Jazz Focus

A wide ranging survey of 1920's, Trad and Swing recordings featuring bass clarinet - with the Cotton Club Orchestra, PIccadilly Players, Monette Moore, Wilbur Sweatman, Anglo-American Alliance, Hoosier Hotshots and bands led by Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Ray Noble, Marty Grosz, Bob Scobey, Turk Murphy, Jean Morel, Humphrey Lyttleton and Ted Weems!

Selections taken from two lps featuring Taft Jordan playing Ellington tunes with a quintet including Kenny Burrell and Richard Wyands and the Swingville All Stars with Al Sears, Hilton Jefferson and Don Abney.

Two great sessions from August, 1955 with Billie Holiday backed by the same band - Harry "Sweets" Edison, Benny Carter, Jimmy Rowles, Barney Kessel, Ray Brown and Larry Bunker.  Holiday was at the tail end of her career, but the top-shelf accompaniment inspired her to some of her best singing - rerecording tunes for Clef in 1955 that she had done twenty years earlier for ARC and Brunswick.

Out and out jazz sessions led by the New Orleans pianist and entrepreneur Williams featuring mostly his own compositions/publications.  Ed Allen and King Oliver play cornet, Buster Bailey, Arville Harris, Russell Procope, Benny Moten and Carmelo Jejo play reeds, Cyrus St. Clair on tuba and Floyd Casey on washboard, giving the group its name!

Some of the first feature recordings made by Norman Granz on his various labels.  This represents three sessions led by Ben Webster (the last two of which were issued on LP as "King of the Tenors").  The first is 1951 with Maynard Ferguson on trumpet, Benny Carter on alto, Gerald Wiggins on piano, John Kirby on bass and George Jenkins on drums.  The others are from 1953 and feature Oscar Peterson on piano, Barney Kessel on guitar, Ray Brown on bass and J.C. Heard on drums on the first, with the second substituting Herb Ellis on guitar and Alvin Stoller on drums, with Harry "Sweets Edison and Benny Carter added on trumpet and alto.