Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. (Back Home Again In) Indiana - Original Dixieland Jazz Band
2. St. Louis Blues - Bessie Smith
3. Dippermouth Blues - Creole Jazz Band, King Oliver
4. Stampede - Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra
5. Wild Cat Blues - Sidney Bechet, Blue Five, Clarence Williams
6. Singin' the Blues (Till My Daddy Comes Home) - Bix Beiderbecke, Frankie Trumbauer & His Orchestra
7. West End Blues - Louis Armstrong, Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines
8. Tiger Rag - Art Tatum
9. God Bless the Child - Billie Holiday
10. Lester Leaps In - Count Basie, Kansas City Seven, Lester Young
11. Flying Home - Charlie Christian, Goodman Group, Lionel Hampton
12. I Can't Get Started - Dizzy Gillespie
13. It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
14. 9:20 Special - Count Basie Orchestra, Coleman Hawkins
15. Let Me Off Uptown - Gene Krupa & His Orchestra
16. 'Tain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It) - Jimmie Lunceford & His Orchestra
17. Four Brothers - Stan Getz, Woody Herman & His Orchestra
18. Nica's Dream - Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, Horace Silver
19. So What - Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bill Evans
20. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat - Jazz Workshop, Charles Mingus

Disc 2:

1. Take Five - Dave Brubeck Quartet
2. It's All Right with Me - Erroll Garner
3. Straight, No Chaser - Thelonious Monk
4. Searching (Pleading for Love) - Duke Ellington
5. Sanctuary - Miles Davis
6. Meeting of the Spirits - Mahavishnu Orchestra, John McLaughlin
7. Watermelon Man - Herbie Hancock
8. Birdland - Weather Report
9. Artist in America - Ornette Coleman, London Symphony Orchestra
10. 'Round Midnight - Dexter Gordon
11. Steppin' Out With My Baby - Tony Bennett
12. Thousand Autumns - Branford Marsalis
13. Freedom Is in the Trying - Wynton Marsalis

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63722 in Music
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 1999-10-12
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .45 pounds

Customer Reviews

100 Years Too Much, 2CDs Too Short To Be "Definitive."
This sincere two-CD set celebrates legendary jazz performances released by labels today forming Sony/Columbia Records. These tunes by some of jazz's most essential figures (Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, etc.) fit within Sony's 26-CD millenium box set "Soundtrack for A Century." But alone, these 33 songs make too fast, too short a tour through the dominant music style of the century's first 50 years, and the most influential, flexible style of its last 50.

This set is enjoyable on its own merits. You get historic recordings from Armstrong (with Earl "Fatha" Hines on 1928's "West End Blues") Bessie Smith (with Armstrong on one of music's early all-time hits, "St. Louis Blues") and then march quickly through signature songs by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Dave Brubeck (the 1960 "hit" version of "Take Five,") and others. The middle of the set (its five songs on disc one, its first five on disc two) epitomise what adult music sounded like in the 1950s. This is captured in detailed liner notes by jazz experts Dan Morganstern, John Swenson, and Phil Schaap (but not in Sony CEO Tommy Mottola's facetitious introductory remarks).

Yet unlike Sony's 1989 "Jazz Masters" collection, which framed its song choices within 20 years of jazz's commercial, artistic peak, this set touches too many styles too briefly (Dixieland, swing, blues), rushing past bebop (only Dizzy Gillespie on a relatively minor song ), jazz fusion (nothing from Return To Forever, Ramsey Lewis, or Stanley Clarke's influential 70s LPs) and neo-traditional jazz. The set stops with the Marsalis brothers and does not concede to today's "smooth jazz" style. This will please jazz purists, but implies (from Sony's point of view) that trad jazz is music's equivalent of Latin: evocative, intellectual, stagnant. Not to mention jazz legends(Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Stan Kenton, Sonny Rollins) who never recorded for any Columbia label and aren't represented here.

Too many labels, large and small, contributed to jazz's popularity and impact to title one set of performances "definiitive." But as with any sampler-style collection, the hope is a jazz newcomer hearing "So What," "Birdland," or "Artist In America," the first time may reach for "Kind of Blue," "Heavy Weather," or "Free Jazz." (Columbia was limited to their labels' releases, you are not.) Jazz needs budget-priced collections to attract new fans, and "Definititive Performances," while incomplete, fills that need with important, historically-rich music. Recommended, with its best songs heard on performers' individual CDs.

Nice compilation, but not great
This is a nice jazz compilation to throw in your multi-disc player, but I have a couple complaints. First of all, the sound quality on the first few tracks on disc one is terrible. I know these tracks were originally recorded in the 1930s, but there is so much hiss and cracking that they are almost unlistenable. It would have been nice if they were cleaned up a bit. Second, there is a problem with all jazz compilations that cover this many styles in that they are disjointed. It makes it a tough listen when you go from Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" to Tony Bennett from MTV unplugged all on one disc.

Gift
I bought this as a gift for my son. It will be my last purchase at Amazon as long as they promote products that encourage animal fighting.