Jump Blues & Piano Blues

Superlatives like diva and legend are extremely over used, in life there are few legends or divas visiting this planet at any given time as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae all proved in grand style. However, Dianne Reeves has vocally demonstrated that she too deserves the right...

Exhaustive, multi-disc set comprising everything recorded by this New Orleans singer. With the songwriting talents of Dave Bartholomew aboard, utilizing the sound of the legendary J&M Studios, and the best Crescent City musicians available, this is truly New Orleans music at its very best. ~...

This single CD from the European Document label has all of Montgomery's 26 prewar recordings as a leader. Two solo numbers are from 1930, including "Vicksburg Blues"; there are a couple songs from 1931 and four duets with guitarist Walter Vincson from 1935. The remainder of this...

While there has suddenly been a flood of CDs featuring masterful New Orleans keyboard wizard and vocalist James Booker, his best release arguably remains Classified. The 12-track set was a landmark album, as Booker displayed every facet of his distinctive style. He did up-tempo lues,...

Pianist Joe Liggins presented a fairly sophisticated brand of swinging jump blues to jitterbuggers during the early '50s, when his irresistible "Pink Champagne" scaled the R&B charts. Twenty-five of his very best 1950-1954 Specialty sides grace this collection, including a...

JSP, one of the U.K.'s most active historical reissue labels, presents an outstanding postwar Chicago blues anthology packed with essential recordings made between 1947 and 1955 by Sunnyland Slim & His Pals. Out of the 104 tracks (not 97 as stated on the front of the packaging), 60 are...

The set that made Cray a pop star, despite its enduring blues base. Cray's smoldering stance on "Smoking Gun" and "Right Next Door" rendered him the first sex symbol to emerge from the blues field in decades, but it was his innovative expansion of the genre itself that...

B.B. King is not only a timeless singer and guitarist, he's also a natural-born entertainer, and on Live at the Regal the listener is treated to an exhibition of all three of his talents. Over percolating horn hits and rolling shuffles, King treats an enthusiastic audience (at some points,...

The Complete Early Recordings CD showcases a true guitar virtuoso who was no slouch on the piano either. His break on "Illinois Blues" is almost off-putting in the nonchalance with which he twists the notes around, and "How Long 'Buck'" features him giving forth...

The third of three CDs tracing the recording career of the unique oogie-woogie pianist Jimmy Yancey, whose subtlety could often result in some dramatic music, completes his December 1943 session and also has his December 23, 1950 solo set; his final recordings from July 1951 are available on an...

These 20 tunes pair the great Mr.Witherspoon with the finest jazz, jump, and lues talents around. Jay McShann, Maxwell Davis, Tiny Webb, and Chuck Norris are only a few of the first-rate sessionmen and arrangers who grace the tracks of this essential CD. A special mention must be made of tenor...

Herbie Hancock, who rose to prominence as the pianist with the Miles Davis Quintet of 1964-68, led an adventurous sextet during 1969-72 that incorporated aspects of funk and subtle rock rhythms in abstract ways. Although he loved the band, by 1973 he was frustrated at its lack of commercial...

Best Seller! Essential soul jazz set by the boss of the Hammond B3 Organ, Jimmy Smith. Teamed with tenor saxman Stanley Turrentine, guitarist Kenny Burrell, and drummer Donald Bailey on 4 cuts plus one previously unreleased bonus track.Back at the Chicken Shack; When I Grow Too Old To Dream;...

The humba-rocking rhythms of Roy "Professor Longhair" Byrd live on throughout Rhino's 40-track retrospective of the New Orleans icon's amazing legacy. Most of the seminal stuff arrives early on: "Bald Head," the rollicking ode cut for Mercury in 1950, is followed...

As quiet as it was kept then, Skip James might have made the best music of anyone who resurfaced during the mid-'60s "rediscovery" era for Mississippi country blues types. Certainly, there weren't many albums made during that time as good as this one; wonderful vocals, superb...

Only Dave Frishberg and possibly Mark Murphy can rival Mose Allison when it comes to creative use of irony in lyric writing, and neither compares as an instrumentalist. He's a fine op pianist able to play challenging instrumentals and eclectic enough to integrate country blues and gospel...

This is a CD overflowing with classic performances. The great Lester Young is heard with the 1938 version of the Kansas City Six, a group also including trumpeter Buck Clayton (in prime form), Eddie Durham on electric guitar (where he preceded Charlie Christian) and trombone, the rhythm guitar...

This single-disc compilation cherry-picks through MCA's three two-disc anthology sets and puts together 16 tracks of essential Bland, starting with 1957's "Farther up the Road" and ending up with his 1969 reading of Big Joe Turner's "Chains of Love." It gathers...