Jazz Focus

Two great quartet sessions for Aladdin featuring the alto player at the top of his game with either Russ Freeman or Carl Perkins on piano, Ben Tucker on bass and Chuck Flores on drums . . standards, blues and originals.

Great swing sessions for Keynote, mostly on the West Coast led by Herbie Haymer, Corky Corcoran, Babe Russin, Ted Nash in 1945-6. Also featuring Joe Thomas, Clyde Hurley, Emmett Berry, Heinie Beau, Willie Smith, Al Hendrickson, Jud DeNaut, Jackie Mills, Dave Barbour, Tommy Todd, Dodo Marmarosa, Allan Reuss, Arnold Ross, Nick Fatool and others.

Great brass band recordings for American Music (Bunk Johnson with Kid Shots Madison, George Lewis, Jim Robinson, Baby Dodds, Lawrence Marrero, Joe Clark, Isadore Barbarin and others) and Riverside (George Lewis with Kid Howard, Peter Bocage, Robinson, Dodds, Marrero, Barbarin, Joe Howard). .done in 1945 and 1946 in New Orleans

The great 1940-41 Ellington band with Ben Webster and Jimmy Blanton (and Cootie Williams, Rex Stewart, Ray Nance, Juan Tizol, Lawrence Brown, Tricky Sam Nanton, Barney Bigard, Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney and Sonny Greer) doing live and radio transcription versions of the great tunes they recorded for RCA Victor.

The Wanderers made one recording date in 1935 and placed themselves as an excellent territory jazz band . .featuring three members (Marvin Montgomery on banjo, Dick Reinhart on guitar and Bert Dodson on bass) that went to the Light Crust Doughboys later that year. These are their first records and then a selection of Light Crust DB sides featuring them as well as Kenneth Pitts, Cecil Brower, Muryel "Zeke" Campbell on electric guitar (pre-Charlie Christian!) and the great Knocky Parker on piano

The Jess Stacy Duo, Trio and Quartet recording for Brunswick, Atlantic, Capitol and Hanover . . featuring the pianist with George Van Epps on guitar, Morty Corb, Artie Bernstein on bass and Nick Fatool on drums.

Two Cozy Cole sessions (with Coleman Hawkins, Budd Johnson, Eddie Barefield, Johnny Guarnieri), one Walter Thomas (Ben Webster, Budd Johnson, Clyde Hart) and under his own name (Don Byas, Dave Rivera, Milt Hinton, JC Heard) all feature the matchless trumpet of Emmett Berry in 1944 and 1945.

Lester Young left the Basie band in 1940 to try his hand at bandleading . . It didn't work well so he returned to the fold in the late fall of 1943. No commercial records were made during this period but Lang-Worth transcriptions and AFRS shows fill in the gaps - here is the band with Harry Edison, Joe Newman and Al Killian playing trumpet solos; Dicky Wells on trombone; Earl Warren, Jimmy Powell, Buddy Tate, Lester Young and Rudy Rutherford in the sax section and the Basie rhythm section of the boss, Freddy Green, Rodney Richardson and Jo Jones.

Two sessions with the great Bob Crosby alumn Eddie Miller - 1979 featuring Johnny Varro, Ray Leatherwood and Gene Estes and 1982 with George Masso, John Bunch, Milt Hinton and Duffy Jackson . .great late period swing!