The newly remastered CDs spotlight pianist/bandleader Ellington Performing a sampling of his orchestra’s greatest hits and Never-before-released Blanton/Webster material, Clarinetist Goodman delivering his Swing Era classics, Hawkins playing rhapsodies with the body and soul That earned him the title Father of the Tenor Saxophone And Shaw, clarinetist and big bandleader par excellence, Offering studio and broadcast tracks. The bonus DVDs featuring film shorts, Rarely seen historical performances and informative interviews.

The four CD/DVD collections will be released on August 24, 2004

Jazz was born more than a hundred years ago. Over the course of its century-plus history, the music has evolved into a multitude of styles and colors and textures. Any music whose lifeblood is dependent on the act of improvisation—in essence, creating from anew each time a piece of music is performed—is destined to change. Yet the anchor of the music is its history. In jazz, what comes next is inextricably linked to what went before. The jazz musicians making the strongest statements today are students who are steeped in the tradition. Much of that tradition is found recorded on RCA Victor/Bluebird.

The recently introduced Bluebird series “The Centennial Collection” taps into this rich history of jazz— now deemed one of America’s greatest cultural gifts to the world. The series started earlier this year with two CDs that celebrated the 100th birthday of two jazz legends: Fats Waller: The Centennial Collection and Glenn Miller: The Centennial Collection. Jazz neophytes and aficionados alike were drawn to these CD/DVD packages that showcased the music of these icons. Since Victor Records and later its sister labels RCA Victor and Bluebird documented many of the jazz giants, today Bluebird expands its offerings of historical recordings and now film to chronicle jazz’s foundation.

Bluebird’s latest round of Centennial Collections, set for August 24 release, spotlights the careers of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins and Artie Shaw—all elders of jazz who moved the genre forward with their imaginative music. Each CD is newly remastered in 24-bit sound. The bonus component of each release is a DVD that features video material on the artist, from rarely viewed performances to revealing interviews.

Duke Ellington: The Centennial Collection offers a sampling of music from his vast body of work that is widely regarded as one of the great artistic legacies of the 20th century. The maestro recorded for Victor, Bluebird and RCA Victor beginning in 1927 and continuing on and off to 1973. The CD in this package captures Ellington and his band on 13 cuts recorded between 1927 and 1942. Also included are eight previously unreleased broadcast selections by Duke’s legendary 1941 band starring bassist Jimmie Blanton and saxophonist Ben Webster. The DVD captures Ellington and his band in short-film format. All eight of his films during 1934 and 1943 are included, with guest vocalists such as Billie Holiday, Ivie Anderson and Herb Jeffries. A previously unissued 11-minute audio interview with Duke is also featured on the DVD.

Benny Goodman: The Centennial Collection collects 21 tunes the clarinetist recorded between 1935 and 1939. The operative word in this collection is swing, which the bandleader spearheaded into worldwide popularity during these years. But also featured is Goodman’s small band forays into chamber jazz. The music on this package highlights many of Goodman’s integral sidemen, including Bunny Berigan, Lionel Hampton, Harry James, Gene Krupa and Teddy Wilson, who all became stars thanks to their contributions in this band. The DVD includes footage from feature films made in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s in which Goodman’s bands appeared, including Auld Lang Syne, The Powers Girl and Stage Door Canteen. Bonus footage comes from a 1960 Ed Sullivan Show performance and the 1966 Belgian Jazz Festival.

Coleman Hawkins: The Centennial Collection captures the tenor saxophonist performing the music that made him one of the jazz titans. This collection celebrates Hawk’s upcoming 100th birthday (November 21st), offering a sampling of his music beginning in 1929. Included in the CD is Hawk’s timeless 1939 recording of “Body and Soul” that liner note writer Dan Morgenstern cites as “among the handful of perfect jazz records.” Also included are tunes where Hawk invites fellow tenor man Sonny Rollins (“Just Friends”) and trombonist J.J. Johnson and trumpeter Fats Navarro (“Half Step Down”). The DVD material includes three tunes from the short-lived late-‘50s TV series “Jazz Party” that included the Hawk performing with Lester Young “trading 4s” on Pres’ own “Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid,” as well as a rare performance from a TV pilot that featured Hawkins.

Artie Shaw: The Centennial Collection collects 20 tunes that reflect the genius of the clarinetist and bandleader. Before signing with RCA Victor in 1938, Shaw led several bands, none of which had commercial success. But under the Victor umbrella, he soon became a star on the merits of two hits, “Frenesi” and Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine.” Eight selections included in this package were recorded during radio broadcasts. DVD material includes a 1939 movie short called “Class in Swing,” an excerpt from the comedy film Second Chorus starring Fred Astaire and Burgess Meredith, and a 2001 interview with Shaw in support of his Bluebird box set Self Portrait.

DUKE ELLINGTON

When the jazz world celebrated Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington’s 100th birthday in 1999, there was a swell of reissues and tributes. The most prominent release was the RCA Victor 24-CD box set, The Duke Ellington Centennial Edition. The collection of Ellington material featured nearly his entire recording catalog for Victor and its associated labels, and not surprisingly it won a Grammy Award.

Beginning in 1924 and continuing to his death fifty years later in 1974, Ellington forged an illustrious career in jazz as pianist/composer/arranger. He not only performed at dances and in concert halls, but he also appeared frequently on radio, film and television. He is one of the best known jazz artists in the music’s history. And what’s also remarkable is how his orchestras over the years proved to be the training grounds for some of jazz’s greatest improvisers.

Duke Ellington: The Centennial Collection trains the spotlight on several of the maestro’s renowned band mates. Cornetist/trumpeter James “Bubber” Miley is featured on two well-known tunes recorded in 1927 that he co-composed with the leader: “Black and Tan Fantasy” and “East St. Louis Toodle-o,” the latter having served as the Ellington band radio theme until 1940. The great saxophonist Johnny Hodges, a veteran Ellington Orchestra member, gets the opportunity to stretch on “The Mooch” (recorded in 1930). Valve trombonist Juan Tizol contributes one of the Ellington band’s most famous tunes “Perdido” (recorded in 1941).

Tracks 14 through 20 on the CD are previously unreleased radio broadcasts. Duke Ellington’s “Are You Sticking,” Mercer Ellington’s “Moon Mist” and two compositions by Billy Strayhorn “Chelsea Bridge” and “Love Like This Can’t Last” were recorded live at the Trianon Ballroom in South Gate, California in mid-June 1941. Another batch of tunes (“It’s Square, But It Rocks,” “In a Mellow Tone” and “Sepia Panorama”) were also recorded at the Trianon on another night.

These numbers prominently feature bassist Jimmie Blanton, one of the pioneer bass improvisers of jazz. Liner notes author Steven Lasker writes: “While we may lament that the original recording disc for ‘Sepia Panorama’ ran out of room before the performance came to an end (and is thus incomplete), we still have plenty to be grateful for, especially the thrilling minute-long solo by Jimmie Blanton, this being the only known recorded instance of him playing ‘slap-style’ bass.”

The DVD component of Duke Ellington: The Centennial Collection features eight short films beginning with the score of “Symphony in Black” recorded for Paramount Pictures in 1934. It includes old and new tunes and is considered to be the finest of all jazz soundtracks. According to Paramount’s “The Blue Book of Shorts” catalog of film shorts, the plot of the mini film is as follows: “Duke Ellington, composer of innumerable popular dance tunes, is picked up in his studio where he is engaged in the composition of more advanced type of music. As he writes, he visualizes the premiere of his new opus in a great metropolitan concert hall. The scene dissolves to the premiere, and then as the rhythmic and descriptive rhapsody is played by Ellington's band, the various moods are illustrated graphically on the screen. Illustrative episodes include scenes in the hold of a great ocean liner, dramas in a little Southern church, a Harlem 'Blues' sequence, and others. The music played throughout is Ellington's own and was especially arranged by him for this short. With modern jazz as its basis, it ranges from spirituals to hot syncopation.” In one of the segments, Billie Holiday, in her first film, sings from a deserted sidewalk accompanied by Ellington’s orchestra.

Other DVD shorts include “Record Making with Duke Ellington,” filmed in 1937 (the earliest film footage of Ellington’s band in a studio setting) and “Duke Ellington and His Orchestra” (with the band performing four of its hits). Five 1941 “soundies”(made for coin-operated video juke boxes) are also included: “Hot Chocolate” (a.k.a. “Cotton Tail”), “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good,” “Bli-Blip,” “Flamingo” and “C Jam Blues.” A newly discovered 11-minute audio interview with Ellington in 1941 completes the DVD package.

BENNY GOODMAN

In the liner notes to Benny Goodman: The Centennial Collection, David French writes: “The Swing Era began in August of 1935 when a near-riot at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles alerted America to the presence of a new, and unprecedented youth idol—a 26-year-old clarinet player named Benny Goodman. To us now, he seems an unlikely hero—a buttoned down, bespectacled figure from the pre-cool past—but in 1935, the young bandleader was setting the world on fire with a sound unlike anything most Americans had heard before.”

Goodman proved to be the predecessor to Elvis Presley and the Beatles: the first pop icon to garner a fanatical following. French notes, “In August of 1935, no one even knew what Benny Goodman looked like, and it was the music that started the revolution. Listening now to those early Goodman records, it is still possible to hear—in the beat of Gene Krupa’s drums, the flight of Goodman’s clarinet, and the growl and sparkle of Harry James’ trumpet—the reckless shout of youth and the thrilling suggestion that this band could change your life.”

The CD of this package highlights the most important period of Goodman’s career—from 1935 to ‘39—when he and his band became the most influential band of the world. The CD is arranged chronologically and begins with two hit tunes, “Sometimes I’m Happy” and “King Porter Stomp,” arranged by the great big band leader Fletcher Henderson. Then there’s “Body and Soul,” the first record released by the Benny Goodman Trio, comprising black pianist Teddy Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa. This band was significant in jazz history. French notes, “In March of 1936, the group performed in a concert at the Congress Hotel in Chicago—the first time a black musician had appeared as a regular member of a white band—making history and opening the way for integrated bands.”

Other CD highlights include the tune “Moonglow,” which introduced vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, an integral member of Goodman’s classic quartet; Ella Fitzgerald’s read of the gently swinging tune “Goodnight, My Love;” and the introduction of future trumpeter star Harry James on “I Want To Be Happy.” Three swinging gems (called “barnburners” by French) are also included: “Sing, Sing, Sing,” “Roll ‘Em” and “Life Goes to a Party.” The final track of the CD is “Opus 3/4,” a quartet number from 1939.

The DVD features swing-era Goodman from his classic Victor-era band. In an out-take from the film Auld Lang Syne, Goodman and his orchestra perform a medley (“I’ve Got a Heartful of Music,” “Avalon” and “House Hop”). Goodman’s quintet and orchestra are featured on two tunes from the 1942 film The Powers Girl, and singer Peggy Lee stars in the tune “Why Don’t You Do Right?” from the film Stage Door Canteen. The tune from The Ed Sullivan Show spot from 1960 is “The World Is Waiting on the Sunrise,” featuring vibrophonist Red Norvo.

COLEMAN HAWKINS

The esteemed jazz critic, editor and historian Dan Morgenstern writes in the liner notes to Coleman Hawkins: The Centennial Collection: “Coleman Randolph Hawkins (1904-1969) is an icon of jazz. His career spanned five decades, during each of which he was in the forefront of the music. A century after his birth, that is where he remains: (no one who picks up a tenor saxophone with the notion of mastering it can ignore his contribution). Though he always attempted to decline the honorific title of Father of the Tenor Sax…he knew very well that it was deserved.”

The CD selections included here capture Hawkins as both a supreme ballad player as well as buoyant saxophonist. On the slow and bluesy side, there are such tunes as “Hocus Pocus (1934), his classic version of “Body and Soul” (1939) and an abstract take on Irving Berlin’s “Say It Isn’t So.” The spirited Hawk is heard on such tracks as 1929’s “Whenever There’s a Will” and the let-it-all-hang-out “Hello Lola.”

Morgenstern notes how progressive a player Hawkins was: “Hawk was not one for looking back, as we've noted, and he was among the relatively few established stars who welcomed the modern trend later to be known as bebop. He hired Thelonious Monk when even young modernists thought him mighty strange. He's at home on ‘Half Step Down,’ a Tadd Dameron piece based on ‘Lover’ (with an original bridge), where Fats Navarro also shines and J.J. Johnson crams what seems like every bebop lick into just one chorus, and he and the indestructible Hank Jones mesh beautifully on a joint effort, ‘Angel Face’, and are joined just by the rhythm players on the effervescent ‘I Love You’, where an ever so relaxed Hawk brings to mind, yes, Lester Young.”

One of the highlights of the disc is the studio meeting of Hawkins with today’s reigning saxophonist, Sonny Rollins. “Jazz, thankfully, is not a linear but a circular art,” writes Morgenstern. “Not a matter of a series of begats, but of great ears taking in each other’s messages. And that’s evident on the latest-vintage Hawk item here, from his memorable encounter with Sonny Rollins, heir apparent to the tenor mantle.”

DVD highlights include “Indian Summer,” “Avalan” and the Hawk performing with Lester Young “trading 4s” on Pres’ own “Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid,” all from the late ‘50s short-lived, Newark, NJ-based TV program “Jazz Party,” as well as “Lover Man” from a TV pilot that featured the sax man.

ARTIE SHAW

Artie Shaw is the only musician in the latest edition of Bluebird’s Centennial Collection who is still alive. The clarinetist and bandleader was a contemporary of Benny Goodman’s and in many eyes at odds with him, even though the two got on favorably during their heydays. Author Richard M. Sudhalter writing in the liner notes of Artie Shaw: The Centennial Collection notes that the “feud” between the two clarinetists (Goodman billed as the King of Swing, Shaw as the King of the Clarinet) was largely fostered by jazz journalists: “The presence of a lot of men on one instrument suggests rivalries... Metronome and Down Beat abounded in stories and pictures of the two ‘rivals,’ aided no end by the fact that they apparently didn't have much time for each other.”

Shaw became a star after Goodman, notes Sudhalter, though he was no less the artist: “[Artie’s] mature style, which appeared nearly a decade after Benny's, stressed an almost Apollonian ideal of logic, structural integrity, melodic balance and harmonic subtlety; introspection, emotional restraint—and great tonal beauty. It lies deep in the lyric tradition which emerged in ‘20s jazz through the pioneering work of Bix Beiderbecke and his C-melody saxophone pal Frank Trumbauer.”

The music on this 20-track CD features some of Shaw’s best studio recordings as well as eight numbers that were broadcast on the radio. Sudhalter notes that the live recordings are a real bonus: “However good the Shaw band sounded on its records—and given its leader's perfectionism, that was very good—the fact remains that commercial dates were recorded early in the day, and in the tight, calcified acoustics of a recording studio. Not a formula for good, carefree music.” Indeed, carefree is the operable word in describing the live music, including “The Shuffle,” a swinging tune that features a longer than usual clarinet solo by Shaw.

The DVD includes Shaw and his band performing in the 1939 film short, “Class in Swing,” featuring a young Buddy Rich helping out to “demonstrate” how to swing, with an announcer “explaining” section by section how it was done. Shaw plays two compositions from the Fred Astaire/Burgess Meredith comedy Second Chorus. And the bonus of the DVD package is an in-depth interview with Shaw that was filmed in 2001 and has never been released to the general public.

The special significance of Artie Shaw: The Centennial Collection is that opens a window on the music of the clarinetist/bandleader that many have not viewed. Liner note writer Sudhalter writes: “That Shaw has lived successfully and well into his nineties is fortunate indeed, affording him the type and degree of critical acclaim he might otherwise have missed in a field dominated by Goodman. Today Shaw is as opinionated and sure of his ground as ever, and gradually has won over many listeners who otherwise wouldn't have taken the time to hear him out.”