New Release Round-up,
20th Century Masterworks on Vinyl
New and upcoming vinyl releases from 20th Century Masterworks include essential classics like Sarah Vaughan & Clifford Brown, Etta James’s At Last! and Mingus Ah Um. All of the releases on this series come issued on 180g coloured vinyl, and include bonus tracks specially prepared liner notes from The Penguin Guide to Jazz writer Brian Morton.
Sarah Vaughan’s 1955 self-titled record, featuring Clifford Brown on trumpet, is as much of a testament to Brown’s playing as it is to Vaughan’s own talents. Brown would sadly pass not long after the recording of this album, Vaughan’s studio debut also serving as one of the only documents of the great trumpeter.
Available Format: Vinyl Record
The classic 1957 recording by Monk’s Septet is often praised for the contributions of two prominent session players - saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane. You can sometimes hear the two trying to out-do each other on this recording, making it as much their album as it is Monk’s.
Available Format: Vinyl Record
Although he was known for his talents both with the trumpet and voice, the album sometimes simply known as Chet is a purely instrumental affair. Consisting of nine ballads, including ‘It Never Entered My Mind’, Chet is an essential cool jazz release as well as an excellent introduction to the eminent trumpeter.
Available Format: Vinyl Record
Recorded at the eponymous nightclub in Greenwich Village, New York, At the Village Gate is Nina’s third live album, and features a number of both folk songs and African songs in her set, recorded quite early in her career. The record makes for a great listen thanks to her raw technique and enrapturing performance.
Available Format: Vinyl Record
Sometimes issued as The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Vol. 8, this record is very much the sound of two soloists competing with each other throughout a session, much like Monk’s Music further up the list. The two musicians on the top of the bill go all-out constantly, with Tatum often playing his own solos underneath Webster’s tenor sax. Despite this, the resulting album is often lauded as an essential release, and was also one of the last Tatum made before his passing.
Available Format: Vinyl Record
Miles Davis’ soundtrack to the French crime-thriller of the same name (also known as ‘Elevator to the Gallows’) is also one of the earliest examples of ‘noir jazz’, the subtle and minimal style giving this record an enduring quality that’s outlasted even the film it was composed for.
Available Format: Vinyl Record
There’s little that can be said about Mingus Ah Um that hasn’t been said already; less avant-garde than some of Mingus’s later work, it’s an essential for any jazz fan and a quintessential post-bop recording.
Available Format: Vinyl Record
The debut studio album by blues and soul singer Etta James also features the widely-covered title track, and was a hit even upon its original release in 1960. James’s style encompasses not only the blues, but jazz and soul too; she had a powerful presence despite being only 22 years old at the time.
Available Format: Vinyl Record
Not to be confused with the album from the same year by Stan Getz, Big Band Bossa Nova comes early on in American jazz’s fascination with the Brazilian style, but Jones’s bossa record features both tracks by bossa composers Antônio Carlos Jobim and Lalo Schifrin and his stateside contemporaries like Charles Mingus.
Available Format: Vinyl Record
Joshua Lee - Jazz Content
