Jive

This CD has most of Fats Waller's best band recordings of the '20s, including eight selections by his "Buddies" (highlighted by "The Minor Drag" and "Harlem Fuss"), six (counting two alternate takes) from the Louisiana Sugar Babes (an odd quartet featuring...

Thomas Fats Waller was one of the most remarkable jazz talents of all time. His accomplishments were in five overlapping areas. Inspired by James P. Johnson, Waller was one of the most exciting stride pianists. He pounded out the beat with his left hand (alternating between bass notes and...

Cab Calloway made a lot of records besides Minnie the Moocher. The best of these date from the first 15 years of his recording career. If you want to delve deeper than the standard thimbleful of over-circulated ovelty hits, you might as well opt for JSP's affordably priced four-CD...

For decades Fats Waller's recorded legacy has found its way into the lives of jazz heads and regular folks throughout the world, most often in piecemeal fashion through "best-of" collections that fixate upon his most popular recordings from the 1930s and early '40s, or in...

Vol. 4 in JSP's thorough and affordable series of four-CD sets devoted to the complete works of Fats Waller contains all of his studio recordings made in New York, Chicago, and Hollywood between September 9, 1936, and April 12, 1938. This segment of Waller's astonishingly prolific...

A fine cross-section of guitarist/vocalist/comedian Slim Gaillard's 1945-49 studio recordings (most of which have not yet appeared on CD), this Folklyric release has most of the best titles that Gaillard made with his musical partner of the time, bassist Tiny "Bam" Brown, whose...

JSP continued its steady trawl through the discography of the swing era's most extroverted bandleader with Vol. 2: 1935-1940, the second four-disc box of Cab Calloway chronological recordings. Four years beyond his breakout with "Minnie the Moocher," Calloway was leading one of...

As a label, the U.K.'s Proper does a pretty decent job of assembling a great cross-section of tracks, decent sound, and fairly annotated notes (though labels names seldom if ever appear either in liner notes or in track notations, only catalog number...hmmmm) all for a really great price....

Similar in some ways to a fabulous 1974 Columbia double LP bearing the same title, yet typical of many Internet-age reissue compilations, this grab bag of mid- to late-period Cab Calloway material comes with vintage posters, publicity photographs, and an informative biographical essay but no...

Fats Waller was a vocalist, composer, even a comedian and satirist, but most importantly, he was a phenomenally gifted piano player, and his smooth stride style always sounds fresh and vital. This three-disc, 66-track overview of his RCA Victor recordings (he began recording for Victor Records...

A native of Guthrie, OK, Joe "Honeydripper" Liggins grew up in San Diego, where he developed his multi-instrumental musical abilities at San Diego State University. Liggins established himself professionally with intensive gigging -- in the company of such powerhouse players as Cee Pee...

This excellent double CD of jazz and lues vocals recorded between 1923 and 1945 has been presented in English as The Prewar Vocal Jazz Story. This phrase was derived from the secondary title printed in French across the cover. The main title, which could be translated as "The Golden Era of...

Fats Waller made hundreds of studio recordings. He also left in his wake a stream of broadcast air checks from 1938 and 1940. These were issued on vinyl LPs during the mid-'80s by the Giants of Jazz, Radiola, Legend and Sandy Hook labels. Jasmine's 1999 release Yacht Club Swing &...

Jazz violinist Stuff Smith moved to Copenhagen in 1965, spending the last two years of his life there in an environment where his music was truly appreciated. This compilation from Storyville Records features live radio broadcasts and parts of a Copenhagen club set in what is essentially a...

This is a very appealing double album from French RCA's Jazz Tribune series. The first 22 of the 34 selections (including four rare alternate takes) feature the Cab Calloway Orchestra of 1933-34, a vastly underrated early swing band which, in addition to its colorful leader/singer, features...

Cab Calloway's Orchestra is featured on radio broadcasts from two different periods on this CD. Most of the material previously appeared on an Alamac LP. The 1940 performance is most notable for the occasional solos of tenor saxophonist Chu Berry and young trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (best...