The roaring twenties are back! Okay – or should that be OKeh? – in fairness, so are the thirties, forties, and fifties, thanks to four upcoming box sets spotlighting legendary jazz and blues stars. Legacy Recordings adds to its growing Complete Albums Collection library on October 30 with these new volumes: Louis Armstrong, The Complete OKeh, Columbia and RCA Victor Recordings 1925-1933 (OKeh/Columbia/RCA/Legacy) (10 CDs); Charlie Christian, The Genius of the Electric Guitar (Columbia/
Carole King, The Legendary Demos (Rockingale/Hear Music) Who wouldn't want to hear early recordings of some of the greatest pop songs ever recorded? I know I would. Davy Jones, The Bell Recordings 1971-1972 / The Monkees, Pool It! Deluxe Edition (Friday Music) The late Monkee's first post-band project released on CD and expanded with bonus tracks, as well as a CD/DVD of the band's penultimate 1987 album with two bonus tracks and the group's videography. T. Rex, Electric Warrior: Deluxe
More than 40 years after his passing, one of the final recordings of jazz legend Louis Armstrong is coming to CD from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Satchmo at the National Press Club: Red Beans and Rice-ly Yours presents Armstrong's five-song set given before members of the National Press Club at a black-tie gala honoring the inauguration of club president Vernon Louviere, who, like Armstrong, was a native of Louisiana. The biggest surprise to the audience was Pops' bringing his trusty horn
UPDATE 2/17: Hey, remember this whole uproar? The CD, DVD and CD/DVD editions of this pseudo-nightmarish box can now be pre-ordered on their own, with a release date of April 3. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxardpBReQc] Original post (11/29/2011): Man, Elvis Costello is a pretty awesome guy. He's had a pretty good handle on his own already-solid back catalogue, giving it a good solid two run-throughs (unfortunately, two out of three, which still ain't bad, as they say). His revival
A favorite box set of both The Second Disc and Mr. Elvis Costello, Satchmo: Ambassador of Jazz is the hefty 10-CD treasure trove issued in the U.K. by Universal Music in 2011. The first comprehensive career-spanning look at the great bandleader's life in music, Satchmo is housed in a case resembling one of Armstrong's actual travel trunks, and includes a 200-page hardcover book in addition to some select sheet music replicas. Yet despite Armstrong's central place in the annals of American
What are you doing New Year's Eve? As we count down to that big celebration, we've been holed up at Second Disc HQ readying another year's Gold Bonus Disc Awards for you! We consider our annual awards a companion piece to Mike's round-up over at Popdose (essential reading, I might add!) and we endeavor to recognize as many of the year's most amazing reissues as possible as well as to celebrate those labels, producers and artists who have raised the bar for great music throughout 2011. These
Louis Armstrong’s going to Storyville! The venerable Copenhagen-based jazz label, founded in the early 1950s by Kurt Emil Knudsen, has just released a new box set that happens to be third major box in 2011 alone for the one and only Louis Armstrong. Following Universal’s Satchmo: Ambassador of Jazz and The Complete Masters, Storyville’s efficiently-titled The Armstrong Box arrived last Tuesday. The 7-CD/1-DVD set falls somewhere between those two projects; Ambassador of Jazz is the first
Long before David Letterman called the former Hammerstein’s Theatre on 50th Street and Broadway in New York City home, the theatre was the showplace of the world, thanks to one Mr. Ed Sullivan. The former gossip columnist on the Broadway beat might have been an unlikely visitor to American homes each Sunday night between 1949 and 1971, but it was thanks to Sullivan that viewers got their first or most significant taste of such performers across the entire spectrum of entertainment. On the
If you’ve ever been looking to build a solid jazz library without spending too much coin, look no further. The European arm of Universal Music Group, through its EmArcy and Decca labels, has announced a series of Complete Masters boxes that offer considerable bang for your buck! The Complete Masters slate kicks off with five box sets devoted to Louis Armstrong (1925-1945, 14 discs), Ella Fitzgerald (1935-1955, 14 discs), Billie Holiday (1933-1959, 15 discs), Sidney Bechet (American Masters
Breaking Benjamin, Shallow Bay: The Best of Breaking Benjamin (Hollywood) A decade of Breaking Benjamin is collected on this new compilation, available in both standard and deluxe editions. The deluxe edition offers an additional disc of rare and unreleased bonus material. (Amazon) Dazz Band, Hot Spot: Expanded Edition (Funkytowngrooves) The Dazz Band's 1985 swan song on Motown Records is expanded with five remixes. (Amazon) Nick Heyward, Tangled and The Apple Bed (Cherry Red) Heyward's
The names of the greatest producers in jazz history still resonate today. The likes of Orrin Keepnews, Creed Taylor and Norman Granz (to name a mere three) all pioneered production and promotion styles that made their releases both identifable and enduring. Next week will see the release on Hip-o Select of a major project by that third-named gentleman. Granz (1918-2001) founded five record labels in his lifetime, but none more renowned than Verve. That label was created by Granz in 1956, and
Call him Pops. Call him Satchmo. Call him Loo-ie. But under any name, Louis (Loo-is) Armstrong was an American original. Miles Davis said, "You can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played." Bing Crosby described him as "the beginning and end of music in America" and Leonard Bernstein stated that "every time this man puts his trumpet to his lips...he does it with his whole soul." Recent, acclaimed biographies by Terry Teachout and Ricky Riccardi have shed light on this
Thanks to everyone's favorite all-consuming pop star Lady Gaga, this week's releases actually start a day earlier. Think of it as like being in England! New Kids on the Block/Backstreet Boys, NKOTBSB (Columbia/Jive/Legacy) Imagine a greatest hits EP for each band, augmented with three bonus tracks featuring all nine boy band members working together like some sort of insane, teenybopper Voltron. (Official site) The Monkees, The Monkees Present: Expanded Edition / Changes: Expanded
Mark your calendars, friends: a new batch of ICON budget compilations are due from Universal. Between May 3 and 24, UMe is releasing a clutch of ICON sets that run the gamut from country (Willie Nelson, Hank Williams) to R&B (New Edition, Kelly Price), from classics (The Mamas & The Paps, Louis Armstrong) to modern day heroes (Gin Blossoms, Rob Zombie). As usual, there's not much in the way of brand-new or rare material, although some titles have some one-off tunes to their credit.
Well, another New Year is in sight, the CD still isn't dead (told you so!) and celebration is in the air at The Second Disc. Back on December 23, Mike shared The Year in Reissues both here and over with our pals at Popdose. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 bucks until you read these indispensable columns! Are you back with me? Good. Now, I'd like to take this opportunity to take a fun look back at a few of my favorite things via Joe's Gold Bonus Disc Awards! I'm awarding these to the reissues
The Second Disc kicks off the week with a bit of synergy. Our very own Mike Duquette contributed a wonderful piece over at Popdose looking at the hidden musical treasures you can find at your local grocery store - of all places! - including Sony/Legacy's Playlist: The Very Best of Daryl Hall & John Oates. If you haven’t checked out Mike’s incisive, entertaining feature, please do so now, and then rejoin me here. Okay? Good. Welcome back! With summer turning to fall, and fall traditionally
That's the feeling with which Hip-o Select presents its latest title: a look at some of the last, still-great years of jazz legend Louis Armstrong. The new two-disc set, Hello, Louis! The Hit Years 1963-1969, compiles some of Satchmo's best-known and best-loved works, including the chart-topping show tune "Hello Dolly!" (which booted The Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love" from the top slot), the endearing "What a Wonderful World" and the gorgeous "We Have All the Time in the World," the theme to the