The Dorsey Brothers Orchestra - All The Hits And More 1928-35 [It's fascinating to hear two such fine musicians and leaders in collaboration] Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey were both highly successful musicians and bandleaders during the early jazz and swing eras, but for a few years during the early part of their careers they had a joint enterprise called The Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, which was hugely popular and successful, racking up 25 hits in the space of eight years from 1920s into the '30s. Maybe inevitably, as two strong-minded personalities, they had a falling-out, and went their separate ways to have long and illustrious careers into the 1950s. This 72-track 3-CD collection comprises selected A&B sides from their releases on the Okeh, Banner Harmony, Melotone, Columbia, Brunswick, Vocalion and Decca labels from these years. It includes all their 27 hits from this era, including the No. 1s "Lullaby Of Broadway" and "Chasing Shadows", and the Top 5 entries "What A Difference A Day Made", "I Believe In Miracles", "You Are My Lucky Star" and "I've Got A Feeling You're Foolin'". There are many big names among their featured vocalists, and those with performances included in this collection are Scrappy Lambert, Bob Crosby, Ethel Waters, Bing Crosby, Mildred Bailey, Irving Kaufman, Kay Weber, Chick Bullock, Jean Bowes, Elmer Feldkamp and more. It's fascinating to hear two such fine musicians and leaders in collaboration, and this collection offers a substantial overview of their time together as well as a feast of early swing music.

Most of Beethoven's ten violin sonatas were composed within a time span of no more than 6 years (1797-1803), with the exception of the last one, op. 96, which he began in 1812, taking probably a further 3 years to revise to his satisfaction. This means the set as a whole represents a relatively young Beethoven, though his development from the early Op. 12 sonatas to the "Kreutzer" Op. 47 clearly demonstrates a formidable inner creative force. His cello sonatas, string quartets and symphonies are more evenly spaced throughout his life, but the violin sonatas lack nothing in invention, range of expression and feeling. As so often in Beethoven's early works the intensity of the slow movements stands out.

Andre Previn - Early Years 1945-53 / Among his remarkable musical accomplishments, he was a brilliant pianist, and even at this early stage of his career - Andre Previn was a celebrated German/American pianist, composer and conductor, whose long career - he died in 2019 at the age of 89 - encompassed movie music, jazz and classical music. He composed or arranged music for more than 50 films, and was music al director and conductor for many top symphony orchestra as well as composing classical art music. This collection focuses on his early career as a jazz pianist. His family, who were Jewish, left Berlin for Paris and then the USA in 1938, and when he graduated from high school in Los Angeles in 1946, started working at MGM studios. However, by then he was already playing jazz piano in Hollywood clubs and had made his first records. This 66-track 3-CD collection comprises most of his recordings from these early years as a solo pianist, with small groups and with strings, released on the Sunset, V-Disc, Monarch, RCA-Victor and Tops labels. It includes the titles from his "Andre Previn Plays George Gershwin" and "Andre Previn Plays Fats Waller" albums. He was especially noted for his recordings with his trios, and this set features trio and quartet recordings with Irving Ashby, Red Callender, Lee Young, Al Viola, Charles Parnell, Jackie Mills, Bob Bain, Ralph Collier, Lloyd Pratt, Art Shapiro, Irv Cottler, Al Hendrickson Buddy Clark and Shelly Manne. Among his remarkable musical accomplishments, he was a brilliant pianist, and even at this early stage of his career, his playing is fast, fluent and imaginative, and this collection offers a fine showcase for those talents.

The arrival of tenor saxophonist Dick Morrissey onto the British jazz scene in the early 1960s was nothing less than a revelation. Although only twenty-one - and having played his instrument for barely a few months - Morrissey already had it all; tone, taste, invention and above all swing, as his debut album, 'It's Morrissey, Man!', recorded in 1961, displayed in winning fashion.

Earl Hines was one of the great jazz pianists, and was often dubbed the first modern jazz piano player. However, he enjoyed substantial success and popularity during the New Orleans revival of the '50's, playing with a variety of line-ups. Especially in San Francisco, which was a hotbed of the heightened interest in traditional jazz. This collection comprises six previously unreleased radio broadcasts recorded 'live' at the Black Sheep Club in San Francisco in 1961, which are part of the archive of largely unreleased material known as the Ackerman Collection.

The Cajun musical sound of Louisiana is more often associated with artists from the 1960's like Clifton Chenier and Rockin' Dopsie. The black artists actually performed in the style known as Zydeco, a mixture of Cajun music performed in French by the settlers of the area was a white music more associated with folk and country. It was first recorded in the 1920's and this collection brings together many examples of this rural music from that decade and the 30's. Among the artists featured are such pioneers of the genre as the Hackberry Ramblers and the Falcon Trio. Acrobat. 2003.

Herbie Hancock is an innovative and influential jazz pianist, keyboard player, bandleader and composer who has embraced other musical developments during his career, playing funk and using synthesisers as he explored beyond the scope of the post-bop style which he helped to define as a member of Miles Davis' second great quintet from 1963. Born in 1940, he was 20 years old when he played his first recording session in early 1961, and this absorbing 21-track 2-CD collection includes titles from that session and from almost every session he recorded during the next couple of years, notably his first recordings as a leader, namely the album "Takin' Off", which is included here in it's entirety. That album includes his landmark composition "Watermelon Man", which has become a ubiquitous standard. Alongside that album are recordings with trumpeter Donald Byrd and tenor saxist Pepper Adams, and groups led by other luminaries such as Roland Kirk, Eric Dolphy and Freddie Hubbard, and alongside noted sidemen such as Dexter Gordon. It's a fascinating and entertaining insight into the early career of an emerging jazz legend.

Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross revolutionised the world of vocal jazz in the 1950s with their unique musical and lyrical techniques that combined bop harmonies with complex lyrical settings along with scat and vocalese, the latter building on the styles of Slim Gaillard and Ella Fitzgerald, to create a unique sound that laid the groundwork for later groups like Manhattan Transfer. Blending the talents of Lambert as arranger, Henricks as lyricist and Ross as a lithe and dexterous jazz voice, the trio recorded a series of ground-breaking albums which drew admiration from jazz musicians and attracted an army of fans. This great-value 43-track 2-CD set comprises all the titles from the albums "Sing A Song Of Basie", "Sing Along With Basie, on which they are joined by vocalist Joe Williams as well as Count Basie's Orchestra, "The Swingers", on which tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims leads the accompanying jazz quintet, and "The Hottest New Group In Jazz", where they are accompanied by the Ike Isaacs Trio. In addition, it includes Lambert & Hendricks first recording under their own name "Four Brothers" and a 'live' track from the 1959 Playboy Jazz Festival. It admirably showcases the breath-taking complexity of their style across the recordings on which they developed their unique approach and which established their reputation.

HELTER SKELTER

Florence Foster Jenkins was a New York socialite who, despite being a hopelessly incompetent 'singer', believed herself to be an operatic soprano of note, and performed for invited audiences at recitals for thirty years or more until her death in 1944, just weeks after her only public performance at Carnegie Hall, which attracted an incredulous response. She was unable to pitch a note accurately or hold a tune, nor did she have any sense of rhythm or timing, and this collection of the private recordings she made in the early 1940s admirably portray her singular lack of talent. She acquired a cult legendary status over the years, to the extent that in 2016 a high profile feature film biopic is being released, starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, which will prompt a new surge of interest in her recordings. This release contains all the pieces she consigned to disc, comprising coloratura arias from well-known operas along with contemporary art songs, two written by her regular piano accompanist Cosme McMoon. It is simultaneously astonishing and hilarious, and for once the description of "unique" is amply justified.

Dexter Gordon was one of the first tenor saxophonists to embrace the new bebop jazz idiom being developed by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Bud Powell during the mid-1940s, and went on to enjoy a career which eventually encompassed four decades. His musical philosophy was that he played to entertain and communicate with his audience, and with his imposing 6' 6" stature and jocular stage presence, allied to his big sound, he was a highly distinctive performer. He was a major force in the development of modern saxophone style, building on the influences of Lester Young to become himself an influence on the likes of Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. This collection focuses on the first decade or so of his recording career, from his 1941 recording debut with The Lionel Hampton Orchestra and sessions with The Billy Eckstine Orchestra and Dizzy Gillespie, then incarnations of his own small groups, most notably his legendary tenor sax 'duels' with Wardell Gray in the late '40s and early '50s through to 1952, when his career was interrupted for a few years by brushes with the law over his drug use. It includes several of the marvellously exciting extended 'live' performances with Gray, which along with the studio recordings provide an entertaining insight into his artistry

This continues the strand of R&B and country collections associated with Acrobat's highly popular "America's Greatest Hits" series, this one focusing on the top R&B records in the US Billboard charts during 1960. This great value 115-track 4-CD anthology includes, with the exception of certain records which are unavailable for inclusion due to copyright restrictions, just about every record which peaked in the Billboard R&B Top 15 during that year. By this time, the R&B scene had evolved considerably as the rock 'n roll scene had matured and Tin Pan Alley had marketed it's teen-oriented offshoots, and there was an exciting feel to the charts, with substantial crossover of pop artists into the R&B chart and vice versa, with artists like Jackie Wilson, The Drifters, Ray Charles and Sam Cooke. The big chart winner of the year was Brook Benton, with three No. 1s and 23 weeks at the top, fourteen of those with Dinah Washington. With the blurring of the boundaries between the genres, the more traditional blues and R&B artists whose music had helped lay the groundwork for rock found it harder to reach the top positions. However, there was still a solid representation of old school blues artists like B.B. King and Jimmy Reed, and top class R&B singers like Etta James, Bobby Bland and James Brown formed the core of the chart, as well as the first chart incursions from the Motown stable by Barrett Strong and Marv Johnson. As with all these collections, it provides a window onto a dynamic and exciting musical environment, and includes a number of unfamiliar names and recordings of which even enthusiasts of the genre may not be too aware, and which will be welcome additions to their collections. It contains a 12,000+ word booklet featuring background notes on every record.

Little Brother Montgomery - Vicksburg Blues: The Singles & Albums Collection 1930-61 - It's a fascinating and substantial overview of two different phases of his career, and offers an entertaining showcase for his highly personal style. - Little Brother Montgomery was a blues, boogie-woogie and jazz pianist and singer, who was hugely versatile, working solo and with bands, and equally impressive across all the genres, with a highly distinctive style. Born in Louisiana near New Orleans, he was influenced by family friend Jelly Roll Morton, and over the years was associated with the Mississippi town of Vicksburg, which gave it's name to several of his song titles, and Chicago, where he later worked and made most of his records. This 72-track 3-CD collection comprises the A & B sides of just about all his releases on the Paramount, Melotone, Bluebird and Century labels from 1930-47, along with titles from the 1954 album "Windin' Ball Recordings" on Saydisk, the 1960 album "Tasty Blues on Bluesville and the 1961 album "Blues" on Folkways. It comprises many solo recordings, plus some with his jazz quintet, featuring trumpeter Lee Collins, and recordings with singers Irene Scruggs, Annie Turner and Creole George Guenson. It's a fascinating and substantial overview of two different phases of his career, and offers an entertaining showcase for his highly personal style.

Johnny Hodges - The Clef & Norgran Albums 1951-54 - It's a snapshot of a particular and intriguing phase of Johnny Hodges' career. - Johnny Hodges was a jazz alto saxophonist, who enjoyed a performing and recording career that lasted from the 1920s through to his death in 1970. Best-known for his work with Duke Ellington, he had a pure tone and economy of melody on both the blues and ballads that won him admiration from musicians of all eras and styles, and made him ubiquitous on recording sessions across the spectrum of jazz. He occasionally led his own bands, and this 41-track 2-CD collection focuses on albums he made in a concentrated period in the mid-1950s with his small orchestra for the Clef and Norgran labels, owned by renowned impresario and producer Norman Granz, which were forerunners of Verve. It features the titles from the albums. "Johnny Hodges Collates", "Johnny Hodges Collates No. 2", "Swing With Johnny Hodges", "Memories of Ellington", "Castle Rock", "The Blues" and "In A Tender Mood", with some of the titles appearing on more than one album. A number of the titles were also released as singles, and two of them "Castle Rock " and "A Pound Of Blues", were US R&B hits. It naturally features some notable musicians of the era, including Al Sears, Leroy Lovett, Billy Strayhorn, Al McGibbon, Sonny Greer, Emmett Berry, Lloyd Trotman, Flip Phillips, Red Callender, Ray Brown, J.C. Heard and others. It's a snapshot of a particular and intriguing phase of Johnny Hodges' career, and a great showcase for his understated virtuosity as a jazz musician and leader.

Blind Willie Johnson was a singer, songwriter and guitarist who is widely recognised as having been the leading exponent of what was occasionally called "holy blues" - blues music with religious subject matter that as result could also be termed gospel music, which as a result was highly distinctive and unusual. Born in Texas in 1897, he was blinded by his stepmother during a domestic confrontation when he was seven, and turned to music, performing around his native state from the 1920s through to near his death in 1945, but was active as a recording artist only between 1927 and 1930, recording four sessions in Dallas and one in Atlanta. This 30-track 2-CD collection comprises his complete recordings for Columbia across his career, on occasions accompanied on vocals by his first wife Willie B. Harris. Among the titles it features the highly-acclaimed and influential recordings "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed", "It's Nobody's Fault But Mine", "Mother's Children Have A Hard Time", and "John the Revelator". It's a comprehensive and worthy showcase for a distinctive and unique artist.