The second of the Classics label's Sonny Stitt compilations, The Chronological Sonny Stitt: 1950-1951 features some of the best work the tenor saxophone luminary recorded for the Prestige label. Included are studio cuts Stitt made with fellow saxophonist Gene Ammons around the time the duo was performing together at the legendary Birdland club in New York City. ~ Matt Collar

Lenny Bruce was a devoted fan of the Artie Shaw Gramercy Five. He also went out of his way to make fun of Georgia Gibbs, the vocalist on Artie Shaw's January 20, 1942 recording of "Absent-Minded Moon." Lenny was playing up his preference for the hipper side of Shaw, as demonstrated on "Hindustan" and every track recorded at the session which took place the following day. These remarkable sides, which sound better every time they are played back, were the last studio recordings Shaw would make before joining the navy. Composer and arranger Paul Jordan crafted a number of transitionally modern-sounding charts for this band. There are several heavies in the lineup: Dave Tough and Johnny Guarnieri worked well together under any circumstances. Georgie Auld, Ray Conniff and Max Kaminsky were fortunate to be blowing their horns alongside Hot Lips Page, a seasoned trumpeter who conveyed the lyrical potency of ten ordinary musicians. The string section provides just the right amount of lilt without injecting too much fluff. There is a gorgeous rendition of "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," with Shaw's clarinet in full blue cry and a gutsy vocal by Page. The Shaw discography, interrupted by a world war, resumes nearly three years later with Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer's famous "Accentuate the Positive." Vocalist Imogene Lynn, dutifully intoning Mercer's imitation Afro-American revival lyrics, sounds a bit affected after the soulful gravity of Hot Lips Page. But it is important to place this popular hit record within historical context. By November of 1944 America needed a straight shot of optimism, and this catchy, morale-boosting number did more for the war against fascism than any number of giddy or poker-faced exercises in rhetorical patriotism. This is Artie Shaw & His Orchestra at their finest. Roy Eldridge gave the band extra punch, and the records he made with Shaw are uniformly solid, melodious and attractive. Billie Holiday, who had worked with Shaw in 1938, is invoked in Jimmy Mundy's "Lady Day." Poetically, its chord progressions seem to reference Billie's difficult life and maybe even the abusive racism she encountered while touring with Shaw at a time when black women simply did not appear with white bands. Buster Harding's "Little Jazz" is the definitive portrait of Eldridge. "Summertime" is exceptionally fine, with magical tonalities provided by Dodo Marmarosa and Barney Kessel. This special chemistry is all the more evident on two sides by the Gramercy Five. Certainly one of the best Artie Shaw reissues, and well-worth seeking out. ~ arwulf arwulf

The Bethlehem label didn't make it out of the '50s before folding, and one of the reasons why is the ambitious yet misguided George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, a three-LP box set that represents a complete recording of the Gershwin classic (with narration and sound effects). Bethlehem certainly had the talent to pull it off -- appearing on the label, and this production, are Mel Torm‚, Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, Johnny Hartman, Bob Dorough, Betty Roche, Frances Faye, and minor period stars including vocalist Frank Rosolino, bandleader Stan Levey, and arranger Russ Garcia. And long-playing versions of theatrical productions were huge in the mid-'50s (a few sold millions of copies). The most popular of these, however, were simply easy-to-digest highlights LPs that never attempted to present the complete production. This version is a gargantuan two hours long, difficult to sit through even if every performance was stellar (and, unfortunately, that's far from the case). The recording makes a virtue of being hip, primarily through the narration of Al "Jazzbo" Collins, a radio DJ who may have been hip for the times but whose counterfeit excitement and perfect diction make the proceedings sound like a period newsreel. ("Watch out, Porgy, here comes that mean Sportin' Life!") Torm‚, as the most popular vocalist on the label, was a shoe-in for the role of Porgy, despite Johnny Hartman's clear superiority, and Frances Faye received the role of Bess despite Betty Roche's ability to handle the role much better. Those mistakes are compounded by Russ Garcia's period arrangements (the Ellington group makes only one appearance) and some decidedly subpar performances from Frank Rosolino early in the program. Still, it has to be admitted that a highlights compilation of this record would sparkle very brightly, driven by Mel Torm‚'s swinging "I've Got Plenty o' Nuttin'" with a super-enthused backing chorus, George Kirby's "It Ain't Necessarily So," and Betty Roche's reprise of "Summertime" during the second half. ~ John Bush

The Cool One CD combines Jimmy Giuffre's first two albums under his own name, Four Brothers and Tangents in Jazz, into one disc. Four Brothers, cut at three separate sessions between early 1954 and early 1955, is certainly the more conventionally bop-formatted of the pair, though it does vary in its approach, the lineup changing in size between a quintet, a septet, and a quartet. The earliest of the sessions is fairly standard, solid cool jazz, though the seven-piece shows signs of winging off into more daring directions with the fluttering melodics of "Four Brothers" and the choppy irregular beats and circling-round-each-other horns of "Sultana." While Giuffre scaled back to a quartet for the final Four Brothers recordings, a piece such as "Iranic" uses playfully lyrical horn lines and sporadic rhythm punctuations that similarly peeled away from expected jazz progressions. Tangents in Jazz, entirely recorded with a quartet (also featuring Jack Sheldon on trumpet, Ralph Pena on bass, and Art Anton on drums), is aptly named as it too goes into tangents from mid-'50s cool bop tunes, the rhythm section used to comment and insert rather than provide a straightforward pulse. Though certainly not devoid of appeal to straight-ahead jazz fans with its pleasantly good-natured riffs and sparse arrangements that can be either playful or (in tracks like "Scintilla 1" and "Rhetoric") meditative, or slightly melancholy, one can nonetheless hear the seeds of jazz moving from swing-based bop to more of an art music. Roy Carr's liner notes supply succinct details about these particular sessions and Giuffre's general background. ~ Richie Unterberger