The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz | ||||
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Compilation album by Various | ||||
Released | 1973 | |||
Genre | Avant-garde jazz, free jazz, bebop, hard bop, modal jazz, ragtime, swing | |||
Length | 2523:08 | |||
Label | Smithsonian Institution, Columbia | |||
Producer | Various | |||
Compiler | Martin Williams | |||
Smithsonian Institution jazz compilations chronology | ||||
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The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz is a six-LP box set released in 1973 by the Smithsonian Institution. Compiled by jazz critic, scholar, and historian Martin Williams, the album included tracks from over a dozen record labels spanning several decades and genres of American jazz, from ragtime and big band to post-bop and free jazz.
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Tom Hull | A [1] |
Praised from the time of its release as "by far the best anthology of jazz recordings ever issued," it "became part of the jazz curriculum at colleges throughout the country." and over time it was a best-selling, double platinum record. [2] [3]
This collection has been criticized for a number of shortcomings and idiosyncrasies; e.g., Paul de Barros, jazz critic for the Seattle Times, wrote, "Williams also favored black musicians over white (common to his critical generation), overlooked Latin, female and most hard-bop instrumentalists and, as most male jazz critics still do, disdained vocals." [4] However, the collection has also long been widely and highly praised in terms similar to those of Dan Morganstern of The New York Times, who in 1987 referred to it as "by far the best available survey of the recorded history of jazz on concise form." [5]
Critic Gary Giddins posited in 1998 that these traits, its idiosyncratic nature and its esteemed stature, were two sides of a coin: "One key reason Martin Williams's epochal 1973 Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz had the impact it did (and went double platinum, not bad for mail order) is that he trusted his own eccentricity, though he would have used a, ahem, different term, like maybe critical judgment." [6]
In 1987 the Smithsonian issued a revised, seven-LP, five-CD, or five-cassette edition of the collection, accompanied by a paperback book by Williams under the same title, with the revised collection including some different tracks, ending with "Steppin'" by the World Saxophone Quartet. The collection was reissued as a five-CD boxed set in 1997 by Sony Music Special Projects, digitally remastered and with some tracks restored to full-length. [7] [8]
In 2011, with this collection out of print, the Smithsonian issued a new 6-CD set Intended to take its place, called Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology , about which Ben Ratliff of The New York Times wrote, "what the new anthology might make you miss the most is the object it has been designed to replace: The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, compiled in 1973 and revised in 1987 by the critic Martin Williams." [9] One critic opined that the 2011 anthology's selection by committee, rather than by a single person, "while admirable in principle, guarantees that The Smithsonian Anthology has no point of view." [4] Other critics had similar reactions. [7] [9]
Side one
Side two
Side three
Side four
Side five
Side six
Side seven
Side eight
Side nine
Side ten
Side eleven
Side twelve
The Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) was a Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their "Livery Stable Blues" became the first jazz record ever issued. The group composed and recorded many jazz standards, the most famous being "Tiger Rag". In late 1917, the spelling of the band's name was changed to Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
The Hot Five was Louis Armstrong's first jazz recording band led under his own name.
The Mills Blue Rhythm Band was an American big band active during the 1930s.
This 1956 recording based on George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess was the second "complete" recording of the opera after the 1951 version, and the first recording of the work to feature jazz singers and musicians instead of operatic singers and a classical orchestra.
Russell Keith Procope was an American clarinetist and alto saxophonist who was a member of the Duke Ellington orchestra.
"Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" is a jazz composition written in 1937 by Duke Ellington and recorded for the first time on May 15, 1937 by the Duke Ellington Orchestra with Wallace Jones, Cootie Williams (trumpet), Rex Stewart (cornet), Barney Bigard (clarinet), Johnny Hodges, Otto Hardwick, Laurence Brown, Joe Nanton (trombone), Harry Carney, Sonny Greer (drums), Wellmann Braud (bass), Freddie Guy (guitar), and Duke Ellington (piano). No tenor saxophone was present in this recording section, nor in "Crescendo in Blue," which was recorded the same day. In its early form, the two individual pieces, "Diminuendo in Blue" and "Crescendo in Blue," were recorded on opposite sides of a 78 rpm record. The 1956 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival revitalized Ellington's career, making newspaper headlines when seated audience members chaotically began rising to dance and stand on their chairs during Paul Gonsalves's tenor saxophone solo.
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Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia 1933–1944 is a 10-CD box set compiling the complete known studio master recordings, plus alternate takes, of Billie Holiday during the time period indicated, released in 2001 on Columbia/Legacy, CXK 85470. Designed like an album of 78s, the medium in which these recordings initially appeared, the 10.5" × 12" box includes 230 tracks, a 116-page booklet with extensive photos, a song list, discography, essays by Michael Brooks, Gary Giddins, and Farah Jasmine Griffin, and an insert of appreciations for Holiday from a diversity of figures including Tony Bennett, Elvis Costello, Marianne Faithfull, B.B. King, Abbey Lincoln, Jill Scott, and Lucinda Williams. At the 44th Grammy Awards on February 27, 2002, the box set won the Grammy Award for Best Historical Album of the previous year.
Sacred Concert by Duke Ellington is one of the following realisations:
New Orleans Suite is a studio album by the American pianist, composer, and bandleader Duke Ellington, recorded and released on the Atlantic label in 1970. The album contains the final recordings of longtime Ellington saxophonist Johnny Hodges, who died between the album's two recording sessions. The album won a Grammy Award in 1971 for Best Jazz Performance by a Big Band.
Featuring Paul Gonsalves is an album by American jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader Duke Ellington. Without new material to work with, Ellington recorded the album with his orchestra and saxophonist Paul Gonsalves in 1962 during a four-hour recording session. It was not released until 1985 by Fantasy Records.
The Carnegie Hall Concerts: December 1944 is a live album by American pianist, composer and bandleader Duke Ellington recorded at Carnegie Hall, in New York City in 1944 and released on the Prestige label in 1977.
Studio Sessions, 1957, 1965, 1966, 1967, San Francisco, Chicago, New York is the eighth volume of The Private Collection - whereas is Volume 5 in the edition of the collection by the English KAZ Jazz Masters label - a series documenting recordings made by American pianist, composer and bandleader Duke Ellington for his personal collection which was first released on the LMR label in 1987 and later on the Saja label.
The Louis Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven Sessions were recorded between 1925 and 1928 by Louis Armstrong with his Hot Five and Hot Seven groups. According to the National Recording Registry, "Louis Armstrong was jazz's first great soloist and is among American music's most important and influential figures. These sessions, his solos in particular, set a standard musicians still strive to equal in their beauty and innovation." These recordings were added to the National Recording Registry in 2002, the first year of the institution's existence.
Hot Fives & Sevens is a 2000 box set collection of recordings made by American jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong with his Hot Five, Hot Seven, and other groups between 1925 and 1930. First released on JSP Records on 22 August 2000, the set was subsequently reissued on Definitive in 2001. A four-disc compilation, the set has received a "crown" as an author's pick in The Penguin Guide to Jazz and is also included in the book's "core collection" recommended for jazz fans. Allmusic concurs that it is "beyond indispensable", suggesting that "you can't have a Louis Armstrong collection without this historic set" or "any kind of respectable jazz collection" Alternatively, Ben Ratliff, writing in 2002, preferred Columbia's release The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings.
"Dippermouth Blues" is a song first recorded by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band for Gennett Records in April 1923 and for Okeh Records in June of that same year. It is most often attributed to Joe "King" Oliver, though some have argued that Louis Armstrong was in fact the composer. This is partly because "Dippermouth", in the song's title, was a nickname of Armstrong's. Also, the phonograph recordings from 1922 gave credit to Armstrong and Oliver jointly. The song is a strong example of the influence of the blues on early jazz. There is a twelve-bar blues harmonic progression, with frequent bent notes and slides into notes.
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Ostrich Walk" is a 1917 jazz composition by the Original Dixieland Jass Band released as an instrumental as an Aeolian Vocalion and a Victor 78. Frankie Trumbauer and Bix Beiderbecke recorded the song in 1927. The song is a jazz milestone as one of the first commercially released "jass" or jazz recordings.
The Chocolate Dandies was the name of several American jazz combos from 1928 through the 1940s. The name was an outgrowth of the Broadway production, The Chocolate Dandies, that debuted in 1924.