Jazz Articles

Oscar Peterson: Date with Oscar

by Tom Greenland
March 20, 2008

Oscar PetersonDate with OscarMembran Records2008 Alongside of the sad news of jazz piano legend Oscar Peterson's passing comes Date With Oscar, a ten-disc retrospective of his activities from 1950-56, a period of artistic flowering and prodigious productivity. Date is an uneven set, chock-full of gems, both lesser- and well-known, yet also containing expendable tracks, inexplicable duplications, and a goodly number of cuts in which Peterson is little more than a supportive ...

Sonny Stitt: Quadromania/One O'Clock Jump

by Samuel Chell
July 1, 2007

Sonny Stitt Quadromania: One O'Clock Jump Membran Records 2006

Regarded by many musicians as the prototypal, or “most perfect," saxophonist, Sonny Stitt recorded some 150 sessions under his own name. These four discs in German company Membran's Quadromania series will, with the possible exception of some recorded tenor battles 1950-52 under Gene Ammons' name, take care of most listeners' needs from late 1946 to early 1954. There are close to four hours of music ...

Various: Jazz in the Charts 1/100: 1917-1921

by Elliott Simon
April 17, 2007

The folks at Germany's Membran have completed a fascinating take on the history of jazz aptly named Jazz in the Charts. In the process, they have developed a one-of-a-kind compilation of every jazz recording to reach the Billboard charts between the years 1917 and 1954, years when jazz was truly America's popular music.

A massive one hundred-CD collection, it includes 2,211 recordings with each CD devoted to multiple years or, at the height of jazz's popularity, multiple CDs devoted to ...