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

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The album features the two sides of Mingus' compositional genius: the beautiful balladry that I always feel has a bit of a film-noir feel to it, alongside those joyous upbeat numbers that are filled with an organized chaos that categorizes much of the bassist's best work. ... Throw in the fact that it also features Jaki Byard (who is just phenomenal on this recording and remains criminally underrated), Booker Ervin, Dannie Richmond and Eric Dolphy and you have some of Mingus' finest sidemen driving his compositions to the fantastical places they seemed preordained to go. ... Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus is a record that has more than stood the test of time and is an everlasting testament to the talents of Mingus and the players who had the ability to follow his musical vision." — The Jazz Record 

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 holiday album from the jazz legend! Have a swinging Christmas and a jazzy new year with this joyous 1960 Ella LP in your collection. She sings (and swings) "Jingle Bells," "Sleigh Ride," "Winter Wonderland," and more! She puts her singular stamp on everything from a sultry vamp like "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" to the sweet and cozy "The Christmas Song." Even potentially shopworn standards like "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" sound fresher when they're coming from Ella Fitzgerald. – Acoustic Sounds

Boss Tenors (subtitled Straight Ahead from Chicago August 1961) is an album by saxophonists Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt recorded in Chicago in 1961 and originally released on the Verve label.

“The highlight of the date is the jointly written "Blues up and Down," a classic jam which has since inspired a number of other tenor match ups to record it, especially Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Johnny Griffin. Ammons' repetitious one-note melody within "The One Before This," like Duke Ellington's deceptively simple two-note theme "C Jam Blues," leads to some inspired improvising by both men. Stitt switches to alto sax for a loping take of "There Is No Greater Love," during which Ammons' tenor provides the perfect foil.” - AllMusic

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Seeking to offer definitive audiophile grade versions of some of the most historic and best jazz records ever recorded, Verve Label Group and Universal Music Enterprises' new audiophile Acoustic Sounds vinyl reissue series utilizes the skills of top mastering engineers and the unsurpassed production craft of Quality Record Pressings. All titles are mastered from the original analog tapes, pressed on 180-gram vinyl and packaged by Stoughton Printing Co. in high-quality gatefold sleeves with tip-on jackets. The releases are supervised by Chad Kassem, CEO of Acoustic Sounds, the world's largest source for audiophile recordings.

John Coltrane's immortal Impulse! records, A Love Supreme (1964) and Ballads (1963) both have drawn rave reviews since their original release. A.B. Spellman, former administrator for the National Endowment for the Arts, once described Ballads as "some of the most sensitive, heartfelt music that any lover ever sang on a horn." Put simply, most guys don't play the saxophone like John Coltrane.

The intense passionate Coltrane interpretation of standards such as "All Or Nothing At All," "What's New," "It's Easy To Remember" and the Sinatra classic "Nancy (With The Laughing Face)" are the essence of Ballads. When asked why attempt such an undertaking, Coltrane replied "Variety."

While it may have been a short detour by Trane before he exploded off into the nether regions of jazz music a few years later, it is still a fantastic document of one of the premier jazz groups of the 1960s.

Recorded December 21, 1961 and September 18 & November 13, 1962 at Rudy Van Gelder Studios. – Acoustic Sounds

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. – Jazz Journal

Of course, the music here is sublime with the two musicians representing the then “old” and “new” waves of Jazz finding terrific common ground and bringing out the best in each other. Armstrong’s vocals are passionate, impeccably phrased and often touching. But, for me it is those moments when he takes a solo on his Trumpet that the jaw drops.

Consider that here you are listening to one of the architects of Jazz, so every note counts and always just feels right. 

You can feel the musicians having a great time making these recordings. Now it just sounds natural for us to hear these two together but apparently back in the day it was shocking for fans of the two musicians. Clearly they achieved something special here, bringing together many audiences across the generations. – Audiophile Review

Peggy Lee was 32 years old when she walked into the Decca label’s recording studios in midtown New York to lay down the tracks for what became the defining Black Coffee. Remarkably, it was the singer’s first album, even though she had a swathe of hit singles to her name. Recorded across three sessions – held on April 30 and May 1 and 4, 1953 – with producer Milt Gabler at the helm, Lee was accompanied by pianist Jimmy Rowles, bassist Max Wayne and drummer Ed Shaughnessy, plus a horn player, trumpeter Pete Candoli, who became a stalwart of the West Coast jazz scene. Sipping cognac sweetened with honey in between takes, Lee and her band recreated the intimate vibe of a jazz club performance, putting down eight tracks whose blend of languor and nocturnal reverie helped to cement Lee’s status as a torch-song goddess.

Black Coffee wasn’t a random collection of songs. As Dr Tish Oney, author of Peggy Lee: A Century Of Song, explains: “She created one of the first concept albums with Black Coffee. To that point, albums hadn’t necessarily had any thread linking the songs together, but Black Coffee was one of the very first that had a theme. The songs have to do with love, but not in the manner that it had been dealt with previously. The album is a darker exploration of imperfect love relationships, and I think a lot of people could relate to that.”

In 1954, the eight-song version of Black Coffee was issued on Decca as a 10″ LP, but in 1956 Lee added four more tracks to the album for a 12″ vinyl release. She cut them with a different set of musicians: pianist Lou Levy, guitarist Bill Pitman, bassist Buddy Clark, drummer/vibraphonist Larry Bunker and harpist Stella Castellucci. Together they accompanied Lee on an exquisite version of George Gershwin’s “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” along with three contrasting ballads: “Gee, Baby, Ain’t I Good To You,” the utterly bewitching “You’re My Thrill” and “There’s A Small Hotel.”

“Black Coffee has never been really eclipsed,” noted Oney, summing up the album’s unique qualities. “The music is timeless. Peggy Lee’s expression and musical excellence on it is truly outstanding. She shows so many hats that she could wear and doesn’t sound like the same artist, song after song after song. That’s very hard to accomplish.” Though Peggy Lee went on to record albums that were more commercially successful, Black Coffee was a defining moment in her career and the artistic high point of her Decca tenure.

This all-analog 180g vinyl LP reissue was mastered from the original analog tapes by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound, pressed at QRP, and comes housed in a Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket. – Acoustic Sounds