Journey Through The Penguin Jazz Guide

Zeeba Neighba said:
Charles Mingus - The Complete Debut Recordings

Charles Mingus - The Complete Debut Recordings - album cover


Frustrated by Penguin's inclusion of multidisc collections, my plan as I had stated was to skip over this enormous 12 disc, 169 song, 14 hour collection especially as some essential later Mingus albums are not on the list. So why I am I now on disc 10 of 12 - is it my love of Mingus? My obsession with completeness? Masochism?

Decided to listen not only because of Mingus' early releases (many of which are nice but not essential) but because this includes a lot of other output from Debut records (sadly a short label from 1952-1957 founded by Mingus himself to avoid the compromises of working with larger record companies) - this output includes many albums where Mingus is a sideman to leaders like Thad Jones, Miles Davis, Jimmy Knepper, and Hazel Scott. Also includes Mingus' great Live at the Bohemia (with extra tracks) and the famous Massey Hall concert (with both original form and the version with Mingus' overdubbed bass parts).

Yes, would I prefer Penguin to stick to essential albums or reasonable compilations. Sure, but overall was very much worth going through this
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For years I resisted these omnibus boxes but Mosaic Records got me hooked. The key for me is to approach them like a buffet: just because there's a lot of food doesn't mean you have to eat it all at once. I find that breaking a massive set like this one (12 discs! :oops:) into separate albums and excluding the alternate takes on the first spin helps me to avoid musical indigestion. :nickyboy:

By the way, I was surprised to see that I missed this collection somehow. Discogs just helped me to remedy that omission. :confused:
 
Shorty Rogers - The Sweetheart of Sigmund Freud: The Birth of An American Legend

Shorty Rogers - The Sweetheart of Sigmund Freud: The Birth of an American Legend - album cover


Despite its cumbersome and unusual title ("Sweetheart..." is a number of Rogers) this is a nice 2 disc compilation of Rogers, a trumpet and fugelhornist that helped pioneer West Coast jazz. Includes tracks with Rogers as a leader as well as recordings with Woody Herman, Stan Kenton and Red Norvo
 
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