This morning, Sony’s Legacy division kicked off a new catalogue initiative that’s sure to raise a few eyebrows!  The Complete Album Collection box sets bring together an artist’s entire tenure at a label (in these cases, Columbia and RCA Victor) in one tidy box set, with albums in individual mini-LP sleeves.  The first four artists to receive this treatment are The Byrds, Sam Cooke, Stan Getz and Return to Forever, and the boxes are available for pre-order now exclusively through PopMarket.  While many of the titles included have been released on CD in the past, other albums will be making their U.S. CD debuts.  (The Cooke is the most exciting set in this respect, with six of the eight albums new to American CD.  The Getz set has a special surprise, too, in the form of a bonus disc with stray Getz selections.)

We’ll fill in the details later, but in the interest of passing this information to you as quickly as possible, hit the jump for the titles included in each box set and the label-supplied information for each title!  All titles can be pre-ordered now at PopMarket.

The Byrds, The Complete Columbia Albums (Columbia/Legacy, 2011)

During their original 1965–1971 lifespan, the Byrds were one of rock’s most consistently inventive and influential bands, embodying the ’60s ideals of restless experimentation and creative risk-taking. Through a lengthy series of artistic evolutions and personnel shifts, the Byrds maintained their place on rock’s cutting edge, with founding visionary Roger McGuinn joined over the years by such legendary figures as Gene Clark, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, Gram Parsons and Clarence White. The musicians’ diverse talents combined to produce one of rock’s richest and most rewarding album catalogs.

The Byrds’ first two albums, Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn!, gave birth to the folk-rock movement by applying soaring vocal harmonies and jangly 12-string guitars to Bob Dylan songs, traditional folk material and memorable originals. The band’s subsequent releases Fifth Dimension, Younger Than Yesterday and The Notorious Byrd Brothers helped to usher in the psychedelic era. With 1968’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo, featuring new member Gram Parsons, the Byrds became the first major rock act to explore the traditions of country music. After that album, McGuinn reinvented the Byrds once again, with a new lineup featuring the brilliant guitarist Clarence White, for a series of eclectic psychedelic-country-soul albums, including Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde, and Ballad of Easy Rider.

• Mr. Tambourine Man
• Turn! Turn! Turn!
• Fifth Dimension
• Younger Than Yesterday
• The Notorious Byrd Brothers
• Sweetheart of the Rodeo (2 CDs)
• Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde
• Ballad of Easy Rider
• (Untitled)/(Unissued) (2 CDs)
• Byrdmaniax
• Farther Along

Sam Cooke, The RCA Albums Collection (RCA/Legacy, 2011)

Sam Cooke is widely regarded as the first and greatest soul singer, and as one of the most important figures in modern American music. His good looks, personal charisma and golden voice made him a superstar in the 1950s, winning him an unprecedented crossover appeal. Rather than coasting on his commercial success, the multi-talented artist worked to maximize his music's capacity for personal expression and artistic growth.

As lead singer of the Soul Stirrers, Cooke was already an established star on the gospel circuit in the mid-'50s, when he made a daring transition into the secular music world. That risky move paid off. Not only was he immensely popular with both black and white audiences; he also appealed to teenagers as well as their parents. But it was after his 1960 move to the RCA label that Cooke truly came into his own as an artist. At RCA, he recorded a historic series of albums that demonstrated the full range of his diverse talents, showing him to be equally at ease with raw R&B, smooth pop, gritty gospel, bluesy ballads and socially-conscious songcraft.

Although he died in 1964 at the age of 33, Sam Cooke produced a remarkably accomplished body of work in his short life. This box set celebrates that rich musical legacy, collecting eight of his greatest albums, six of which have never before been released on CD in the United States. This collection charts Sam Cooke's remarkable musical evolution, and stands as a powerful testament to his timeless talent.

Albums included:

• Cooke's Tour
• Hits of the 50's
• Sam Cooke/Swing Low
• My Kind of Blues
• Twistin' the Night Away
• Mr. Soul
• Night Beat
• One Night Stand! Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963

Stan Getz, The Complete Columbia Albums Collection (Columbia/Legacy, 2011)

It was not long after tenor saxophonist Stan Getz (1927-1991) rose to fame during his late 1940’s stint with the Woody Herman band that he came to be known as “The Sound.”  Few sobriquets have been so apt, for in his nearly half-century career, Getz retained an instrumental tone that, in blending an ethereal sonority with muscular heft, became both a jazz trademark and the inspiration for generations of horn players. Combined with his effervescent swing and a gift for lyrical melody making, Getz became one of the most popular and influential jazz musicians the music has known.

A teenage prodigy, Getz had already played with such illustrious Swing Era bandleaders as Benny Goodman before establishing himself as a star soloist in the Herman band’s celebrated  “Four Brothers” saxophone section; Getz’s brief but beautiful turn on “Early Autumn” in 1949, catapulted him to stardom, an exalted position in the jazz universe he held until his death in 1991. Initially influenced by the airy sonority and melodiousness of saxophone legend Lester Young, Getz quickly developed his own instantly recognizable stylistic voice.

A renowned player throughout the bebop era of the 1940s and 50s, Getz achieved his greatest popularity in the early 1960s when his Jazz Samba and Getz-Gilberto albums, and the subsequent hit single, “The Girl From Ipanema,” ushered in and defined the bossa nova craze. Getz, displaying the craving for new musical interest that characterized his entire career, then began working with adventurous younger players including Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Dave Holland and Fred Hersch. Never resting on his laurels, Getz, while maintaining his stature as the foremost mainstream saxophone stylist, continued to explore diverse musical paths. “The Sound” still rings clearly two decades since his passing.

Albums included:

• Captain Marvel (1972) w/ Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Tony Williams
• Stan Getz/Joao Gilberto: The Best Of Two Worlds (1975)
• The Master (1975)
• Stan Getz/ Jimmy Rowles: The Peacocks (1975)
• Another World
• Children Of The World
• Forest Eyes (music composed, arranged & conducted by Jurre Haanstra) CBS (Holland)
• Bonus Disc (U.S. Only):  includes selections from Woody Herman - Carnegie Hall 40th Anniversary Concert, Montreux Summit, and Havana Jam.

Return to Forever, The Complete Columbia Albums Collection (Columbia/Legacy, 2011)

Pianist, keyboardist, composer, arranger, and  bandleader Chick Corea (b. 1941) flaunts his eclectic musical nature like a badge of honor. Moving fluidly within the realms of jazz, classical, fusion and Latin-Jazz, Corea’s stylistic identity cannot be pinned down; his musical personality is defined only by the consistent excellence of his multifarious endeavors. Fifty years into his career, Corea is unquestionably a jazz icon, beloved by devoted listeners, and as influential with fellow musicians, as he has ever been.

After important early experience with both Latin music bands and jazz ensembles, including those of Mongo Santamaria, Stan Getz, and Sarah Vaughan, Corea gained significantly wider recognition when he replaced Herbie Hancock in Miles Davis’s acclaimed quintet in 1968. His work with Davis and his own recordings, including the brilliant Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, positioned Corea as one of the premier post bop pianists of his generation. Yet his eclecticism was about to blossom. After delving into free jazz with the band Circle, Corea turned to the electric piano and formed Return to Forever, which in its original incarnation, took Latin jazz as its focus. Return to Forever would then quickly morph into a highly successful fusion band, one that found Corea making extensive use of synthesizers and electronic keyboards.

From the mid-1970s onwards, the musically peripatetic Corea has formed new ensembles – both acoustic and electric – collaborated with a dizzyingly diverse cast of prominent musicians (Gary Burton, Bobby McFerrin, and Bela Fleck, among them), composed works that range from classical extravaganzas to children’s songs, and has continued to exert wide influence as an adventurous improvising pianist who is nonetheless thoroughly grounded in the jazz tradition. Recent tours with John McLaughlin and a reunited Return to Forever proved that Corea’s popular esteem is rock solid.

Albums included:

• Romantic Warrior (1976)
• Musicmagic (1977)
• Return To Forever Live (1977) [3 CDs]