Ray Charles’ radical reinterpretations of country standards sound so dated now it’s really hard to appreciate them both for their radical boundary-breaking (black performers didn’t perform white music much at all at the time) and for the way in which Charles reinvigorated soul music with a new source of inspiration and a new avenue down …
Tag: Swing
Piano Man! His Greatest Recordings (1995) by Earl Hines
This is collection of 25 recordings featuring Earl Hines – solo, leading his orchestra, with Armstrong, Bechet and some other, less famous bandleaders. It jumps around a little too much… The title track appears to be the 1939 “Piano Man” (there are four, confusingly) and it’s more of a celebration of Hines’ legend than anything …
Ken Burns Jazz (2000) by Fletcher Henderson
This is a decent one-disc compilation of Fletcher Henderson’s big bands, which are more notable for the featured performers than for anything Henderson did (with an exception or two). Like all single disc compilations of a productive artist, it doesn’t give us the greatest picture of his work. But what it does function as is …
The Best of Tommy Dorsey and His Clambake Seven (1997 Retrieval)
Dorsey – along with his brother – was often accused of not playing “jazz”, something of a hurtful accusation to someone who felt he was a jazz musician. This was actually a fairly common thing in the ’30s when jazz and popular dance music were pretty tough to distinguish. (To this day, many people will …
Young Miles (1945-50, 2001) by Miles Davis et al. (1945-50, 2001)
For die-hard fans of Miles Davis, or for people really interested in how cool came out of bop, this is probably pretty nearly essential.