Toshiko Akiyoshi was only 23 years old when Oscar Peterson heard her during a Jazz at the Philharmonic tour of Japan in 1953; he immediately went raving to impresario Norman Granz to implore him to record her. So Granz produced Akiyoshi's debut as a leader on a 10" disc (released as Amazing Toshiko Akiyoshi in Japan and as Toshiko's Piano elsewhere) with the Jazz at the Philharmonic rhythm section (guitarist Herb Ellis, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer J.C. Heard). The Bud Powell influence is rather obvious during several of the tracks, as Akiyoshi slashes her way through "What Is This Thing Called Love?," "I Want to Be Happy," the lesser-known "Shadrach," and a very brisk treatment of Johnny Hodges' "Squatty Roo." She also shows promise at more relaxed tempos, playing standards such as "Gone With the Wind" and a dreamy, somewhat impressionistic piano solo of "Laura"…

Jimmy Jones was an in-demand arranger and pianist throughout the 1950s and '60s, working with most leading jazz vocalists and soloists of the era. If you go into Tom Lord's Jazz Discography, you'll find Jones on 307 sessions. But if you modify your search, screening just for Jones's leadership dates, you'll find the number dramatically reduced to eight. In truth, there were only seven, since the tracks for an Atlantic Records session in 1957 were strangely never released.
Among these seven leadership recordings, the only trio session released as a six-song 10-inch LP was Jimmy Jones Trio. Jones recorded the album for the French Vogue label in October 1954 in Paris. The only explanations for Jones recording just one trio album over the course of his career is either that he was too busy or he was under contract as an arranger or accompanist to other artists and couldn't record legally under his own name…

Afro (1954). Pairing Dizzy Gillespie with Cuban arranger/composer Chico O'Farrill produced a stunning session which originally made up the first half of a Norgran LP. O'Farrill conducts an expanded orchestra which combines a jazz band with a Latin rhythm section; among the participants in the four-part "Manteca Suite" are trumpeters Quincy Jones and Ernie Royal, trombonist J.J. Johnson, tenor saxophonists Hank Mobley and Lucky Thompson, and conga player Mongo Santamaria. "Manteca," written during the previous decade, serves as an exciting opening movement, while the next two segments build upon this famous theme, though they are jointly credited to O'Farrill as well. "Rhumba-Finale" is straight-ahead jazz with some delicious solo work by Gillespie…

Controversial, misunderstood, and underappreciated, Jimmy Giuffre was an unlikely candidate to break as much ground as he did in the art of free improvisation. A swing orchestra veteran, Giuffre made his name as part of the West Coast school of cool jazz, but his restless creative spirit drove him to push the boundaries of texture, dynamic shading, counterpoint, and improvisational freedom in surprisingly avant-garde ways, despite maintaining a cool, cerebral exterior.

One of the classic giants of jazz, Jack Teagarden was not only the top pre-bop trombonist (playing his instrument with the ease of a trumpeter) but one of the best jazz singers too. He was such a fine musician that younger brother Charlie (an excellent trumpeter) was always overshadowed. Jack started on piano at age five (his mother Helen was a ragtime pianist), switched to baritone horn, and finally took up trombone when he was ten. Teagarden worked in the Southwest in a variety of territory bands (most notably with the legendary pianist Peck Kelley) and then caused a sensation when he came to New York in 1928. His daring solos with Ben Pollack caused Glenn Miller to de-emphasize his own playing with the band, and during the late-'20s/early Depression era, "Mr. T." recorded frequently with many groups including units headed by Roger Wolfe Kahn, Eddie Condon, Red Nichols, and Louis Armstrong…

This is the soundtrack from the movie. The music is conducted by the Hollywood regular Joseph Gershenson. Gershenson wisely uses members of the original band for these stereo recreations. The sound comes close, but is lacking the punch and precision that Miller himself provided with his band. What's odd is that Decca chose to include two cuts by Louis Armstrong and his all stars. They make an appearance in the movie, so they included two cuts by Satchmo. Up until recently, these cuts by Armstrong had been very difficult to find, until Verve's reissue of Armstrong's I Love Jazz.

Pete Rugolo's early recordings as a leader after leaving Stan Kenton's Orchestra are quite rewarding and innovative in their own way, yet have been long underrated and out of print. This LP finds Rugolo leading all-star groups filled with such top West Coast jazz stars as trumpeters Pete Candoli, Shorty Rogers, and Maynard Ferguson; trombonists Milt Bernhart and Herbie Harper; Bob Cooper on tenor and oboe; altoist Bud Shank; baritonists Jimmy Giuffre and Bob Gordon; pianist Claude Williamson; guitarist Laurindo Almeida; and drummer Shelly Manne. On such numbers as "Mixin' the Blues," "Rugolo Meets Shearing," "Jingle Bells Mambo," and "King Porter Stomp," Pete Rugolo's arrangements are full of surprises while leaving space for his sidemen's short solos. Well worth searching for.

Shelly Manne's second "workshop" 10" LP is even more advanced than his first, at times reaching outside the West Coast cool jazz idiom toward contemporary classical music - with no cover tunes this time. Where the first album was centered on a sax ensemble, Vol. 2 is devoted to a four-man brass group - with Russ Freeman or Marty Paich on piano and Joe Mondragon on bass - and this seems to have unleashed a wilder surge of creative freedom among Manne's six arrangers/composers. Indeed, some pieces virtually abandon jazz altogether. Bill Holman's "Lullaby" amounts to a gentle, free-flowing etude for brass and mallets, and Jimmy Giuffre's "Alternation" has no apparent key signature or steady pulse, a series of abstract proclamations colored by percussive effects…

In 1954, Henri Renaud was highly regarded in jazz circles. The French pianist/producer had played with his share of American heavyweights, who ranged from Lester Young to Clifford Brown to Sarah Vaughan. So when Renaud visited New York in 1954 and launched an all-star project that he called the Birdlanders, he had no problem attracting a lot of first-class beboppers. In order to be a Birdlander, one needed to be a regular at Birdland - thus, what you hear on The Birdlanders, Vol. 1 isn't unlike what was being played at Birdland in 1954 (although all of the material was recorded in a New York studio). This 77-minute reissue focuses on two of the Birdlanders' sessions that Renaud produced in 1954. The first took place on January 28, when pianist Duke Jordan formed a trio with bassist Gene Ramey and drummer Lee Abrams…

In 2000, reissue giant Collectables took Percy Faith's 1954 Kismet release on Columbia and combined it with the standard-laden Music From Hollywood on one convenient disc.
Percy Faith was one of the most popular easy listening recording artists of the 1950s and '60s. Not only did he have a number of hit albums and singles under his own name, but Faith was responsible for arranging hits by Tony Bennett, Doris Day, Johnny Mathis, and Burl Ives, among others, as the musical director for Columbia Records in the '50s.

This is very early amplified Walter, recorded in the fall of 1954 for the Black-owned United/States labels. On four of the cuts, Big Walter is playing backup harp and solos for singer Tommy Brown; the other two cuts represent Big Walter's first Chicago record under his own name. Includes the definitive recording of the classic Walter tune "Hard Hearted Woman." Reissued on compact disc by Delmark in 2000.

Farlow is joined by second guitarist Don Arnone, bassist Clyde Lombardi, and drummer Joe Morello for three standards ("Lover," "Flamingo" and "All Through the Night") plus a trio of the leader's originals during what was Farlow's first recording as a leader. Even at that early stage, Tal Farlow was a giant.

A natural extension of Tadd Dameron's concept of bop arranging for big band (and big band arranging for small group), this album features one of Dameron's compositions ("Lady Bird"), along with a handful of standards: a Miles Davis original and eight Mulligan compositions that truly represent the West Coast style in both sound and spirit. A young but exciting Chet Baker is heard throughout on trumpet; other West Coast notables include Bud Shank, Pete Candoli, and Chico Hamilton, and the entire ensemble performs admirably. For those interested in the '50s West Coast scene, or new fans looking for quintessential Gerry Mulligan, look no further than Tentet and Quartet.

This 1954 studio date, a self-titled album recorded for Emarcy, was later reissued as Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown to denote the involvement of one of the top trumpeters of the day. Vaughan sings nine intimate standards with a band including Brown on trumpet, Herbie Mann on flute, and Paul Quinichette on tenor, each of which have plenty of space for solos (most of the songs are close to the five-minute mark). Vaughan is arguably in the best voice of her career here, pausing and lingering over notes on the standards "April in Paris," "Jim," and "Lullaby of Birdland." As touching as Vaughan is, however, Brown almost equals her with his solos on "Lullaby of Birdland," "Jim," and "September Song," displaying his incredible bop virtuosity in a restrained setting without sacrificing either the simple feeling of his notes or the extraordinary flair of his choices…