Customer Reviews

Priceless Jazz: Sampler 1

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These samplers feature some really great music. Spain with Chick Corea and John Patitucci is worth the price of a full priced CD alone. One of the best instrumental versions I have heard anywhere.

Conversation with my 11-year-old great-niece (and one of my Pretend Children):

"Do you know who Louis Armstrong is?"
"No." (Said in quiet voice)
"Billie Holiday?"
"No." (Said in quieter voice)
"Well then. It's time you learned."

(Chelsea and I have this deal. When she rides with me, she has to listen to some of my music first: opera, jazz, musicals--"The Phantom of the Opera" scares her, classical, and so on, THEN she can listen to the radio.)

I put in my copy of "Priceless Jazz Sampler" and the lesson begins. I began with a story I heard on public radio just a few days ago. Billie Holiday has a way of singing the words that makes you feel her pain. Her pain is your pain. The point of that particular broadcast was the necessity for a musician to know the standards. There's one song (sorry, I've forgotten the title) that Billie Holiday's voice made into one of those standards.

Chelsea learned directly the meaning of "scat" when Ella Fitzgerald sang--and scatted--"Oh, Lady Be Good." I asked Chelsea to try her voice at scat. "That's OK, Aunt Judy." So I scatted (ha!).

I stopped the CD to tell her a little about Louis Armstrong--that he was from New Orleans, about his trademark white hankerchief, why he started singing (he needed to rest his lips). "It's a Wonderful World" is, of course, one of Armstrong's standards!

By this time I knew Chelsea had reached her limit at un-rock music so I changed CDs. We'll come back to jazz later.

"You're a womanizer, womanizer, oh, oh, oh." However, some rock songs have their purpose, too. Here Britney has her say about the man who single-handedly destroyed--temporarily--her reputation.

Other titles and musicians in this Jazz Sampler--an incredible collection and sampling--include:
Johnny Hartman--Lush Life (my my)
John Coltrane--Bessie's Blues
Sonny Rollins--Three Little Words
Charles Mingus--Better Get Hit in Yo Soul
Duke Ellington (really, a king!)--The Jeep is Jumpin'

Can I get a Wow!

These are a steal, practically mandatory pick-ups for giving to family and friends. The artists and tune selections aren't "throwaways" but represent some of the best recorded moments in jazz over the past 5-6 decades. The personnel listings and recording dates are even complete and accurate.

The only real disappointment on this first disc is the Gato Barbieri number--sort of "old" new-age pop, and distorted at that. Gato is best represented by his music for "Last Tango in Paris" and his memorable (if eccentric) appearance in the video release, "Calle 54."