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. "

So versatile that she was able to sustain a professional career for more than thirty years, jazz pianist, composer and arranger Mary Lou Williams ran the gamut from Dixieland to swing, bop and avant-garde. This album is among her 1960s avant-garde works, with intimate piano combos and vocal jazz choruses; it includes her well-known cantata, The Black Christ of the Andes (also available remastered and reissued on SFW40816 as a CD, complete with extensive liner notes and historic photos).

The list of musicians trumpet player Bunny Berigan and trombonist Jack Teagarden played with in the 1930s includes a vast array of jazz performers, from Tommy Dorsey to Louis Armstrong. Both musicians were equally at home with large and small ensembles, and this fine recording reflects their flexibility and musicianship.

Radio broadcasts of 1939 are the source of this extraordinary collection of tunes played by the Chick Webb Orchestra. One of the most respected bandleaders and drummers of swing, Webb is credited with an undefeated record in his Battles of the Bands at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem (including a victory over Benny Goodman in 1937) and with having discovered Ella Fitzgerald, who positively shimmers on ballads like "That Was My Heart" and "Deep in a Dream."

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.

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. In his liner notes to the final volume of Folkways' first Jazz series, Frederic Ramsey Jr.. writes, "[this album] includes fourteen notable performances arranged so as to touch lightly but firmly on as many highlights of Jazz development; it is a sort of a reprise... of all that has gone into the preceding ten volumes."

The piano got off to a late start in Jazz, notes Frederic Ramsey Jr., but, beginning with Jelly Roll Morton, it made up for lost time. Pianists became important in performance and composition. On this compilation, Morton, Earl Hines, Joe Sullivan, Fats Waller, Meade Lux Lewis, Mary Lou Williams and others put their blazing chops on display.

Most of the recordings on this collection were made by white Chicago high school students in the Roaring Twenties "who took Jazz for their text and, in the spirit of Jazz, improvised upon that text." the result? They dropped out of school, lost their girlfriends, had to leave home-and created a music of their own.

Here is a sampling of some of the most active Jazz vocalists of the 1920's, '30's and '40's: Louis Armstrong, Ivy Anderson, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Bessie Smith, Sonny Terry and Ma Rainey. They are backed by equally big-time instrumentalists: Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie and Bix Beiderbecke who, according to legend, threw a week's pay on the floor the first night he heard Bessie Smith, hoping her singing would never end.

This compilation reflects musicians' accounts of the growth of jazz, spotlighting forms they heard in New Orleans such as the march, rag, blues, spiritual and "standards. " Featured are Jelly Roll Morton's Quartet, the Johnny Dodd's Orchestra and the Red Onion Jazz Babies (with whom Louis Armstrong played), as well as the first known recording of "High Society" as jazz by the King Oliver Creole Jazz Band. Liner notes by Frederic Ramsey Jr..

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.

After rediscovering a tin box full of acetate recordings of jazz rehearsal sessions, Folkways founder Moe Asch pieced together a sequence that shows the on-the-spot creative energy musicians produce in the studio. This disc features Mary Lou Williams and her hand-picked group of session musicians, all innovators from the clubs of New York.

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.

At one point during it's heyday between 1900 and 1930, American factories produced player pianos six times faster than the country's population increased! This masterpiece of engineering performed a wide repertoire of classical and popular music, and the Piano Roll presents a range of tunes typically played by the standard home model.

2022 release. In These Times is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as McCraven's personal experience as a product of a multinational, working class musician community. It's the recording that he's been trying to create for 7+ years, as it's been consistently in process in the background while he's put forth a prolific run of releases including: In The Moment (2015), Highly Rare (2017), Where We Come From (2018), Universal Beings (2018), We're New Again (2020), Universal Beings E&F Sides (2020), and Deciphering the Message (2021). With contributions from over a dozen musicians and creative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators - including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, and Marquis Hill - the music was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work at home. Featuring orchestral, large ensemble arrangements interwoven with the signature "organic beat music" sound that's become his signature, the album is an evolution and a milestone for McCraven, the producer. But moreover, it's the strongest and clearest statement we've yet to hear from McCraven, the composer.

In a review of Jason Stein's debut album, The Story This Time (Delmark 2013), JazzTimes said "This record kills. The double-horn front line allows for torrid, bop-rooted synchronicity and numerous moments of unfettered exploration." Stein understands the bass clarinet's history and seeks to extend it's comfort zone, and he's not prone to move into the stratosphere, staying in the natural range on his instrument, but picking up the pace manually, the overland route, through force of will. Add to a couple tracks the contrabass clarinet of Keefe Jackson, which ratchets the sound down into the substrata a few notches, and the uncanny play between the anchor and the waves is even more pronounced.

Don Menza is a powerful tenor saxophonist, with a dynamic and distinctive sound and style. Born in Buffalo, NY in 1936, Menza was with Maynard Ferguson's Orchestra (1960-1962) as both a soloist and an arranger. A short tenure with Stan Kenton preceded joining Buddy Rich's 1968 big band in the "jazz tenor" chair, recording the famous solo cadenza on "Channel 1 Suite" (Recorded "live" at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas) that utilized circular breathing and has become known as a classic. He settled in California and has worked with Elvin Jones, Louie Bellson and as a long time member of The Tonight Show Band, with Johnny Carson.

Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) - solo piano.

Known by friends as Humph, trumpeter Humphrey Littleton was an English jazz musician who formed his first band in 1936 at the age of 15. He was inspired by Louis Armstrong who subsequently referred to Littleton as "that cat in England who swings his ass off." in the 50's Littleton shifted from New Orleans style Jazz to Swing Jazz and recorded with Buck Clayton. He remained active throughout his long life as a musician, record producer, broadcaster and cartoonist. This session was recorded in 1983 and features Humph on trumpet and clarinet with a Canadian band featuring Jim Galloway, soprano & baritone sax, clarinet; Ed Bickert, guitar; Neil Swanson, bass; Terry Clarke, drums.

The great Texas tenor delivers the goods on this 1978 quartet session featuring the same rhythm section of Wray Downes (piano), Dave Young (bass) and Pete Magadini (drums) that played with Don Menza on the reissue of Bones Blues (SAC 4004). Tate's first big break came in 1939 when at the age of 26 he joined the Count Basie band and took a killer solo on "Rock A Bye Basie". After ten years with Basie, Tate led his own band for a twenty-year stint at Harlem's Celebrity Club, toured Europe, made club appearances and numerous recordings. Remixed from the original analog tapes this is the first issue on CD of this album.

This December 1977 recording features two of the most prominent AACM musicians, Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton. Mitchell's composition "run the gamut, beginning with the darkly gorgeous opener that features Braxton's contrabass clarinet nestling evocatively beneath the composer's earthy flute, Mitchell's other pieces investigate the sparer, more abstract realm, as the duo's wide variety of reeds populate the sonic environment with scattered moans, squeaks and pops. Overall, this is a fine meeting between two of the most forward-looking thinkers and players in the music. Recommended. " - Brian Olewnick, allmusic. Com Anthony Braxton also contributes three compositions.

In 1976 George Lewis' association with Muhal Richard Abrams and the AACM led to recordings with Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton and a tour with Count Basie. Gradually his startling musicianship and the time-honored jazz virtues of a mellow tone and driving sense of rhythm, harnessed to a soaring imagination and technique became known to a growing number of listeners. Lewis came to play at A Space in Toronto his first solo concert and record this album. On "Toneburst (Piece for Three Trombones Simultaneously)", Lewis overdubbed all three trombone parts in the studio. The rest is solo.

Jazz pianist Don Pullen was taken away from us way too soon. He passed at age 53 in 1995. He could play anything from blues to straight ahead to the outer regions of avant garde jazz. This is a re-issue of his 1975 Sackville album originally titled Solo Piano Album. The new title track is a dedication to Muhal Richard Abrams who made his recorded debut on Delmark. "Suite (Sweet) Malcolm (Part 1: Memories and Gunshots)" is for Malcolm X. "Big Alice" is a tour de force embedded with all of Pullen's gospel and soul roots. "Song Played backwards" is a song Pullen decided to play in reverse of the note sequence he had composed! Pullen's music is fierce and joyous and alive, and his presence abides in every note here.

Born in Defiance, OH in 1906 Wild Bill Davison is one of jazz's most colorful cornet players of all time. Davison is best known for his association with Eddie Condon lasting from the mid - '40s into the 1960s. Recorded in 1968 this session was the result of a live engagement at Toronto's Colonial Tavern. The players were put together to play one gig billed as The Jazz Giants. The response was so tumultuous that return engagements were booked and arrangements were made for this recording. With Benny Morton, Herb Hall, Claude Hopkins, Arvell Shaw, Buzzy Drootin. Contains a previously unissued piano feature on "Three Little Words" and an alternate take of "Black And Blue."

Jazz trombonist Joseph Bowie was 22 years young when this live album was recorded. It was his second album and he was establishing his own name, his brother Lester Bowie was already internationally renowned. Shortly after Joseph would form Defunkt. Co-leader Oliver Lake also heralded from BAG, the St. Louis music collective. The extraordinary flutist/saxophonist would co-found The World Saxophone Quartet the year following this Toronto concert. "What Bowie and Lake played was an impassioned and demanding music of the moment that responded as much to what was written on their lead sheets or to their spontaneous concepts as it did to the ambiance of the moment." - Coda Magazine, June 1976