Herbie Hancock's V.S.O.P. project with his former bandmates from the Miles Davis Quintet – Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams – and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard was a band that almost single-handedly tried to re-establish acoustic jazz in the United States. And though they made three recordings, all of which were favorably reviewed and heralded by true jazz fans, none of them sold very well, and the band could find few gigs in the United States. The 1978 tour of major cities was thought to be a triumph at the time, but the unit could find few gigs afterward, and so its various members all went back to their other projects. In 1979, they got the opportunity to tour Japan and jumped at the chance. Sony, Hancock's Japanese label, recorded the two evenings, and the first, which took place during a furious rainstorm, was broadcast live on national television! Live Under the Sky marks the first time that this album has been available in the United States in any form.

This delightful LP features Art Farmer with a large orchestra not long after he switched from trumpet to flügelhorn. Oliver Nelson's arrangements provide great backdrops for the leader, as do the mix of dependable studio musicians and outstanding jazzmen assembled for the three sessions, including Tommy Flanagan, Phil Woods, Clark Terry, and Jim Hall, to name a few. The choice of material is inspiring: a snappy "Raincheck," and Farmer's moody "Rue Prevail," and a relatively (then) new work by John Coltrane, "Naima," which turns into a richly textured tour de force in the hands of Farmer & co.

Clare Fischer's big-band release was only briefly available as an Atlantic LP but it has finally reappeared in the CD era after a brief appearance under another title on LP some ten years after its first release. Fischer's potent originals and first-rate arrangements bring out the best in his musicians, which include Warne Marsh and Conte Candoli (featured on "Miles Behind"), Bill Perkins on a work trumpeter Stewart Fischer specially composed for the baritone saxophonist ("Calamus"), and alto saxophonist Gary Foster featured with Marsh on Lennie Tristano's "Lennie's Pennies." A well-conceived chart of Billy Strayhorn's "Upper Manhattan Medical Group" swings mightily. The leader even makes a rare appearance on alto sax in the brief "In Memoriam" dedicated to the assassinated Kennedy brothers.

This transitional recording sees Joe Zawinul moving from the role of jazz pianist to that of a synthesist in the broad sense of the word. The recording, made up of advanced hard bop and post bop themes, includes - with varying degrees of cohesion - passages for cello and violas. The strings never completely meld with the jazz instrumentation, but they also don't get in the way. The title suggests Zawinul sees little value in partitioning music under such headings as "Third Stream" (a rubric for the fusion of jazz and classical music). This view would be famously exemplified in the influential projects with which Zawinul would soon be involved. Zawinul sticks with acoustic piano except for "Soul of a Village", where he improvises in a soul-jazz vein on Fender Rhodes over the tamboura-like droning of a prepared piano…

Having sponsored Ornette Coleman at the School of Jazz near Lennox, MA, pianist and composer John Lewis helped launch the controversial career of one of the last great innovators in jazz. Lewis' support of the ragtag Texas native was somewhat unique in jazz circles at the time and even surprising, especially considering the gulf between the classical jazz formality of his group the Modern Jazz Quartet and Coleman's radical notions of free improvisation. Nevertheless, Lewis not only saw in Coleman the first jazz genius since bebop's Parker, Gillespie, and Monk, but put pay to the praise with the MJQ's 1962 rendition of one of Coleman's most famous numbers, "Lonely Woman." (Along with Art Pepper's 1960 version of "Tears Inside," this was one of the earliest of Coleman covers don.)…

In another of those two-fers that are going to tangle discographies for some time to come, this bears the title of a Don Patterson album, The Boss Men, and includes all of the material from that LP. However, this CD, though it's also called The Boss Men, is billed to both Sonny Stitt and Don Patterson, and combines the original Patterson The Boss Men LP with another album cut in 1965, Night Crawler, that was billed to Sonny Stitt, although it featured the exact same lineup (Stitt on alto sax, Patterson on organ, Billy James on drums) as The Boss Men. Not only that, the CD adds two cuts from a Patterson 1964 LP, Patterson's People, also featuring the Stitt-Patterson-James trio. As for the original The Boss Men, it's a respectable straight-ahead jazz-with-organ session…

Thigpen has a deft hand on the drums, and this live set from the Copenhagen Jazz House in 1998 is good proof of his skill. Never one to grandstand, he puts the music first. His trio, with Carsten Dahl on piano and Jesper Bodilsen on bass, lays down some straightforward and pleasing traditional jazz, with nice original tunes by all members of the band.

During a career that spanned close to a half century, Art Farmer was well-known for his consistency as a soloist and a bandleader. This series of studio sessions from 1960, with pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Tommy Williams, and drummer Albert Heathe, find the trumpeter in great form, with the usually impeccable accompaniment one expects from Flanagan. Many of the rich ballads featured, including "So Beats My Heart for You," "Goodbye Old Girl," and "Younger Than Springtime," have fallen out of favor in the early 21st century, but Farmer's impeccable performances of these chestnuts sound timeless. A slightly jaunty take of Benny Golson's "Out of the Past" and a spirited rendition of "The Best Thing for You Is Me" also merit attention.

The rap on Sonny Stitt is that he was little more than an imitator of Charlie Parker, without a firm identity of his own. However, from the evidence of these early Stitt recordings - gathered together into a three-CD box - the first part of the rap doesn't quite ring true, though the second remains an open question. Stitt may have shared an occasional rhetorical turn or blindingly fast run with Bird - most tellingly on "S`Wonderful" - but definitely not his entire style. You can hear plenty of Lester Young influences on the tracks where he plays tenor sax, and many of the ballads preview the soulful inflections that would flourish when he joined the soul-jazz movement in the '60s. Moreover, aware of the Bird backlash, Stitt recorded the majority of these tracks on the tenor, with occasional sessions on the baritone and finally, about two-thirds of the way through the set, on alto…

This excellent Columbia album was recorded less than a year after Dexter Gordon's well-publicized tour of the United States following a dozen years spent living in Europe. With assistance from such other major players as trumpeters Woody Shaw and Benny Bailey, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson sounds in superlative form on Woody Shaw's "The Moontrane," four standards, and his own "Fried Bananas." In addition to the original program (which features Dexter with an all-star tentet), the 1997 CD reissue adds two 1979 features for vocalese singer Eddie Jefferson ("Diggin' It" and "It's Only a Paper Moon") that were originally released on Gordon's Great Encounters; trumpeter Shaw and trombonist Curtis Fuller co-star with Gordon. An excellent acquisition.

The first three cuts of CD 1 are the first traces of Cannonball in France. Today, they seem especially short to us. But the Adderley brothers were not the only ones playing on this Jazz at the Philharmonic tour organized by Norman Granz. Also on the trip : Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Don Byas, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Lalo Shifrin, J.J. Johnson. Sorry there is so little. The other five titles are from the April 15, 1961 concert.
Two changes in the rhythm section of this second Julian and Nat Adderley Quintet : Bobby Timmons is replaced by the English pianist-vibraphonist Victor Feldman (1934-1987) and, on one piece, the addition of then-unknown Ron Carter, which allows bass player Sam Jones (1924-1981) to show off on cello…