#2 Carolina Shout

Fats Waller playing the James P. Johnson signature piece, from a May 13, 1941 recording, via the 1987 RCA/Sony/BMG compilation "The Joint Is Jumpin'". The CD liner notes by pianist George Winston are excellent:

"Ironically, this was Fats' first recording of this James P. Johnson signature piece, one which was very influential on all the stride pianists in the early 1920's, and was generally the test piece at rent parties and "cutting contests," which showed who was the best stride player. These contests were legendary and were friendly but very competitive. With the limits of the three-minute 78 rpm record that existed in pre-tape recorder times, one can only wonder about the incredible music which must have been played at these gatherings. John Hammond, in his book John Hammond on Record, recalls a 1932 private engagement at which Fats played "Bugle Call Rag" for over 20 minutes. Again, unfortunately, performances like this one with all the amazing variations there must have been could not be preserved. Fats learned "Carolina Shout" when he was 16 in 1920 by slowing down the piano roll version, and later won a piano contest playing it. His power and tempo here are superb. Also, the first part of this piece influenced Joe Sullivan's famous composition "Little Rock Getaway."

#3 Where or When

Art Tatum in a V-Disc recording of the 1937 Rodgers and Hart tune written for the Broadway show "Babes in Arms," with a spoken introduction/dedication to the WWII era troops by Art Tatum. V-Discs were 12" 78 rpm records issued to the American Forces during WWII between 1942 and through 1948. They were sent to PX Centres and Radio Stations for the recreation of G.I.s. The records were a mixture of classical, vocals, popular, and jazz. Just over 900 different records were issued. Many titles were unique to V-Disc. Although pressed in their thousands, V-Discs have subsequently become extremely rare collector items, owing to their return and supervised destruction at the conclusion of the V-Disc program. The 12" form factor of the records provided a slightly longer playing time than standard 78 rpm records, which were limited to about 3 minutes of recording, and Art Tatum takes advantage of that here, with a 4:10 version of this tune, which shows off Tatum's marvelous left hand.

#4 Begin the Beguine

Erroll Garner on piano, Wyatt Ruther on bass, Eugene "Fats" Heard on drums, and Candido Damero on congas, doing a Cole Porter tune which he wrote for the 1934 Broadway musical "Jubilee." Recorded July 27, 1954 in Chicago. From the Compact Jazz: Erroll Garner compilation.

#5 Drifting Along with the Tide

This recording of George Gershwin's tune (written for the Broadway musical review "George White's Scandals of 1921" ) was made by Gershwin himself on Duo-Art piano roll, and recorded in 1987 for the Intersound compilation "The Entertainer: The Ragtime Music of Scott Joplin & George Gershwin." Gershwin owned a number of Duo-Art equipped pianos, and felt the sound produced from them was far superior to other recording methods of that time. What you're hearing here is essentially a modern recording of George Gershwin playing a piano solo, which could have been captured no other way, the limits of sound recording technology in his lifetime being what they were.

#6 Top Hat, White Tie and Tails

Fred Astaire with Oscar Petersen (piano), Charlie Shavers (trumpet), Flip Phillips (tenor sax), Barney Kessel (guitar), Ray Brown (bass), and Alvin Stoller (drums) from a December 1952 recording in Los Angeles for the project album "Fred Astaire: the irving berlin songbook", and yes, that little tap dance at the end is Mr. Astaire.

#7 Oleo

Another cut from the "Miles Davis Sextet: Jazz At The Plaza" CD from which we heard a different cut in the last program. Here, we have a Sonny Rollins tune originally introduced in a 1954 recording by Miles Davis with Rollins. The tempo here is faster, yet in other respects, this performance is a bit of be-bop on "I Got Rhythym" chord changes, that let alto saxophonist "Cannonball" Adderley and tenor saxophonist John Coltrane in for extended riffs, and also features pianist Bill Evans in a solo where he quotes "Rhythym" and his own variant of those changes "Five."

Good evenin' paulsc :)

Hi, again, phoenixc! You're officially a "regular" now, I guess. So, I should know what to set you up, when you walk in!

#8 Summertime

Stan Getz with The New Stan Getz Quartet (Gary Burton, vibes, Gene Cherico, bass, and Joe Hunt, drums) with a Gershwin-Heyward tune from "Porgy and Bess," recorded August 19, 1964 live at the Cafe Au Go Go in NYC.

Haha! Indeed! I'm sippin' some hot tea at the moment and getting ready to cozy up with some beads while I listen to your set.

#9 Versatile

Classical flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal and jazz pianist Claude Bolling teamed up in 1975 to create a classically influenced jazz album, that became a hit in the U.S., probably following on the popularity of recordings by flautist Hubert Laws on the CTI label. On this track, we hear Rampal playing bass flute. With Marcel Sabiani on drums, and Max Hediguer on bass.

#10 Jim's Jig

Wynton Marsalis with his tune from the 1988 album "Levee Low Moon: Soul Gestures in Southern Blue, Vol. 3" via the 2001 compilation "Popular Songs: The Best of Wynton Marsalis" with Marcus Roberts, piano, Wessell Anderson, alto saxophone, Todd Williams, tenor and soprano saxophone, Reginald Veal, bass, and Herlin Riley, drums. I particularly admire the warm, rich tone of Todd Williams on soprano sax in this cut, an instrument which is often heard as squeaky and poorly intoned, but here is very sweet.

#11 Naima

In the original liner notes for the album "Giant Steps," Nat Hentoff, co-editor of The Jazz Review, said:

"The tender Naima--an Arabic name--is also the name of Coltrane's wife. "The tune is built," Coltrane notes, "on suspended chords over an Eb pedal tone on the outside. On the inside--the channel--the chords are suspended over a Bb pedal tone." Here again is demonstrated Coltrane's more than ordinary melodic imagination as a composer and the deeply emotional strength of all his work, writing and playing. There is a "cry"--not at all necessarily a despairing one--in the work of the best of the jazz players. It represents a man's being thorough contact with his feelings, and being able to let them out, and that "cry" Coltrane certainly has."

#12 Got The Spirit

Trumpeter Maynard Ferguson died last year, but left us with a body of work, and a long line of people who he helped along in jazz, for which we should be grateful. This is a 1965 recording with the Maynard Ferguson Orchestra, of a Lionel Hampton tune, included on the 1989 compilation "The Best of the Jazz Trumpets."

#13 The Astaire Blues

Originally released as a 10" LP (an unusual 33 RPM record format) titled "The Oscar Peterson Quartet" Clef MGC 116, this is from a February 26, 1952 recording in Hollywood, by Oscar Peterson on piano, Barney Kessel on guitar, Ray Brown on bass, and Alvin Stoller on drums. Via the 2000 compilation "Oscar Peterson's finest hour."

#14 Silver Temple

The Chick Corea Elektric Band from their 1986 album, with a tune by Chick.

#15 Django

Ramsey Lewis and Billy Taylor with a tribute to Django Reinhardt written by John Lewis and recorded by many jazz groups, including the Modern Jazz Quartet.

Yay! I get to listen to paulsc on the new receiver, which I have not used yet - AND make fondue. Could the evening get any better? No.

You know, youngergirl44, when I read that fondue pot thread, I thought of a joint in Atlanta, down in Buckhead, Dante's Down the Hatch [embedded sound file!], which has terrific fondue, and usually, great jazz. That's probably the last time I had great fondue!

#16 Little Sunflower

Tito Puente's Golden Latin Jazz All Stars, with a well known Freddie Hubbard tune, from the 1992 RMM records release.

#17 Just Another Rhumba

Ella Fitzgerald with an orchestra led by Nelson Riddle, from the 1959 project album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook". The liner notes for the album describe this tune, as follows:

"Ira Gershwin does not remember precisely the origin of "Just Another Rhumba." It was begun for Fred Astaire: either Shall We Dance or, more likely, A Damsel in Distress. But it was not submitted to a studio until the Gershwins were at work on The Goldwyn Follies and the song was blocked out for Ella Logan. The number went into rehersal but was never shot; probably even in its tryout the distintive trio was not be used, for a line in it had read "It made me lose my wife-ah." Only for this -- its first -- recording did Ira provide an alternate line for a girl to sing: "Oh, where's a gun or knife-ah?" The notion of doing a rhumba about a rhumba seems predictably George-and-Ira. In the Thirties, both brothers had made trips to Havana, George's most famous souvenir being, of course, the inspiration for his orchestral "Rumba" -- later rechristened, Cuban Oveture. That piece had been composed in July 1932 and was premiered at Lewisohn Stadium, New York, August 16, 1932. Late in 1935, on a trip to Mexico, George paid his last visit to Cuba. He had hoped, without success, to find musical inspiration in Mexico; but perhaps the existence of "Just Another Rhumba" shows that the trip lingered with him, after all." Lyrically, "Just Another Rhumba" shows one facet of Ira Gershwin's talent for which he is well-known: an ability to distort rhymes for a humorous effect. And, as a final fillip to the song, there is in the line, "The rhumba that blighted my life", an allusion to the Al Jolson's vaudeville success, "The Spaniard That Blighted My Life."

I've never heard this tune done by Ella. I think I shall have to pick up this album when I get the chance...

It's actually a 3 CD box set, phoenixc. Tons o' good stuff!

#18 Blue In Green

The World Saxophone Quartet with Jack DeJohnette on drums does a smoky rendition of this Miles Davis tune from Kind of Blue from their 1998 tribute album.

#19 Till Then

The Mills Brothers weren't strictly known as jazz singers, any more than the Andrews Sisters would have been called jazz singers. And yet, the Mills Brothers have always impressed me as jazz musicians for their sense of harmony against melody, nowhere better illustrated than on this 1958 recording of a tune by Guy Wood, Eddie Seiler and Sol Marcus.

#20 I Will Say Goodbye

Once again, The Bill Evans Trio, with Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums, takes us out with the title track from the 1977 album of the same name. To recap, in this set, we heard:

1. McCoy Tyner - The Greeting (2:27)
2. Fats Waller - Carolina Shout (Piano Solo) (2:17)
3. Art Tatum - Where or When (4:10)
4. Erroll Garner - Begin the Beguine (4:42)
5. Scott Joplin & George Gershwin - George Gershwin - Drifting Along with the Tide (2:42)
6. Fred Astaire - Top Hat, White Tie and Tails (3:50)
7. Miles Davis - Oleo (10:38)
8. Stan Getz - Summertime (8:12)
9. Jean-Pierre Rampal & Claude Bolling - Versatile (With Bass Flute) (5:08)
10. Wynton Marsalis - Jim's Jig (8:48)
11. John Coltrane - Naima (4:24)
12. Maynard Ferguson - Got The Spirit (L. Hampton) (9:18)
13. Oscar Peterson - The Astaire Blues (12:01)
14. Chick Corea Elektric Band - Silver Temple (8:36)
15. Ramsey Lewis/Billy Taylor - Django (6:20) (6:22)
16. Tito Puente - Sunflower (9:17)
17. Ella Fitzgerald - Just Another Rhumba (5:37)
18. World Saxophone Quartet - Blue In Green (5:33)
19. The Mills Brothers - Till Then (2:58)
20. Bill Evans Trio - I Will Say Goodbye (3:30)


Until next time, kids, be swell, don't yell and get out of your shell!

Oooh...3 CDs....well, my bonus IS being paid out in a couple weeks...

As always, it's been grand. :)

Thank you, kindly, as always, phoenixc. And if you shop a bit, Ella doing various Songbooks, (Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and others) needn't set you back an arm and a leg. These are still "popular" albums, kept so by the continuing interest in Ella that her great voice inspires. If nothing else, her estate is guaranteed sales in the tens of thousands of units annually, just from voice students, thus keeping her catalog "in print" until such time as CD's are obsolete, and we're all beholdin' to the gods that own the digital music services' servers...

You can probably find this box set for under $20, if you look hard. :-)