Since his childhood as a percussionist in the Chicago Defender Boys' Band and his work with Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton's drumming and vibraphone playing have delighted audiences in person and on record. This collection includes tracks from Hamp's New Jazz Inner Circle's recording debut.

Pianist Joe Sullivan was a noted performer in Chicago, New York and San Francisco jazz circles. These rare recordings feature a string of buoyant solos, but he also joins Sidney Bechet, Pops Foster and George Wettling for an up-tempo combo and accompanies vocalist Stella Brooks in "Rabbit Foot Blues. "

There is no single kind of music that led to the creation of Jazz. Instead, the genre evolved, and continues to evolve, from diverse musical avenues. Following the popularity of swing music in the 1930's, Boogie Woogie-with it's characteristic walking bass pattern-captivated audiences and dancers. Performed by pianists like Count Basie and Meade Lux Lewis, this exciting rhythm provides-as Basie said-"four heavy beats to a bar, and no cheating."

This album presents a variety of blues, and in Brownie McGhee's singing are echoes of work and dance songs, as well as spirituals. Brownie himself once said, "I want to make music the way I know is real," and the blues on this collection exemplify his honest, powerful style.

Speckled Red (Rufus Perryman, 1892-1973) was one of the most irrepressible and enthusiastic proponents of barrel-house piano, a style born of rowdy roadhouses and closely associated with boogie-woogie but louder and more raucous. Red-born in Georgia and well traveled-was a self-taught player, never letting the finer points of the correct chord interfere with his own enthusiasm for the music. This collection of originals, Red's only collection on Folkways, showcases his singing and rhythmic approach to the keyboard. Red provides introductions to most of his tunes, offering further insight into the artist. The liner notes further explain the nuances of barrel-house piano.

Walter E. "Furry" Lewis (1893-1981), was a Mississippi-born, Memphis-bred guitarist and singer whose early fame was based on his 1927 recordings for the Victor label. When the Depression ended most of the recording in the South, Furry took a job as a laborer for the city of Memphis. He lived in musical obscurity until he was "re-discovered" by producer Sam Charters in the late 1950s. Lewis's version of "John Henry" is a powerful example of early southern blues. This collection also includes Lewis's oral history of his early days as a bluesman, as well as the story of his musical education in several styles of blues guitar. The liner notes include a discography of Lewis's early recordings.

Best known for his blues harmonica recordings, Sonny Terry joins friends Brownie McGhee and J.C. Burris to explore the range of the jawharp (also known as Jew's harp or mouth harp) in blues and American folk music. According to producer Charles Edward Smith, Terry's vocal responses to the sounds of the jawharp, one of the world's oldest musical instruments, recall traditional African and African-American call-and-response patterns, which influenced the blues music of Terry's generation. 13 tracks, 45 minutes, with liner notes which include the history of the jawharp, Sonny Terry's musical background, and song descriptions.

This fascinating album of storytelling and music includes some of minstrel, composer, businessman, and bluesman Perry Bradford's best-known works, including "That Thing Called Love," the first song ever recorded by Mamie Smith for Okeh Records in 1920. Singer Noble Sissle's interview with Bradford provides narration for this selection of songs.

An influential figure in the growth of the Southern blues tradition, William "Jazz" Gillum (1904-1966) had the kind of life from which the blues spring. Orphaned, starved, threatened, shot at, beaten, and discriminated against, Gillum's style, as heard throughout this recording-and as described in the liner notes-is unsurprisingly "sometimes harsh, sometimes poetic, with it's expressive delayed beat and strong rhythm, and it's bitterness tinged with nostalgia." He is joined on this album by Arbee Stidham (vocals and guitar) and Memphis Slim (organ and piano), associates from his early professional jobs in Chicago in the 1930s. Liner notes include song lyrics and a biography of Gillum, who lived and sang the blues his whole life.

At the time his music was recorded in 1952, highly-respected trumpet player Kid Clayton was somewhat elusive, playing with pick-up marching bands but with no steady ensemble. After some effort, composer and jazz aficionado Alden Ashforth arranged a recording session, which features Clayton's buoyant trumpet playing alongside a host of skilled musicians, including Joe "Kid" Avery on trombone.

These kings of stride have got rhythm! The immortal Fats Waller and his Rhythm get together with Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden in a radio broadcast recorded live at Martin Block's Make Believe Ballroom in October 1938, while father of the stride piano and Waller's teacher James P. Johnson brings Omer Simeon and Pops Foster in to play with his trio.

This double set brings together thirty-five sides recorded by Mary Lou Williams for Moses Asch between 1944 and 1947. Twenty-eight of these songs were previously only released on 78 rpm, and this collection includes solo and trio performances, as well as small-group and big band recordings.

This fascinating album follows jazz drummer Baby Dodd's as he demonstrates the sonic elements of his famous solos and discusses these component parts with the attentive audience. From a discussion of drumming in the 1920s to a tom-tom "workout," Dodd's' album is as entertaining as it is educational.

This compilation remembers the early days of jazz, when Buddy Bolden's band started playing it's iconoclastic arrangements of new songs. Recorded interviews join instrumental rags and cabaret music in this sonic snapshot of New Orleans history.

Although he made many recordings in the 1950s and 1960s, this collection presents Doc Evans' first tracks for Folkways' forerunner, Disc Records, in 1947. The musicians' spirited ensemble playing brings the listener back to pre-Dixieland revival days, and this album offers new interpretations of old favorites.