Saturday, July 08, 2006

Verve Vault Series

Verve Vault Series




Years ago, I managed a record store in Cleveland, Ohio. There was a Verve release we could never keep in stock: either someone bought it or someone shop-lifted it. The LP was “Bumpin” by Wes Montgomery and the song everybody wanted was “Bumpin on Sunset”. In those days, Wes Montgomery was quite popular and his collaboration with the producer Creed Taylor set the template for a style of pop jazz that is still around today.
Recently, I have been scrolling through the Verve Music Group site and looking at their Vault Series; a large collection of out-of-print albums that have been digitally released on I-Tunes. Wow! There is an incredible amount of great music here that covers every style of jazz. From the funk stylings of Bill Doggett to the avant garde sounds of Archie Shepp. To give a small taste of what’s available, here is a list of ten albums:


Anita O’Day–“Live at Mister Kelly’s” O’Day was a hard-swinging vocalist and from the 40s to the 60s she recorded over 20 albums for Verve. This album is a live performance from Chicago’s Mr. Kelley’s. Real nice versions of “But Not For Me” and “Star Eyes”.

Art Blakey-“The Complete Art Blakey on Emercy” Blakey was an exciting drummer and his bands were the springboard for many fine musicians including Horace Silver, Donald Byrd and Wayne Shorter to name a few. This album features Gigi Gyrce and great version of his tune, “Minority”.

Alice Coltrane-“World Galaxy” One of her strongest releases. Recorded in 1971, it is a continuation of John and Alice Coltrane’s explorations of “spiritual music”. It has a wonderful version of “Love Supreme” and the voice of Swami Satchinanda over the music of “Galaxy in Satchinanda”.

Joe Harriott-“Indo Jazz Fusions I and II” A bit obscure but one of my favorites in this collection, is Joe Harriott’s attempt,
with a number of fellow English musicians, to fuse jazz and Indian music. He succeeds. This album is well worth another listen. This is “world music” long before the genre became the force it is today.

Gil Evans-“Into the Hot” Evans, the great arranger for Miles Davis, made two albums for Impulse; one was called “Out of Cool” and it is well worth another listen and the other was “Into the Hot” which features the relentless piano work of Cecil Taylor.

George Russell-“Jazz in the Space Age” Russell, like Evans, was an innovator both the small groups and with orchestra. Done around the same time as his wonderful LP “New York, New York” which features the poetry of Jon Hendricks, “Jazz in the Space Age” features a large orchestra and such solists as Bill Evans and Bobby Brookmayer.

Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge & Johnny Hodges-“Live at the Village Gate” Three giants of jazz doing such tunes as “Satin Doll”, “Perdido” and “Caravan”. Enough said.

Machito- “Afro-Cuban Suite” Long before Ry Cooder discovered Cubam music, the be-bop musicians, particularly Dizzy Gillespie, brought Afro-Cuban rhythms into jazz. The LP was one of the first serious attempts to combine the music of Cuba with jazz. A very exciting adventure and it features Charlie Parker.

Shirley Scott-“Roll Em” Shirley Scott, the great jazz organist, pays tribute to the big bands. The list of musicians on this album is truly incredible. The arrangements are by Oliver Nelson and the band includes the likes of Thad Jones, Joe Newman, Clark Terry, Phil Woods and Grady Tate.


Does that list whet your appetite? There are many more gems available in this series. Look what you can get from the late, great Clifford Brown alone.
There are over a dozen albums of Clifford Brown available in this series, six of them from his collaboration with Max Roach. We will leave you with a list of other artists that are generously represented in the Verve Vault Series:
Count Basie, Betty Carter, Bud Powell, Stan Getz, Jimmy Smith, Oscar Peterson, Quincy Jones.
So fire up that computer and start downloading. Get whole albums or just your favorite cuts. Makes for a very tasty mix CD.

Next time around, Discovering Music will go in a different direction. Check out our article entitled “Punk Medieval” and we will tell you about a number of groups that are bringing a new fresh sensibility to the performance of “early music”.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home