Wen's Style.

Home > Music > Jazz > Compilations

The Very Best of John Coltrane

The Very Best of John Coltrane

Artist: John Coltrane
With his inexhaustible technique, trademark sound, and limitless imagination, tenor and soprano saxophonist John Coltrane was one of jazz's most dominant musicians. This collection covers his important Atlantic Records sessions recorded from 1959 to 1960 (chronicled in their entirety on Heavyweight Champion). The tunes signal an important transitional phase from Trane's stints with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk to his emergence as a leader in his own right. "Giant Steps" "Naima," and "Cousin Mary"--featuring pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Art Taylor--crystallized Trane's supersonic "sheets of sound" style. "Like Sonny," an Afro-Latin dedication to his friend and contemporary Sonny Rollins with Wynton Kelly on piano, reveals Trane's stylistic debts to Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins. His historic renditions of "My Shining Hour," "Body and Soul," "Summertime," and "My Favorite Things" highlight Coltrane's ability to remake a song into his own image, as well as introduce his influential sound on the soprano sax. These landmark recordings show the development of Coltrane's "great" quartet as well as forecast his iconoclastic excursions into the outer limits of rhythm an...
List Price: $11.98 Our Price: $7.21

Miles from India (TWO CD SET)

Miles from India (TWO CD SET)

Artist: Various Artists
In a startlingly original recreation of music associated
with jazz legend Miles Davis, producer-archivist Bob
Belden, renowned for his Grammy Award-winning
reissue work on a series of Miles Davis boxed sets for
Sony/Columbia, along with co-arranger Louiz Banks
(celebrated keyboardist from India), has recast familiar
themes from such landmark recordings as Bitches
Brew, In A Silent Way, and Kind of Blue with an East
Meets West sensibility on Miles...From India. An
incredibly ambitious project involving two dozen
musicians from two separate continents recording in
studios around the world, Miles...From India is a cross-cultural summit meeting that puts a provocative pan-global spin on such Miles
classics as All Blues, Spanish Key, So What, It s About That Time and Jean Pierre.
Sitar and tablas, ghatam and khanjira, mridangam and Carnatic violin blend seamlessly with muted trumpet and saxophones, screaming
electric guitar and grooving electric bass lines, piano, upright bass and drums on this profound fusion of Indian classical and American
jazz. Recorded in Mumbai and Madras, India and New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, the music on Miles...

List Price: $22.98 Our Price: $14.63

Ken Burns's Jazz: The Story of American Music

Ken Burns's Jazz: The Story of American Music

Artist: Various Artists
This five-CD box set soundtrack to filmmaker Ken Burns's 10-part, 19-hour documentary Jazz spans nearly a century of jazz styles, from the martial rhythms of James Reese Europe to the soul-jazz of Grover Washington Jr. It includes time-tested classics like Benny Goodman's 1938 classic, "Sing, Sing, Sing"; John Coltrane's chanting 1965 immortal track, "A Love Supreme"; Billie Holiday's blue-ember ballad, "God Bless the Child"; and Ella Fitzgerald peeling off "A-Tisket A-Tasket." Bebop is represented by Charlie Parker's orchestral bop version of "Just Friends"; Thelonious Monk's nocturnal calling card, "'Round Midnight"; and Dizzy Gillespie's "Salt Peanuts" and "Groovin' High."

The jazz-instrumentalist-as-singer comes to life on Coleman Hawkins's "Body and Soul" and Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers' "Doodlin'." Clifford Brown and Max Roach's "I Get a Kick out of You" epitomizes the hard-bop era, while Miles Davis's "So What" stands as the modal masterpiece. The cool school is in session with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan dishing out "Walkin' Shoes," and the Modern Jazz Quartet's soulful elegy "Django" straddles all the above musical orbits. As for Django Reinhardt, he...
List Price: $59.98 Our Price: $31.99


Best of Smooth Jazz II

Best of Smooth Jazz II

Artist: Weather Channel Presents

List Price: $13.98 Our Price: $8.97

Ultra-Lounge: Christmas Cocktails, Part One

Ultra-Lounge: Christmas Cocktails, Part One

Artist: Various Artists
A perfect martini-and-mistletoe combo, Christmas Cocktails will gaily seduce you with its bevy of nostalgic and occasionally campy holiday fare. Vocal vixens Peggy Lee, Julie London (her "I'd Like You for Christmas" will melt the ice cubes in your fridge), Kay Starr, and Nancy Wilson join forces with perennial crooners such as Lou Rawls, Dean Martin, and the immortal Nat "King" Cole, along with a handful of instrumental big-band numbers and odd, at times cheese-ball-shaped jazz organ pieces from Jimmy McGriff and the flammable Eddie Dundstedter, among others. But the essential item that makes plunking down your pelts for this very chi-chi set is none other than Billy May's lovably kitschy workout called "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer Mambo." It's a scream. The package comes complete with its own cocktail minimanual and the recipes for Hot Toddys and Hot Tom and Jerrys. Garishly retro and naughtily nostalgic, this kind of slinky Christmas gift should probably be illegal in many prudish states. --Martin Keller
List Price: $11.98 Our Price: $4.23

Songs That Got Us Through WWII

Songs That Got Us Through WWII

Artist: Various Artists
They may have rationed meat, milk, canned goods, and gasoline, but there was no limit to the musical talent during World War II. Morale-boosting sounds on the home front and "over there" were one of the Allies' most potent weapons. WWII gave birth to many of the 1940s' most popular artists and songs, as well as many of the most important independent record labels. Songs That Got Us Through WWII is the first of a two-volume series collecting the hits that kept the home fires burning and brought a little bit of America to the G.I.s overseas. Compiled and developed by singer/songwriter/music historian Billy Vera, Vol. 1 features many of the era's biggest artists, including The Andrews Sisters, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, The Mills Brothers, The Ink Spots, Harry James, and many more.
List Price: $11.98 Our Price: $7.42

The Only Big Band CD You'll Ever Need

The Only Big Band CD You'll Ever Need

Artist: Various Artists

List Price: $13.98 Our Price: $7.98

Mingus Ah Um

Mingus Ah Um

Artist: Charles Mingus
Limited Millennium Edition. Packed in a Heavy Weight Card Wallet that Faithfully Recreates the Original Vinyl Sleeve, Right Down to the Inner Bag. The Wallet Will Come in a Plastic Cover.
List Price: $11.98 Our Price: $6.47

Jazz for Kids: Sing, Clap, Wiggle and Shake

Jazz for Kids: Sing, Clap, Wiggle and Shake

Artist: Various Artists
The fun songs here are timeless classics that appeal to kids of all ages. By featuring childhood favorites such as "Old McDonald" and "The Muffin Man," both sung by Ella Fitzgerald, as well as more offbeat songs ("Mumbles" by Oscar Peterson featuring Clark Terry), Jazz for Kids makes for a great way to teach youngsters about jazz and swing music as well as some of its most legendary performers.

Little ones can sing along with Lionel Hampton's "Rag Mop" and share in the hand claps on "When the Red, Red, Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along" performed here by Carmen McRae. Their appetites will surely be fueled by Louis Prima's "Yes! We Have No Bananas" and "Potato Chips" from Slim Gaillard and His Baker's Dozen.

The kid-tested collection (children, nieces and nephews of Verve Records' staff helped make the final selections) also includes "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five, "Chicken Rhythm" also by Slim Gaillard, and Blossom Dearie's "Doop-Doo-De-Doop (A Doodlin' Song)."

Jazz for Kids finishes with an inspiring lesson and uplifting message for both youngsters and adults alike in the form of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonde...
List Price: $11.98 Our Price: $6.49


Verve Presents: Very Best of Christmas Jazz

Verve Presents: Very Best of Christmas Jazz

Artist: Various Artists
Skip the Christmas caroling this year and slide in the new Verve Music compilation The Very Best of Christmas Jazz. This jolly collection features fourteen of the world's favorite holiday jingles previously recorded by the legendary vocalists and musicians of jazz. Jazz divas Shirley Horn sings "Winter Wonderland," powerhouse singer Ella Fitzgerald performs a playful rendition of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and the eloquent Dinah Washington amazes on "Silent Night." John Coltrane grooves on "Greensleeves," while Mel Torme offers a timeless version of "The Christmas Song." Delightful treats packed together like an overstuffed Christmas stocking, this selection will be sure to add a joyful spirit to your holiday season.
List Price: $11.98 Our Price: $5.80

Top Sellers