Album Reviews

A fabulous new retrospective collection being released via BMG on November 4 that celebrates Jamaican-born jazz pianist Monty Alexander is the latest offering from the Montreux Jazz Festival archives. Called simply Monty Alexander: The Montreux Years, this 180g 2LP set is a fine addition to this important archival series, which curates the finest performances from the Swiss festival’s acclaimed, vast catalog of recordings between 1993 and 2016. Read on to see why Alexander’s Montreaux Years on vinyl deserves to be a part of your upcoming rotation. . .

Few jazz musicians attain pop star status while retaining credibility with their "base." Louis Armstrong managed and of course so did Miles Davis. Stan Getz was another.

Lee Morgan’s 1959 solo debut recorded when he was just 19 is aptly named. It’s an album of standards in a quartet setting designed to show off the prodigy’s ability to wrap his big, warm tone around familiar melodies.

The Modern Jazz Quartet would never have been signed to Blue Note. The group’s Bach-influenced button-down counterpoint was a bad fit with Blue Note’s gospel and blues influenced soul-jazz.

Miles Davis’s major label debut, recorded with his quintet in the fall of 1955 and late summer of 1956 while he was still under Prestige contract and released early in 1957, was not particularly well-received at the time, though it has grown considerably in stature since then.