & An Even Break (Never Give A Sucker)
ABDULLAH IBRAHIM: African Sketchbook
AMALGAM: Prayer For Peace
MANFRED SCHOOF: European Echoes
MAXINE SULLIVAN: Close As Pages In A Book
ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO: A Jackson In Your House / Message To Our Folks
GUNTER HAMPEL: The 8th Of July 1969
WARNE MARSH: Ne Plus UItra
MICHAEL GIBBS: Michael Gibbs / Tanglewood ’63
BARRY HARRIS: Magnificent!
BETTY CARTER: Finally
AMM: Laminal
LIFETIME: (Turn It Over)
THAD JONES: Consummation
HOWARD RILEY: The Day Will Come
KARIN KROG: Some Other Spring
HARRY BECKETT: Flare Up
ATTILA ZOLLER: Gypsy Cry
WILD BILL DAVISON: Jazz On A Saturday Afternoon: Volumes 1 & 2
JOE ZAWINUL: Zawinul
THE ’70s
Part 1: 1971–1975
DEREK BAILEY: Solo Guitar: Volume 1
GERRY MULLIGAN: The Age Of Steam
LIONEL HAMPTON: Salle Pleyel 1971
SLAM STEWART: Slam Bam
CARMEN MCRAE: Sings Lover Man
KEITH JARRETT: El Juicio (The Judgement)
MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA: The Inner Mounting Flame
ORNETTE COLEMAN: The Complete Science Fiction Sessions
REVOLUTIONARY ENSEMBLE: Revolutionary Ensemble
JOHN SURMAN: Tales Of The Algonquin
NORMA WINSTONE: Edge Of Time
EARL HINES: Earl Hines Plays Duke Ellington
ARCHIE SHEPP: Attica Blues
MCCOY TYNER: Sahara
PAT MARTINO: Footprints
LONDON JAZZ COMPOSERS’ ORCHESTRA: Ode
AL HIBBLER: A Meeting Of The Times
DONALD BYRD: Black Byrd
SONNY STITT: Constellation
GEORGE MELLY: Nuts / Son Of Nuts
CHARLES TOLLIVER: Grand Max
JACKIE MCLEAN: Live At Montmartre
STEVE LACY: Weal & Woe
WOODY SHAW: Song Of Songs
CHICK COREA: Light As A Feather
DAVE HOLLAND: Conference Of The Birds
MARIAN MCPARTLAND: Contrasts
ALEXANDER VON SCHLIPPENBACH: Pakistani Pomade
FRED VAN HOVE: Complete Vogel Recordings
BROTHERHOOD OF BREATH: Live At Willisau
DEWEY REDMAN: Ear Of The Behearer
JULIAN PRIESTER: Love, Love
HERBIE HANCOCK: Head Hunters
OREGON: Music Of Another Present Era
SPONTANEOUS MUSIC ENSEMBLE: Quintessence
JOE PASS: Virtuoso
WEATHER REPORT: Mysterious Traveller
WILLIAM PARKER: Through Acceptance Of The Mystery Peace
BENNIE MAUPIN: The Jewel In The Lotus
ELLA FITZGERALD: Ella In London
GARY BURTON: Hotel Hello
DAVID LIEBMAN: Drum Ode
TETE MONTOLIU: Catalonian Fire
PAUL MOTIAN: Tribute
KENNY DREW: Dark And Beautiful
JOHN ABERCROMBIE: Timeless
GIL EVANS: Plays The Music Of Jimi Hendrix
PAUL RUTHERFORD: The Gentle Harm Of The Bourgeoisie
ANTHONY BRAXTON: New York, Fall 1974
MODERN JAZZ QUARTET: The Complete Last Concert
HARRY MILLER: The Collection
KEITH JARRETT: The Köln Concert
SOS: SOS
MILES DAVIS: Agharta
GATO BARBIERI: Chapter 4: Alive In New York
JACO PASTORIUS: Jaco Pastorius
DEXTER GORDON: More Than You Know
ENRICO RAVA: The Pilgrim And The Stars
MIKE OSBORNE: All Night Long
DON CHERRY: Brown Rice
BILLY HARPER: Black Saint
MARY LOU WILLIAMS: Free Spirits
HARRY ‘SWEETS’ EDISON: Just Friends
TOSHIKO AKIYOSHI: The Toshiko Akiyoshi–Lew Tabackin Big Band
TERJE RYPDAL: Odyssey
EBERHARD WEBER: Yellow Fields
PAT METHENY: Bright Size Life
Part 2: 1976–1980
GEORGE BENSON: Breezin’
ALBERT MANGELSDORFF: Trombonliness
ANTHONY BRAXTON: Creative Orchestra Music 1976
MILT JACKSON: At The Kosei Nenkin
BARRE PHILLIPS: Mountainscapes
ROSWELL RUDD: Blown Bone
CHARLES TYLER: Saga Of The Outlaws
DOC CHEATHAM: Duets And Solos
ARNE DOMNÉRUS: Jazz At The Pawnshop
JAN GARBAREK: Dis
DICK WELLSTOOD: A Night In Dublin
JAY MCSHANN: Last Of The Blue Devils
RON CARTER: Third Plane
PAUL BLEY: Axis
BUDDY TATE: The Legendary 1977 Encounter
FRANK FOSTER: Well Water
ZOOT SIMS: If I’m Lucky
HAMIET BLUIETT: Birthright
AIR: Air Time
LOUIE BELLSON: Prime Time
LOL COXHILL: Coxhill On Ogun
SCOTT HAMILTON: From The Beginning
JOHNNY MBIZO DYANI: Witchdoctor’s Son
ISHMAEL WADADA LEO SMITH: Divine Love
JOHNNY GRIFFIN: Return Of The Griffin
CHET BAKER: Live At Nick’s
HORACE PARLAN: Blue Parlan
LOUIS MOHOLO(-MOHOLO): Spirits Rejoice! / Bra Louis – Bra Tebs
JACK DEJOHNETTE: Special Edition
SAL MOSCA: A Concert
JEANNE LEE: Freedom Of The Universe
RAYMOND BURKE: Raymond Burke And Cie Frazier With Butch Thompson In New Orleans
STEVE SWALLOW: Home
ARTHUR BLYTHE: Lenox Avenue Breakdown
BETTY CARTER: The Audience With Betty Carter
MAX ROACH: Historic Concerts
GEORGE E. LEWIS: Homage To Charles Parker
ARCHIE SHEPP: Looking At Bird
WORLD SAXOPHONE QUARTET: W.S.Q.
CLARK TERRY: Memories Of Duke
JULIUS HEMPHILL: Flat-Out Jump Suite
DAVID MURRAY: Ming
BENNY WATERS: When You’re Smiling
ART PEPPER: Winter Moon
GANELIN TRIO: Ancora Da Capo
THE ’80s
Part 1: 1981–1985
MARK MURPHY: Bop For Kerouac
BILLY BANG: Rainbow Gladiator
LESTER BOWIE: The Great Pretender
JAMES NEWTON: Axum
CHICO FREEMAN: Destiny’s Dance
BILL DIXON: November 1981
BOB WILBER: On The Road
JOHN CARTER: Dauwhe
SARAH VAUGHAN: Crazy And Mixed Up
GEORGE RUSSELL: Live In An American Time Spiral
MIROSLAV VITOUS: Journey’s End
WARNE MARSH: Star Highs
ANDREW CYRILLE: The Navigator
SAM RIVERS: Colors
MICROSCOPIC SEPTET: Seven Men In Neckties: History Of The Micros
DAVID FRISHBERG: Classics
BORAH BERGMAN: A New Frontier
CRAIG HARRIS: Black Bone
KEITH JARRETT: Standards: Volume 1
AMINA CLAUDINE MYERS: Salutes Bessie Smith
JAMES BLOOD ULMER: Odyssey
BRANFORD MARSALIS: Scenes In The City
MICHEL PETRUCCIANI: 100 Hearts
GRAHAM COLLIER: Hoarded Dreams
KENNY BARRON: Green Chimneys
PAUL RUTHERFORD: Gheim
DON PULLEN: Evidence of Things Unseen
VIENNA ART ORCHESTRA: The Minimalism Of Erik Satie
EMILY REMLER: Transitions
LEE KONITZ: Star Eyes: Hamburg 1983
STRING TRIO OF NEW YORK: Rebirth Of A Feeling
JIMMY KNEPPER: I Dream Too Much
MIKE WESTBROOK: On Duke’s Birthday
MARTIN TAYLOR: Spirit Of Django
RAY BROWN: Soular Energy
PETER BRÖTZMANN: 14 Love Poems Plus 10 More: Dedicated To Kenneth Patchen
CHET BAKER: Blues For A Reason
LOUIS SCLAVIS: Clarinettes
JAKI BYARD: Phantasies
JIMMY LYONS: Give It Up
SLIDE HAMPTON: Roots
FRED HO: Tomorrow Is Now!
GEORGE CABLES: Phantom Of The City
JOHN SCOFIELD: Still Warm
JOE BONNER: Suite For Chocolate
JOE HENDERSON: The State Of The Tenor: Volumes 1 & 2
ANTHONY BRAXTON: Quartet (London/… Birmingham/… Coventry) 1985
DAVID LIEBMAN: The Loneliness Of A Long-Distance Runner
WYNTON MARSALIS: J Mood
PAT METHENY: Song X: Twentieth Anniversary Edition
JIMMY RANEY: Wisteria
Part 2: 1986–1990
BOBBY WATSON: Love Remains
MULGREW MILLER: Work!
DENNIS GONZÁLEZ: Stefan
SAMMY RIMINGTON: The Exciting Sax Of Sammy Rimington
PALLE MIKKELBORG: Heart To Heart
EDWARD VESALA: Lumi
JOE ZAWINUL: Di-a-lects
COURTNEY PINE: Journey To The Urge Within
RAN BLAKE: The Short Life Of Barbara Monk
SONNY FORTUNE: Great Friends
EVAN PARKER: The Snake Decides
JOANNE BRACKEEN: Fi-Fi Goes To Heaven
PAUL SMOKER: Alone
CLIFFORD JORDAN: Royal Ballads
CHARLIE HADEN: Quartet West
IRÈNE SCHWEIZER: Irène Schweizer/Günter Sommer
TOM HARRELL: Visions
KEITH TIPPETT: Mujician III (August Air)
MARILYN CRISPELL: For Coltrane
SIR ROLAND HANNA: Persia My Dear
CHARLES BRACKEEN: Worshippers Come Nigh
PHIL WOODS: Bop Stew
FRANK MORGAN: Reflections
HERB ROBERTSON: Shades of Bud Powell
CASSANDRA WILSON: Blue Skies
ART FARMER: Blame It On My Youth
STEVE TURRE: Fire & Ice
MICHAEL JEFRY STEVENS: Mosaic Sextet
YANK LAWSON: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue
BOBBY HUTCHERSON: Cruisin’ The ’Bird
TOOTS THIELEMANS: Only Trust Your Heart
UMO JAZZ ORCHESTRA: UMO Plays The Music Of Muhal Richard Abrams
J. J. JOHNSON: Quintergy: Live At The Village Vanguard
DANIEL HUMAIR: 9–11 p.m. Town Hall
BUDDY COLLETTE: Flute Talk
DOUG RANEY: The Doug Raney Quintet
JOHN HICKS: Naima’s Love Song
CARLA BLEY: Fleur Carnivore
ART HODES: Keepin’ Out Of Mischief Now
MAL WALDRON: No More Tears (For Lady Day)
HENRY THREADGILL: Rag, Bush And All
TOMMY FLANAGAN: Jazz Poet
DON GROLNICK: The Complete Blue Note Recordings
SCOTT HAMILTON: Plays Ballads
TIM BERNE: Fractured Fairy Tales
PUTTE WICKMAN: Some O’ This And Some O’ That
RICHARD DAVIS: One For Frederick
STANLEY COWELL: Sienna
HANK JONES: Lazy Afternoon
CARLO ACTIS DATO: Ankara Twist
ANDY SHEPPARD: Soft On The Inside
FRANZ KOGLMANN: A White Line
GARY THOMAS: While The Gate Is Open
JIM SNIDERO: Blue Afternoon
HORACE TAPSCOTT: The Dark Tree
LOUIS HAYES: Una Max
KENNY WHEELER: Music For Large And Small Ensembles
OSCAR PETERSON: The Legendary Live At The Blue Note
ODEAN POPE: The Ponderer
EITHER/ORCHESTRA: The Calculus Of Pleasure
CECIL TAYLOR: Celebrated Blazons
SUN RA: Mayan Temples
MUHAL RICHARD ABRAMS: Blu Blu Blu
GARY BARTZ: There Goes The Neighborhood!
CHICO HAMILTON: Arroyo
MEREDITH D’AMBROSIO: Love Is Not A Game
BUD SHANK: Lost In The Stars
THE ’90s
Part 1: 1991–1995
BOBBY PREVITE: Weather Clear, Track Fast
MCCOY TYNER: Soliloquy
JOEY BARON: Tongue In Groove
DONALD HARRISON: Indian Blues
SERGEY KURYOKHIN: Some Combinations Of Fingers And Passion
ITALIAN INSTABILE ORCHESTRA: Live In Noci And Rive De Gier
DON BYRON: Tuskegee Experiments
SONNY SHARROCK: Ask The Ages
DAVE BURRELL: The Jelly Roll Joys
HOUSTON PERSON: The Lion And His Pride
JANE BUNNETT: Spirits Of Havana
JOE WILDER: Alone With Just My Dreams
PER HENRIK WALLIN: Dolphins, Dolphins, Dolphins
CHARLES GAYLE: Touchin’ On Trane
BENNY GREEN: Testifyin’: Live At The Village Vanguard
JOE LOVANO: From The Soul
LARRY CORYELL: Twelve Frets To One Octave
JOHN TCHICAI: Grandpa’s Spells
TOM VARNER: The Mystery Of Compassion
HILTON RUIZ: Manhattan Mambo
LEW TABACKIN: I’ll Be Seeing You
TOMMY SMITH: Paris
GIANLUIGI TROVESI: From G To G
JOSHUA REDMAN: Joshua Redman
JOHN LINDBERG: Dodging Bullets
DAVE MCKENNA: A Handful Of Stars
STEVE GROSSMAN: I’m Confessin’
THOMAS CHAPIN: Night Bird Song
LEROY JENKINS: Solo
PHAROAH SANDERS: Crescent With Love
MASSIMO URBANI: The Blessing
BILL FRISELL: Have A Little Faith
DON PULLEN: Ode To Life
SHIRLEY HORN: Light Out Of Darkness
DON BRADEN: After Dark
ORPHY ROBINSON: The Vibes Describes
CECIL PAYNE: Cerupa
PAGO LIBRE: Shooting Stars And Traffic Lights
BILL DIXON: Vade Mecum / Vade Mecum II
JAN GARBAREK: Twelve Moons
MICHAEL MOORE: Chicoutimi
ERNIE WATTS: Reaching Up
KEITH NICHOLS: Henderson Stomp
GLENN SPEARMAN: Smokehouse
REGGIE WORKMAN: Summit Conferences
BARRY GUY: Study – Witch Gong Game II/10
HAROLD DANKO: After The Rain
STEVE LACY: 5 x Monk 5 x Lacy
PETER KOWALD: Was Da Ist
EVAN PARKER: 50th Birthday Concert
CLAUDIO RODITI: Free Wheelin’
JOHN ZORN: Bar Kokhba
RICH PERRY: Beautiful Love
JOHN SURMAN: A Biography Of The Rev. Absalom Dawe
RICHARD GALLIANO: Laurita
JOHN GILL: Looking For A Little Bluebird
ABDULLAH IBRAHIM: Yarona
JIM HALL: Dialogues
BRIAN LEMON: But Beautiful
DAVE DOUGLAS: Constellations
TONY COE: Captain Coe’s Famous Racearound
JOE MORRIS: No Vertigo
ROY HARGROVE: Parker’s Mood
DJANGO BATES: Summer Fruits (And Unrest)
SAM RIVERS: Portrait
JANE IRA BLOOM: The Nearness
NED ROTHENBERG: Power Lines
JACK WALRATH: Solidarity
KENNY GARRETT: Triology
JOE MANERI: Three Men Walking
FRANK LOWE: Bodies & Soul
Part 2: 1996–2000
MAKANDA KEN MCINTYRE: In The Wind: The Woodwind Quartets
DAVID MURRAY: Dark Star
TOMASZ STAŃKO: Leosia
PHIL MINTON: A Doughnut In One Hand
RUBY BRAFF: Being With You: Ruby Braff Remembers Louis Armstrong
CHARLIE HADEN: Beneath The Missouri Sky (Short Stories)
JOHN SCOFIELD: Quiet
SONNY SIMMONS: Transcendence
JOE MCPHEE: As Serious As Your Life
JAMES CARTER: Conversin’ With The Elders
KENNY DAVERN: Breezin’ Along
KURT ROSENWINKEL: East Coast Love Affair
ORNETTE COLEMAN: Colors
ELLERY ESKELIN: One Great Day
ROVA: Bingo
JESSICA WILLIAMS: Jessica’s Blues
DEWEY REDMAN: In London
CLAIRE MARTIN: Make This City Ours
TERELL STAFFORD: Centripetal Force
ALAN BROADBENT: Personal Standards
ARILD ANDERSEN: Hyperborean
GERRY HEMINGWAY: Waltzes, Two-Steps And Other Matters Of The Heart
ROSWELL RUDD: The Unheard Herbie Nichols: Volumes 1 & 2
MINGUS BIG BAND: Live In Time
MICHAEL MARCUS: This Happening
BRAD MEHLDAU: The Art Of The Trio: Volume 2 – Live At The Village Vanguard
T. S. MONK: Monk On Monk
MARILYN MAZUR: Small Labyrinths
VALERY PONOMAREV: A Star For You
FONDA/STEVENS GROUP: Evolution
MICHEL PORTAL: Dockings
BOB BROOKMEYER: New Works: Celebration
GEORGE E. LEWIS: Endless Shout
GUY BARKER: What Love Is
ELTON DEAN: Newsense
KEN PEPLOWSKI: Grenadilla
KENNY DREW JR: Passionata
DAVE DOUGLAS: Convergence
GREG OSBY: Banned In New York
PAUL BLEY: Not Two, Not One
EDDIE HENDERSON: Reemergence
MARTIAL SOLAL: Balade Du 10 Mars
CHRIS SPEED: Deviantics
CHARLIE MARIANO: Savannah Samurai
GEORGE COLEMAN: I Could Write A Book: The Music Of Richard Rodgers
ROY HAYNES: Praise
SATOKO FUJII: Kitsune-Bi
URI CAINE: Gustav Mahler In Töblach: I Went Out This Morning Over The Countryside
CHARLES LLOYD: Voice In The Night
JOE MORRIS: A Cloud Of Black Birds
VON FREEMAN: 75th Birthday Celebration
IAIN BALLAMY: Food
VINNY GOLIA: Sfumato
REBECCA KILGORE: Rebecca Kilgore
SPIKE ROBINSON: The CTS Session
ESBJÖRN SVENSSON: From Gagarin’s Point Of View
TRYGVE SEIM: Different Rivers
DAVID S. WARE: Live In The World
JOHN LEWIS: Evolution
WYNTON MARSALIS: Standard Time: Volume 6 – Mr Jelly Lord
STEFON HARRIS: BlackActionFigure
SILVER LEAF JAZZ BAND: New Orleans Wiggle
MATT WILSON: Smile
BUCKY PIZZARELLI: April Kisses
BOBO STENSON: Serenity
RYAN KISOR: Power Source
TERENCE BLANCHARD: Wandering Moon
BARRY GUY: Odyssey
MUNDELL LOWE: When Lights Are Lowe
WILLIAM PARKER: Mayor Of Punkville
ANDREW HILL: Dusk
STEVE KUHN: The Best Things
ISHMAEL WADADA LEO SMITH: Golden Quartet
RANDY SANDKE: Inside Out
MATS GUSTAFSSON: The Thing
BILL CHARLAP: Written In The Stars
PAUL DUNMALL: The Great Divide
WALLACE RONEY: No Room For Argument
WILLIAM HOOKER: Black Mask
BEN ALLISON: Riding The Nuclear Tiger
SONNY ROLLINS: This Is What I Do
GARY BURTON: For Hamp, Red, Bags And Cal
CHRIS POTTER: Gratitude
JOHN ELLIS: Roots, Branches & Leaves
AHMAD JAMAL: À L’Olympia
ERNST REIJSEGER: I Love You So Much It Hurts
AVISHAI COHEN: Colors
WARREN VACHÉ: 2gether
THE RECENT SCENE: 2001–2010
DICK HYMAN: Forgotten Dreams
ALEX CLINE: The Constant Flame
HENRY THREADGILL: Everybody’s Mouth’s A Book
JASON MORAN: Black Stars
KEITH JARRETT: Always Let Me Go
TREVOR WATTS: Trevor Watts And The Celebration Band
ENRICO PIERANUNZI: Live In Paris
DAVID SÁNCHEZ: Travesía
STEVE COLEMAN: Resistance Is Futile
CHICK COREA: Rendezvous In New York
IAN SHAW: A World Still Turning
HOWARD RILEY: At Lincoln Cathedral
CHARLIE HUNTER: Songs From The Analog Playground
JAMES EMERY: Transformations
DAVE HOLLAND: Extended Play
TORD GUSTAVSEN: Changing Places
CONRAD BAUER: Between Heaven And Earth
ADAM LANE: New Magical Kingdom
DEREK BAILEY: Ballads / Standards
GERALD WILSON: New York, New Sound
KALAPARUSH(A) MAURICE MCINTYRE: Morning Song
JOHN TAYLOR: Rosslyn
THE BAD PLUS: Give
WAYNE SHORTER: Alegría
WYNTON MARSALIS: Live At The House Of Tribes
PETER KING: Footprints
GORDON BECK: Not The Last Waltz
OLIVER LAKE: Dat Love
BRIAN LYNCH: Fuchsia/Red
MALACHI THOMPSON: Blue Jazz
VIJAY IYER: In What Language?
JEREMY PELT: Close To My Heart
ALEXANDER VON SCHLIPPENBACH: Monk’s Casino
KEN VANDERMARK: Elements Of Style / Color Of Memory
KURT ELLING: Man In The Air
ROVA: Electric Ascension
AKI TAKASE: The Dessert
DENNY ZEITLIN: Slickrock
LINCOLN CENTER JAZZ ORCHESTRA: A Love Supreme
GERI ALLEN: The Life Of A Song
ALAN BARNES: Songs For Unsung Heroes
DAVE BRUBECK: London Sharp, London Flat
SAMO ŠALOMON: Ornethology
MARK DRESSER: Unveil
STEVE HARRIS / ZAUM: Above Our Heads The Sky Splits Splits Open
ROSARIO GIULIANI: More Than Ever
KEVIN NORTON: Time-Space Modulator
POLAR BEAR: Dim Lit
RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA: Codebook
BEN GOLDBERG: The Door, The Hat, The Chair, The Fact
MARIA SCHNEIDER: Concert In The Garden
ROSCOE MITCHELL: Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3
MARTY EHRLICH: News On The Rail
BERNARDO SASSETTI: Unreal: Sidewalk Cartoon
JOHN BUTCHER: The Geometry Of Sentiment
DAVID HAZELTINE: Modern Standards
KAHIL EL’ZABAR: Live At River East Art Center
STEVE LEHMAN: Demian As Posthuman
MARTIAL SOLAL: Solitude
PETER EVANS: More Is More
INGRID JENSEN: At Sea
LOUIS SCLAVIS: L’Imparfait Des Langues
STEFANO BATTAGLIA: Re: Pasolini
ROBERT GLASPER: Canvas
MARIO PAVONE: Deez To Blues
MARK FELDMAN: What Exit
RAN BLAKE: All That Is Tied
MATTHEW SHIPP: One
RALPH TOWNER: Time Line
QUEST: Redemption: Quest Live In Europe
WAYNE HORVITZ: Way Out East
FRANÇOIS HOULE: La Lumière De Pierres
STEVE DAVIS: Update
RON MCCLURE: Soft Hands
DAVE BALLOU: Insistence
BRAD GOODE: Nature Boy
ANTHONY BRAXTON: Nine Compositions (Iridium) 2006
ADAM ROGERS: Time And The Infinite
LOREN STILLMAN: Blind Date
SAM NEWSOME: Monk Abstractions
MICHAEL BRECKER: Pilgrimage
RAVISH MOMIN: Miren (A Longing)
STEVE NOBLE: Obliquity
MYRA MELFORD: Big Picture
GARY SMULYAN: More Treasures
JOËLLE LÉANDRE: Winter In New York
TONY MALABY: Tamarindo
ANDREW RATHBUN: Affairs Of State
TINA MAY: The Ray Bryant Songbook
PETE MALINVERNI: Invisible Cities
MIKE REED: Last Year’s Ghost
MICHAEL MUSILLAMI: The Treatment
GONZALO RUBALCABA: Avatar
NICOLE MITCHELL: Xenogenesis Suite
CUONG VU: Vu-Tet
EVAN PARKER: The Moment’s Energy
LARRY OCHS: Stone Shift
JOE LOCKE: For The Love Of You
INDEX OF PERFORMERS
PENGUIN BOOKS
The Penguin Jazz Guide
Richard Cook was born in Kew and spent virtually all of his life in or around that part of London. An early passion for record collecting helped push him towards jazz and both interests endured. He got paid for a piece of music writing in 1979 and was so impressed that he kept going. He edited the Wire for seven years and was founding editor of Jazz Review; he also wrote for the Sunday Times, the New Statesman and Punch at different times and, in addition to the first eight editions of this book, was the author of a ‘biography’ of the Blue Note label, a study of Miles Davis and Richard Cook’s Jazz Encyclopedia, published by Penguin. He also presented a well-liked and thoroughly idiosyncratic jazz programme on London local radio, and made some documentaries for BBC Radio 3; didn’t like cameras much, though. Horse racing and malt whisky were his other passions and the only subjects on which he and his co-author ever disagreed. Sadly, Richard Cook succumbed to cancer in the late summer of 2007. He is greatly missed.
Brian Morton was born in Paisley. He was first published at the age of sixteen and has never stopped, though he has also worked as an academic, a newspaper journalist and a broadcaster on BBC Radios 3 and 4, and on BBC Radio Scotland, where he presented a daily arts programme for eight years. Jazz and improvisation gradually won out over other musical enthusiasms. Writing gradually won out over playing, and his improvising ensembles The Golden Horde, Phlogiston and People Without Government are now a distant memory. He lives with his wife, the landscape photographer Sarah MacDonald, and son John on a small farm in the west of Scotland. His older girls Fiona and Alice are there much of the time, too. Unlike Mr Cook, who was a devoted Islay malted man, Morton favours the great Speysides. With a good few drops of gypsy blood in his veins, he reckons he was a better judge of horseflesh, too. He misses the arguments.
For a major art form, jazz is still disarmingly young. It is possible, even now, to speak to a man who once listened to men who had been present at the birth of the music. This means that nothing in jazz is impossibly remote, and yet it too has its event horizon, for we can know nothing – or nothing beyond hearsay – of jazz before it was taken down and preserved on record. To that degree, the history of jazz is the history of jazz recording.
Not until Stravinsky was a classical career significantly shaped by recordings, but jazz came along at a remarkable moment of cultural and technological change. The means to preserve and reproduce it were there from the beginning, and this played some part in the music’s unprecedentedly rapid spread. If we take the Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s pioneering jazz recordings of January and February 1917 as the moment the music’s history begins, then by the end of the decade the music was not just known by a popular craze across Europe, and by the middle of the next decade it thrived on every continent.
Jazz was the first cultural phenomenon to justify the term ‘viral’. Three different contagions stalked the world in 1918 and 1919. The most obvious was so-called ‘Spanish ’flu’, which actually had its origins in Midwest army camps and was carried to Europe when American soldiers began to be sent in support of the war against the Kaiser. By 1920, the pandemic had claimed what is now estimated to be between 50 million and 100 million lives across the globe. There might seem little connection between the H1N1 virus and a new form of popular music, but the parallels are striking. Jazz spread along the very same vectors, brought out of America to Europe, Asia, South America and Australasia by representatives of a country which had suddenly turned its back on its isolationism and was anxious to bring the American message to the world. As if to confirm the connection, whenever the jazz bug bit, moral guardians were quick to characterize the music itself as febrile and convulsive, and instinctively likened it to an infection: jazz was ‘hot’; those who danced to it appeared to be in the grip of dangerous rigours; it exhausted the body and depleted the spirit. And it was unstoppable, carrying off the young and the fit, much as the ’flu did.
There was a third contagion. In 1917, the Tsarist government of Russia was overthrown by the Bolsheviks, a party whose avowed aim was the world spread of Communism. Almost as soon as it was born – and with scant regard to the ironies of presenting a music born in the aftermath of slavery as a banner for American freedoms – jazz was being presented as the music of individuality and self-reliance, a freethinking rhythm to set against the fixed march of Marxism. Needless to say, as Frederick Starr and others have shown, Russians were just as susceptible to jazz as everyone else.
It would be convenient to collapse the history of the two world wars of the 20th century and suggest that jazz was carried across the world by the sudden availability of jazz records. In fact, the main vectors remained for the moment human. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band (who lost one member to the ’flu) were in England a year after the war. James Reese Europe’s orchestra toured the following year. It would be some time before jazz records became the main vehicle, and only after the original association of jazz and social dance was severed.
It is another of the ironies of the music that at the time and in the place where jazz was at its most creative and fresh, jazz recording was most scant. There are almost no jazz records from New Orleans in the 1920s, though jazz was certainly born there. To complicate matters, it is clear that some musicians at least were suspicious of the music – Freddie Keppard feared that his ideas would be stolen – or misunderstood what was required of them and changed styles when they entered a recording studio, playing music that was far more formal than any they would have played at a dance or rent party. A music that famously flourished in the whorehouses and shebeens of Storyville was curiously eager to clean up its own act when the world listened.
Quality and quantity always exist in a series of curious inverse relationships. When the very best and newest jazz was being made, there was no one taking it down. Arguably – though we argue against it – when the music reached the end of its creative evolution, jazz recording became unstoppable, making use of new technology again to flood a very small market with an impossibly large amount of ‘product’.
When we began writing the Penguin Guide to Jazz (then quaintly subtitled on CD, LP and Cassette) twenty years ago, it was just about possible to claim that our first edition covered every jazz recording that was commercially available at time of writing. Two decades later, with LP and cassette consigned to the dustbin of history, that is no longer even remotely conceivable. The advent of CD and, very quickly thereafter, a vast proliferation of artist-owned labels – so much for the doomsday scenario of 1990 that one day soon everything would be run by two or three giant corporations – meant that there were soon many times too many CDs around even for two gluttonous listeners to listen to, let alone listen to often enough to form a proper judgement. What began as a comprehensive survey of available jazz recording has perforce evolved into a more selective account, though one that in its last edition still managed to cover more than 14,000 discs.
However, another issue intrudes, and a paradox. When we first published, a far larger proportion of what was available and reviewed was relatively recent material and much of it at least notionally modernist in style. Large tracts of music from the 1930s and 1940s had slipped out of the picture. By 2000 that picture was changing. By 2010, it has changed utterly. As well as encouraging creative initiative, the CD revolution has led to an enormous return of the repressed. Jazz recording now is unmistakably dominated by the back catalogue. Inevitably, the pressures are economic. Major labels find it easier to mine their own archives for reissues than to pay for new and innovative recordings: the first enjoys a sure market, the latter only an uncertain one. In addition, with copyright set at 50 years from the recording date, more and more recorded jazz enters the public domain each year. By 2000, copyright began to expire on the LP era, and the floodgates opened. In 2010, jazz finds itself in the extraordinary situation of commanding only 3 per cent of the total music market – ‘That’s wildly optimistic!’ one record company executive recently told us – but with an array of commercial product that is wildly disproportionate to that. The rock era is only now slipping out of copyright. Check how many more early Elvis Presley compilations there suddenly seem to be.
It may seem perverse in the face of such an embarrassment of riches to scale down our operations so drastically, but when it becomes impossible to offer comprehensive coverage of jazz recordings, the only sensible recourse is to wipe the slate almost clean and start with a highly selective approach. The 10th edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings is very much smaller than its predecessors. It makes no attempt to cover every star in the jazz firmament, or to review every work by the stars of greatest magnitude. Instead, it offers a simplified guide to the brightest constellations and, since we have also abandoned for the moment our alphabetical organization, a way of negotiating the history of the music from its earliest moments to the present.
A great deal of those earliest moments are now once again available to us, thanks to digital remastering and to the patient work of labels like Classics (perhaps over-represented in the early pages that follow), Hep, American Music and others. Many of the names of those years are among the great names of the music, familiar to all. The challenge, though, is to balance those unquestioned masters with the musicians who are still making the music today and still carrying forward its power to innovate and refresh. While we have a certain academic sympathy with the ‘death of jazz’ rhetoric that flourished for a time a decade or so ago, it is now clear that while jazz and improvised music have pushed harmony and rhythm, noise and silence as far as any of these is prepared to go, there is still a great deal of unclaimed land behind those frontiers where the music can still develop. Consequently, we have included a substantial number of very recent recordings in this edition.
It will be protested that it is impossible to judge whether a record made in 2004 or 2007 is ‘important’, let alone of classic status, because it simply has not been around long enough. We regard such an attitude as bad critical faith and take courage from the poet Robert Frost, who said it was laziness to leave posterity to do the work of judgement. A masterpiece is a masterpiece from the moment it is coined. The passage of time will either confirm that or, eventually and inevitably, turn it into a stepping stone for lesser talents or an Aunt Sally for ‘revisionist’ critics. Not only do we have confidence in our choices, but we are not inclined to think that jazz – however defined – came to an end in 1955 (death of Charlie Parker) or 1969 (Bitches Brew