Verve

“The excellent Trio 64 marked Evans' first trio album after a move to Verve from his previous home at Riverside Records.  While the work Evans' did with his first trio featuring Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian (particularly the Village Vanguard recordings) remains by far his most popular and lauded work, even after LaFaro's tragic death in 1961 he continued to improve upon and refine his particular brand of soulful and introspective playing.

Trio 64 marked a reunion with Motian and Evans' only recorded work with the talented bassist Gary Peacock. The album matches up with Evans' finest trio sessions, with his shimmering piano lines dancing between Peacock's sharp bass lines and Motian's usual sublime work on the drums. Peacock was a perfect match for Evans, he was a kindred spirit when it came to not simply following the musical trends of the day, as evidenced by his time spent with the likes of Albert Ayler and Paul Bley a few years after the recording of Trio 64.

The song selection shows how Evans was able to take even the most rote pop songs of the day and transform them into unabashed works of modern jazz. Is there another pianist of the era who would attempt a take on "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" (the album was recorded December 18th, so why not throw in a Christmas tune) or "Little Lulu" (the theme from a 1940s cartoon of the same name) and so successfully have them come off as if they were jazz standards all along? Even more impressive is that this was the first time that Evans had played with Peacock, and yet there is no sense of hesitation in either musician's interaction with each other, it sounds like they've been playing together for years.” - The Jazz Record

Musicians:

• Bill Evans, piano
• Gary Peacock, double bass
• Paul Motian, drums

Item description:

Quiet Nights is the tenth studio album by Canadian singer Diana Krall. It was released on March 31, 2009, by Verve Records. - Wiki 

Diana Krall’s Quiet Nights is an assortment of bossa nova classics and Great American Songbook selections encased in a luxurious studio-production package. On Carlos Antonio Jobim’s “Boy From Ipanema” and  Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” her honeyed vocals, closed mic’d pianos’ rich tonality, and longtime rhythm section’s solid backbone have never sounded better. Krall and go-to producer Tommy LiPuma manage to create lush and expansive landscapes without obscuring important nuances. Their careful weaving of Anthony Wilson’s liquid guitar fills and percussionist Paulinho da Costa’s intricate syncopation throughout the dense tapestry of a full orchestra sounds seamless. – Vinyl Reviews

Ella and Louis is an inspired collaboration, masterminded by producer Norman Granz. Both artists were riding high at this stage in their careers, and Granz assembled a stellar quartet of Oscar Peterson (piano), Buddy Rich (drums), Herb Ellis (guitar) and Ray Brown (bass). Equally inspired was the choice of material, with the gruffness of Armstrong's voice blending like magic with Fitzgerald's stunningly silky delivery. Outstanding are Irving Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek" and "Isn't This a Lovely Day," and everything else works like a dream, with the golden star going to the Gershwin brothers' "They Can't Take That Away from Me." Gentle and sincere, this is deserving of a place in every home. – All Music

A TAV Essential Album.

Note: Note: An audiophile 45rpm version of this album is also available here.

“Getz/Gilberto is a 1964 jazz-bossa nova album by American saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto, featuring composer and pianist Antônio Carlos Jobim. Its release helped fuel the bossa nova craze in the United States and internationally, becoming the first Grammy Award-winning album from non-American artists. It brought together Stan Getz, who had already performed the genre on his LP Jazz Samba, João Gilberto (one of the creators of the style), and Jobim, a celebrated Brazilian composer (and also one of the main creators of the genre), who wrote most of the songs in the album. It became one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, and turned Astrud Gilberto, who sang on the tracks "The Girl from Ipanema" and "Corcovado", into an internationally celebrated musician. The painting on the cover is by Olga Albizu.

It won the 1965 Grammy Awards for Best Album of the Year, Best Jazz Instrumental Album - Individual or Group and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. "The Girl from Ipanema" also won the award for Record of the Year in 1965. This was the first time a jazz album received Album of the Year. It was the only jazz album to win the award until Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters 43 years later, in 2008.

JazzTimes (11/94, pp. 88–89) - "...essential for all serious jazz collections...served as proof that it is possible for music to be both artistically and commercially successful...this relatively sparse setting with the great Getz perfectly fit the music, resulting in a true gem..." Vibe (12/99, p. 158) - Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century. In 2012, Rolling Stone ranked the album number 447 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was listed by Rolling Stone Brazil as one of the 100 best Brazilian albums in history.[6] The album was inducted into the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001. The album was included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.” – Wiki

Astrud Gilberto says that her husband, Joao, informed Stan Getz that she "could sing at the recording." Creed Taylor recalls that it took Getz's wife, Monica, to get both Astrud and Joao into the recording studio; Mrs. Getz had a sense that Astrud could make a hit. And Getz himself is on record saying that he insisted on Astrud's presence over the others' objections. So who's right? What does it matter? The Gilbertos, Getz and the legendary Antonio Carlos Jobim followed up the bossa nova success of Jazz Samba with this, the defining LP of the genre. With one of the greatest hit singles jazz has ever known - each one who hears it goes "Ahhh!"

Originally released in 1963.

Musicians: 

• Stan Getz, tenor saxophone
• Joao Gilberto, guitar, vocals
• Astrud Gilberto, vocals
• Antonio Carlos Jobim, guitar, piano
• Milton Banana, drums
• Tommy Williams, bass

In the mid-1950s, Armstrong signed a non-exclusive contract with Norman Granz; five resulting projects, including this album, were the finest work of his later career. His All-Stars were now a good professional outfit with fairly static repertoire; on Meets Oscar Peterson the trumpeter played many songs he’d never recorded before, ones he wouldn’t record again.

This reissue includes alternative takes from the session, plus four solo Louis tracks from his session with Ella Fitzgerald, for the same label and year. This album is excellent for examining Armstrong’s influence on Billie Holiday. Among songs previously unrecorded by him are ones that she interpreted – notably I’ll Never Be The Same, and You Go To My Head. He was her most important influence – by adjusting the pitch on Armstrong’s and Holiday’s versions of Yours And Mine, Phil Schaap showed the similarity in phrasing.

Thomas Brothers, in his remarkable book Louis Armstrong: Master Of Modernism, comments that “It is less an interpretation that [Louis] offers than a slapping, twisting, caressing, and totally unpredictable manipulation of the song”. He “exposes his inner world, but never for very long and never with fixed meaning” – there’s an ironic distance, though “cool detachment never comes across as disaffection”. In his swaggering exuberance, he riffs on the song – as Brothers puts it, there’s a “quicksilver playfulness … a new realm of expression that is hard to pin down”. Billie, in contrast, does interpret a lyric – with greater emotional depth, miraculously so in the case of triter material. She lives the sometimes banal lyrics, making art music from some low-grade materials.

There’s no song on this album as poor as Sweethearts On Parade, and consequently nothing for Louis to send up in the same way; Billie never sent up songs, however inferior. Just One Of Those Things shows Armstrong at his freest, at mid/uptempo with the vocalist apparently effortlessly, lazily behind the beat. I’m reminded of Miles Davis’s comment” “You can’t play anything on a horn that Louis hasn’t played … even modern”. As on similar dates with Coleman Hawkins or Lester Young, Oscar Peterson is surprisingly self-effacing, taking no solos but providing excellent accompaniment. A Desert Island disc. – Jazz Journal