The very fact that America's biggest jazz label called one of their albums quite simply Ella and Louis indicates that we are talking about something very special here. And surely enough has been said - "Satchmo" and the grande dame of jazz certainly need no further introduction. In the '50s just the mere mention of their forenames was ...

There isn't much one can say about an album whose title is Ella And Louis Again. The "again" obviously means they've already done one album together and beyond that, what can you say about two people like Ella and Louis? I doubt that there's anyone today who loves music, who doesn't know Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. The backing, ...

Considered one of Ella's greatest recordings, she's backed on this 1960 release by pianist Paul Smith. Let No Man Write My Epitaph was a 1960 Hollywood movie featuring Fitzgerald. The album hits at a depth of emotional understanding that critics often complained was missing in Ella's reading of jazz lyrics, and once again establishes ...

Ben Webster had long before passed through the ranks of imitator, then pupil and finally master. His "college attendance," as one might put it, in the Duke Ellington Orchestra gave him a sureness of expression in his great showpieces and he also learned to hold his own against such musical giants as Paul Gonsalves and Jimmy Hamilton. "Hawk" was ...

Sonny Stitt led a number of excellent record dates in 1959, especially at the end of the year when he produced three LPs for Verve over a span of three sessions with pianist Lou Levy, bassist Leroy Vinnegar and drummer Mel Lewis. Playing alto sax throughout this album, Stitt hardly sounds like a Charlie Parker clone, something that unfortunately ...

As critic Nat Hentoff makes clear, Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster were larger than life. Formidable, even forbidding presences, they revealed a depth of feeling in their playing that spoke of their vast life experiences, as great writers or painters speak through their work.

Recorded in 1957.

Coleman Hawkins, tenor ...

When Norman Granz signed Johnny Hodges to a recording contract in 1951, it was a prelude to Hodges' leaving the Duke Ellington orchestra to lead his own small band. Four years later Hodges was back in the Ellington fold, but he continued to record for Granz under his own name. Side By Side, recorded in 1958 and 1959, is a throwback to ...

Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson brings together two of the greatest stylists American music has produced. Here, in a program of timeless songs, pianist Oscar Peterson is the perfect foil - his effortless swing an excellent set-up for the unhurried scoops, slurs, and bent notes of tenor saxophone balladeer Ben Webster - just the way he ...

One of the giants of the alto saxophone, Johnny Hodges was perhaps the most important soloist and sideman in Duke Ellington's orchestra from 1928 up to Hodges' death in 1970. The self-taught player made many solo forays during his long career - one of his '50s outfits included a young John Coltrane - but history remembers Hodges for his ...

The words "bossa nova" are often synonymous with the name Stan Getz. But North Americans might not have ever known the bright sound of bossa nova had it not been for Charlie Byrd. In 1961 Byrd returned from a tour of South America, where bossa nova music was thriving. The style was the invention of singer Joao Gilberto and songwriter Antonio ...

Recorded during the last decade of his long tenure with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, this album finds the great alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges' musical gifts not only intact but stronger than ever. Featuring the Ellington band - with Jimmy Jones on piano and Billy Strayhorn as bandleader and arranger - it is a fascinating program of Ellington ...

This album came about through a fortuitous convergence of circumstances. Shelly Manne & His Men were appearing at New York's Village Vanguard, sharing the bill with the Bill Evans Trio. Getting Riverside's permission to let the pianist participate, Creed Taylor set up a session at Rudy Van Gelder's studio with Evans and Manne sharing top ...

Astrud Gilberto says that her husband, Joao, informed Stan Getz that she "could sing at the recording." Creed Taylor recalls that it took Getz's wife, Monica, to get both Astrud and Joao into the recording studio; Mrs. Getz had a sense that Astrud could make a hit. And Getz himself is on record saying that he insisted on Astrud's ...

A legendary session recorded at a New York nightclub (and augmented by a few tracks recorded in the studio), Smokin' At The Half Note captures Wes Montgomery at the height of his improvisational powers, backed by a sympathetic and hard-driving rhythm section. Many consider it the best performance on record by one of the most inventive ...

A blowing session that matches him with fellow tenorist Harold Ashby in a program of loose originals.

Originally released in 1961.