Jazz Focus

Some sides for Hi-Lo and Dee Gee by the Milt Jackson Quartet at the beginning of the career of the Modern Jazz Quartet followed by the actual group in one of its first recording sessions for Prestige - with Milt Jackson on vibes, John Lewis on piano, Percy Heath and Ray Brown on bass, and Kenny Clarke and Al Jones on drums, standards an originals!

Great series of recordings featuring the legendary trumpet player (also on trombone and vocals) with a seasoned bunch of Southside Chicago jazz players - Omer Simeon, George James, Cassino Simpson, Earl Frazier, Banjo Ikey Robinson, Hayes Alvis and Lawson Buford.  All tunes by Jabbo Smith!

Great and largely forgotten alto player in his first recordings under his own name (for Blue Note) with Horace Silver, Blue Mitchell, Gene Ramey and Art Taylor and live at the Birdland with the Art Blakey Quintet, with Clifford Brown, Silver, Curley Russell and Blakey creating some of the best late period bebop.

Hal Kemp led an excellent student band at the University of North Carolina in the early 1920's that stayed together after graduation, travelling to England in 1925 and making their first recordings.  By late 1927 the band was a professional unit in New York, highly regarded for its precision ensemble work and hot dance stylings - while there were no significant soloists (although trumpeter Bob Mayhew, reed players Joe Gillespie and Saxie Dowell and pianist John Scott Trotter were effective), the band was influential through its early, jazz-oriented recordings as opposed to its later career as as "sweet" band in the middle to late 1930's.

Two early sessions for the Jazzology/Circle label - the 1949 session was in fact the first for that label, featuring Tony Parenti's New Orleanians, with the New Orleans clarinetist leading Davison on cornet, Jimmy Archey on trombone, Art Hodes on piano, Pops Foster on bass and Art Trappier on drums.  The 1955 session has Davison in charge with Parenti and Foster and joined by Lou McGarity on trombone, Hank Duncan on piano and Zutty Singleton on drums

Bunk Johnson's New Orleans Jazz Band as they were performing at the Stuyvesant Casino in November 1945-January 1946 . . Johnson on trumpet, Jim Robinson on trombone, George Lewis on clarinet, Alton Purnell on piano, Lawrence Marrero on banjo, Slow Drag Pavageau on bass and Baby Dodd on drums recording for Decca, Victor and AFRS.

Great if largely unheralded sax player and arranger whose career stretched from Louis Armstrong through Quincy Jones is here featured on tenor, baritone and soprano on several sessions, including under his own name (with his brother Keg Johnson on trombone), pianist Claude Hopkins (with Bobby Johnson on trumpet and Vic Dickenson on trombone), Jimmy Rushing (with pianist Dave Frishberg and tenor sax Al Cohn), and Milt Hinton (with Jon Faddis on trumpet, Frank Wess on tenor and John Bunch on piano)

Live broadcasts of the roaring Calloway band from the Meadowbrook in 1940 (featuring Chu Berry, Dizzy Gillespie, Tyree Glenn, Cozy Cole and Jerry Blake) and the Club Zanzibar in 1944 and 45 (with Jonah Jones, Shad Collins, Tyree Glenn, Hilton Jefferson, Ike Quebeck and J.C. Heard).  Several vocals by the leader, but the focus is definitely on the instrumentals, some of which have extended solos!

Airshots from radio broadcasts and remotes featuring Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra in several different incarnations - with Bob Jenney (tbn), Joe Dixon and Andy Fitzgerald (clt), Georgie Auld, Larry Walsh and Johnny Castaldi (ts), Joe Lippman and Buddy Koss (p), Gail Reese and Danny Richards (v), but the focus is rightly on the leader's majestic trumpet

The Hangover was a popular jazz club in San Francisco in the middle 1950's, specializing in Dixieland and New Orleans Jazz . . the weekly broadcast from the club featured resident bands as well as a solo (intermission) pianist  . . here is a selection of the best!  Fats Pichon, Meade Lux Lewis, Lil Armstrong, Don Ewell and Joe Sullivan accompanied by Smokey Stover (drums) and Truck Parham on bass