Album Reviews

Back in the 1940s the legendary concert promoter, record producer and record company head Norman Granz conceived of jazz performances in a classical music style concert setting.

This hadn’t been done before, particularly with a mixed race audience and a mixed race performer roster but Granz persevered and produced legendary “Jazz at the Philharmonic” concerts monthly in Los Angeles and later on the east coast.

Back in the 1940s the legendary concert promoter, record producer and record company head Norman Granz conceived of jazz performances in a classical music style concert setting.

This hadn’t been done before, particularly with a mixed race audience and a mixed race performer roster but Granz persevered and produced legendary “Jazz at the Philharmonic” concerts monthly in Los Angeles and later on the east coast.

These concerts were controversial for reasons other than the mixed race aspect. Some felt that competition was good for commerce but not necessarily for art and some of the concerts did turn into competitive “cutting sessions” where music took a back seat to showing off and speed and where the younger musicians swallowed the older ones who were passed their prime.

By 1957 the American concerts had stopped but Granz, who founded the Clef, Norgran, and Verve labels continued producing them in Europe. In 1960 Granz brought a large contingent of jazz greats to Europe, beginning in Stockholm, Sweden, where these four LPs were recorded, on the evening of November 21st 1960 at the Konserthuset concert hall.

Granz had brought an impressive mix of veterans and then young upstarts (now veterans), many of whom have since passed away: Cannonball Adderley, Benny Carter, Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, J.J. Johnson, Lalo Shifrin, Victor Feldman, Jo Jones and Louis Hayes among them.

The four LPs in this superbly produced box set highlight various groupings that included “youngsters” and oldsters. On mike conversations indicate that the on-stage sessions were loose and conceived of on the spot, which makes them all the more remarkable.

Granz paired veterans like Benny Carter with then up and coming post-war “youngsters” like Adderley and Dizzy on two tunes and then Coleman Hawkins and Don Byas with Stan Getz on a side-long “All the Things You Are.”

If you love the lineup of greats, you’ll probably enjoy the four LP collection. Just remember these are essentially loose jams built around standards. There are a few small groupings but mostly large ones in which each player gets plenty of space to improvise behind various rhythm sections.

As long as you’re not expecting tight, intricate set pieces and are content hearing the oldsters and youngsters improvising around well-worn themes, you’ll enjoy this set— especially if you love the veterans, here slipping beyond their peaks but still vital.

By 1960 stereo recordings were commonplace, even in live settings like this. Indeed, the catalog numbers on the back of the jacketes have both the “V” (mono) and “V6” (stereo) catalog numbers. So unless the stereo editions were electronically reprocessed for stereo, the stereo mixes were bypassed in favor of the mono ones.

I’m not sure why that was done but these mono mixes, while somewhat distant, are quite clean and wide band. They are just not immediate. The sonic presentation is balcony level but wideband and inviting.

Props to Speakers Corner for reissuing this 4 LP set. It may not have ultra-wide appeal but for jazz aficionados, these historic performances are once again available on vinyl, all analog from the original tapes. For that we should be thankful! (We are).