Various Artists – The Sound Of Jazz (1958) [Analogue Productions 2017] [MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC]

Various Artists – The Sound Of Jazz (1958) [Analogue Productions 2017] [MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC]
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 & DST64 5.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 42:18 minutes | Scans NOT included | 2,23 GB
or DSD64 2.0 Stereo (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Front, Scans NOT included | 1,04 GB
or FLAC Stereo (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Front, Scans NOT included | 940 MB
Features Stereo and 3-Channel Surround Sound | Analogue Productions # CAPJ 111 SA

The Sound of Jazz brought together 32 leading musicians – a Who’s Who of the swing era – including Count Basie, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Billie Holiday, Jo Jones and Coleman Hawkins; the Chicago style players of the same era, like Henry “Red” Allen, Vic Dickenson, and Pee Wee Russell; and younger ‘modernist’ musicians such as Gerry Mulligan, Thelonious Monk, and Jimmy Giuffre. These players played separately with their compatriots, but also joined to combine various styles in one group, such as Red Allen’s group and the group backing Billie Holiday on “Fine and Mellow”. This program was originally presented by “The Seven Lively Arts” on December 8, 1957 over CBS Television Sunday. This session is different music from the broadcast, as it was recorded for release by Columbia Records.The one-hour program aired on Sunday, December 8, 1957, live from CBS Studio 58, the Town Theater at 851 Ninth Avenue in New York City. The show was hosted by New York Herald-Tribune media critic John Crosby, directed by Jack Smight, and produced by Robert Herridge. Jazz writers Nat Hentoff and Whitney Balliett were the primary music consultants.

Columbia Records released this album in 1958 that is actually a rehearsal that preceded the telecast (recorded on December 4 at Columbia’s 30th Street studios), and is not its soundtrack. The LP was released in 1958 as Columbia CL 1098, with liner notes by Eric Larrabee, and the cover photo is by Tom Yee. The recording doesn’t include all of the performers on the TV show (Mulligan refused to participate because no additional payment was involved) and includes several who were not on the show. Bassist Walter Page rehearsed, and is featured on the LP, but collapsed on the way to the studio for the telecast.

The show’s performance of “Fine and Mellow” reunited Billie Holiday with her estranged long-time friend Lester Young for the final time. Jazz critic Nat Hentoff, who was involved in the show, recalled that during rehearsals, they kept to opposite sides of the room. Young was very weak, and Hentoff told him to skip the big band section of the show and that he could sit while performing in the group with Holiday.

During the performance of “Fine and Mellow”, Webster played the first solo. “Then”, Hentoff remembered: “Lester got up, and he played the purest blues I have ever heard, and (he and Holiday) were looking at each other, their eyes were sort of interlocked, and she was sort of nodding and half-smiling. It was as if they were both remembering what had been – whatever that was. And in the control room we were all crying. When the show was over, they went their separate ways.”

Within two years, both Young and Holiday had died.
The only reason Classic Records failed to reissue this one back in the 1990s and 2000s is because the reel containing one side had gone missing. For this reissue Sony/BMG located the original 3 track recording from which this stereo record was sourced so it’s one generation ahead of the mixed two track master. This tape probably hadn’t been played in almost sixty years and so sounds remarkably fresh. … Analogue Productions reissued this in a tip-on gatefold sleeve with great black and white photos taken at the recording session of Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Ben Webster. A moment in musical time perfectly captured that’s easy to recommend for the music, the sound and the packaging. The reissue sound is somewhat drier than the original, which makes it all the more intimate and less dated. A great lacquer cut by Ryan K. Smith”. — Michael Fremer, AnalogPlanet-com

Tracklist:

01. Red Allen All-Stars – Wild Man Blues
02. Red Allen All-Stars – Rosetta
03. Billie Holiday with Mal Waldron & All Stars – Fine and Mellow
04. Pee Wee Russell, Jimmy Giuffre, Danny Barker, Jo Jones – Blues
05. Count Basie All-Stars – I Left My Baby
06. The Jimmy Giuffre Trio – The Train and The River
07. Mal Waldron – Nervous
08. Count Basie All-Stars – Dickie’s Dream

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