Jazz impression of Black Orpheus. In the early 60s, the Brazilian import called bossa nova swept through jazz. The music's most prominent composer was Antoinio Carlos Jobim, and his score for the 1959 motion picture Black Orpheus was packed with songs adopted by jazz musicians. Vince Guaraldi was one of the earliest to grasp the ...

One of the pivotal recordings in bringing about the widespread acceptance of Sonny Rollins as a major figure, Saxophone Colossus inspired critics to write scholarly analysis and fans to revel in the hard-swinging invention, humor and tender-strength balladry. Up to this album, while most musicians recognized Rollins as one of the new ...

This 1961 set of standards, favoring ballads, is Gene Ammons in his prime. For the most part, this session is tight and structured, keeping Ammons firmly locked in the groove more so than on some of his more wandering dates. His big-as-a-house tone stands center stage in front of a sympathetic piano-bass-drums trio of Richard Wyands, Doug ...

Monk's second album for Riverside continued the label's initial plan to broaden his audience by the use of recognizable standard tunes instead of his somewhat frightening originals. Thelonious' uncompromising performances, along with major league support (Art Blakey and Oscar Pettiford) and strong material, helped to turn this concept into ...

Although always recognized as a trumpeter with unsurpassed lyrical qualities, Chet Baker had many ups and downs in his long career. The very late 1950's was not an up period; the West Coast label he was under contract to readily allowed Riverside to borrow him as leader on four albums. Most of them were extremely uneven, but this one ...

Cookin' was the first album to be released of the famed extended recording sessions of the Miles Davis Quintet, wherein they taped the band's basic repertoire (and what a marvelous mixture of jazz originals and standards) in the manner of nightclub sets rather than the repetition of the usual studio takes. The album excited listeners ...

Recorded in 1973 with the perfect accompaniment of guitarist Joe Pass. Highlights include “Don’t Be That Way” and “A Foggy Day.” ...

The place: one of New York’s most celebrated jazz rooms, the Five Spot. The time: summer 1958. The leader is the great Thelonious Monk, at the peak of his abilities as a performer and captured “in action” at the club where he first emerged into the spotlight. The band is one that has been drastically undervalued in history, largely because it was ...

Anyone who ever heard Count Basie launch his band into a blues with several choruses of effortless piano has lamented that there is far too little of Basie the soloist among his recorded legacy. This shortage was rectified to a certain extent by the trio albums Basie made with Ray Brown and Louis Bellson in the Seventies, of which this is the ...

"The spot-free vinyl pressing has fantastic presence and three-dimensional studio echoes. When Hooker bends, pulls, or hammers-on strings, the timbre is true and technique obvious...Magnified on LP, these and other subtleties enhance the artist's intent. While extremely pricey, the set is ...

Blue Mitchell possessed one of the truly individual trumpet sounds: richly melodic but always strong — clearly in the tradition of Clifford Brown, but very much his own voice. The series of Riverside albums that established him on the jazz scene, beginning at the end of the 1950s, usually presented him in at least three-horn ensembles; this was his ...

Three decades ago, when Riverside paired Thelonious Monk and Gerry Mulligan on this album, it seemed a daring move. These two appeared to represent opposite ends of the jazz spectrum, separated by geography (East Coast and West) as much as by style (bop vs. cool). Actually, it was a rather safe project: producer Orrin Keepnews had learned that ...