CD1
1. Lester Young - Blue Lester
2. Red Garland - You Better Go Now
3. Charlie Parker - How Deep Is The Ocean
4. Pat Martino - Willow
5. EJQ - Easy Dreaming
6. Stan Getz - Don't Worry `bout Me
7. Sarah Vaughan - Lover Man
8. Richie Cole - Malibu Breeze
9. Miles Davis - Milestones
10. Charles Mingus - Body And Soul
11. Joanna Eden - The Nearness Of You
12. Hank Mobley - Blues Number Two
13. Eliane Elias - Chan's Song
14. The Brecon Brothers - Walk On By
CD2
1. Woody Shaw - Imagination
2. Art Pepper - These Foolish Things
3. Art Blakey - Mirage
4. EJQ - Summertime
5. Dexter Gordon - I Can't Escape From You
6. The Brecon Brothers - Take Five
7. Milt Jackson - Blues Mood
8. Sadao Watanabe - My Romance
9. Erroll Garner - Moonglow
10. Ritmo Alegria - Flautero Y Yo
11. Chris Ingham - Have You Met Miss Jones?
12. Kenny Burrell - My One And Only Love
13. 2Play - Killing Me Softly With His Song
14. Hank Jones - Ruby, My Dear
CD3
1. Dizzy Gillespie - Alone Together
2. Count Basie - Li'l Darlin'
3. Sonny Stitt - Angel Eyes
4. Joanna Eden - Don't Know Why
5. Houston Person - Everything Happens To
Me
6. Donald Byrd - That's All There is To Love
7. 2Play - Morning Dance
8. Cannonball Adderley - Willow Weep For Me
9. Jazz Urbaine - What The World Needs Now
Is Love
10. Larry Coryell - Sophisticated Lady
11. Ricky Ford - Chelsea Bridge
12. Bobby Hutcherson - Good Bait
13. Al Cohn & Zoot Sims - Body And Soul
14. EJQ - What A Wonderful World
CD4
1. Phil Woods - The Summer Knows
2. Curtis Fuller - Arabia
3. Yusef Lateef - Stella By Starlight
4. EJQ - Stride Out
5. Cedar Walton - As Long As There's Music
6. The Brecon Brothers - Cantaloupe Island
7. Mark Murphy - Time On My Hands
8. David 'Fathead' Newman - One For My Baby
(And One More For The Road)
9. Wallace Roney - Blue In Green
10. Jazz Urbaine - Do You Know The Way To
San José
11. Russell Gunn - Fly Me To The Moon
12. Jimmy Scott - I'm Through With Love
13. Cecil Brooks III - Sunshine
14. Grupo Cabana - Wave (Vou te Contar)
Budget-price
boxed sets like this can be useful in various
ways. For example, you can simply work your
way through the tracks on offer, treating
them as a kind of continuous jazz broadcast
that is not necessarily easy to find on the
airwaves these days. Or you can be choosy
- and pick out tracks by your favourite artists.
Or you can compare and contrast (say) people
who play the same instrument (the saxophonists
range from Lester Young to Ricky Ford and
from David "Fathead" Newman to Stan Getz).
Or you can just hop around among the 56 tracks
here.
However
you do it, you may discover something you
never heard before or an artist you were unfamiliar
with. I know nothing about the EJQ but apparently
they may be the Experimental Jazz Quartet
or the European Jazz Quartet or even the Einstein
Jazz Quartet. And who or what is 2Play? Whoever
they are, they play respectable cover versions
of Spyro Gyra's Morning Dance and
Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly.
I
know these compilations look as if they have
just been shoved together from available tracks,
but they can introduce you to new experiences
and even give you the odd surprise. Larry
Coryell's version of Sophisticated Lady
is surprisingly restrained. And it is good
to see the name of Sadao Watanabe cropping
up - a musician who seems in danger of being
overlooked. If you want to get this boxed
set, do some shopping around - as a quick
look at the internet shows that the box is
being sold for anything between £4.99 and
£11!
Tony
Augarde
CD Reviews
Union
Square Music SIMPLYCD 55
