Jazz Focus

Buck Clayton's recordings from the middle 1940's combo years - the Big Four with Scoville Brown, Quintet with Flip Philips, Coleman Hawkins Quintet, Big Eight.

Trombonist Bob Connors led an exceptional two cornet band in the style of Lu Watters' groups in the mid to late 1970's in Boston.  Featuring Dave Whitney and Paul Monat on trumpets, Blair Bettencourt on clarinet and soprano, Don Bennett on piano, Cal Owen on banjo, Stu Gunn on tuba and Ray Smith on drums, the group played standard repertoire and some later jazz as well

Recordings made by the uncategorizable alto and clarinet player Bruce Turner under his own name.  Some are jump band tunes, some small group swing, some trad - all featuring Turner with a variety of British musicians including John Chilton and Terry Brown on trumpet, Colin Bates and Al Mead on piano and Pete Strange on trombone

Largely forgotten trombonist who was one of the most influential jazz players of the 1920's, Mole continued his career into the 1940's and 50's, mostly playing dixieland.  Here he is with groups of likeminded musicians from the 1920's and the Swing Era - the first from the late 1940's for Jazzology with Jack Palmer, Lee Castle, Jimmy Lytell, Joe Dixon, Frank Signorelli, Jack Lesberg and Chauncey Morehouse and the second from the 1950's with Billy Butterfield, Lytell, Signorelli, Gene Traxler and Tony Spargo.

Legendary British tenor player during the 1950’s and 60’s in sessions with Tubby Hall, Zoot Sims, Victor Feldman, Dizzy Reese, Derek Humble, Ken Wray, Jimmy Deucher and others

Complete performances of a variety of music from Jelly Roll Morton’s career - ragtime, folk, stride, jazz . .all done spontaneously in the LOC when Morton was running a club in 1938

Great small group sessions featuring Count Basie’s main soloist during this period . . tenor saxophonist Wess is accompanied by Henry Coker and Benny Powell on trombones, Joe Wilder on trumpet, Jimmy Jones on piano, Oscar Pettiford on bass and Ocie Johnson on drums

Connie (later Connee) Boswell was the central member of the Boswell Sisters trio in the 1920's and 30's although she had a series of solo recordings at the same time - here we will hear a few things from the 30's and early 40's (with Ben Pollack, John Scott Trotter and Frank Signorelli) as well as the results of two Design lps in the middle 1950's featuring her with a large band doing Rodgers and Hart and Irving Berlin tunes as well as jazz album from the same period where she is backed by the Original Memphis Five (Billy Butterfield, Miff Mole, Jimmy Lytell, Signorelli, Gene Ramey and Tony Spargo).

Artie Shaw live 1938, 39

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.