Various Artists: 55 Years Of Jazz

As the label is based in Chicago, it's perhaps unsurprising that the music scene in that city has been so closely documented. In that regard, this album is a celebration of diversity. Yves Francois' take on "Lester Leaps On" kicks things off almost literally, in a manner that's a testament to good programming and also perhaps emblematic of the diversity of Chicago's music.

King Curtis's "Dynamite At Midnight," first featured on one of the Honkers & Bar Walkers' compilations, is a searing slice of R&B through rock 'n roll from 1956 that wouldn't have sounded out of place on the Federal or King label. While the clarinetist George Lewis' "Doctor Jazz" is more than sufficient evidence of how far back the label goes.

The contrast of Kalaparush's "In My Morning Song" couldn't be greater, consisting of unaccompanied tenor sax that owes little in the way of stylistic allegiance to anyone. In the same spirit of contrast, Coleman Hawkins, the man arguably upon whom the very position of the tenor sax in jazz rests, comes along a couple of tracks later on "Bu-De-Daht" in a hybrid swing/bop vein, the sheer force of his musicality and the virility of his sound carrying all before it. Sun Ra's "Brainville" changes the frame of reference in a manner less radical than many might imagine, although it still has the air of a certain impatience with established big band forms, even while there are passages where the music's right in keeping with that tradition.

Perhaps it's inevitable that the accompanying DVD is not as eclectic as the CD but it still manages to put across the impression of a label that is restless in the best sense of the term. The Jazz-O-Maniacs and Fred Anderson are, when all is said and done, not the likeliest of bedfellows, but that in itself is cause for celebration of a label that's done its own thing, regardless and indeed heedless of any commercial imperative.

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