Monterey Jazz Festival: 40 Legendary Years D1

Label: Malapaso/Warner Bros.

Years: 1958 - 1996, release 1997

Bitrate: 320 kbps

Number of Discs: 3

Format: Box set, Live



This fascinating three-CD set has 28 performances ( all but the Billie Holiday number were previously unreleased ) taken from the Monterey Jazz Festival and programmed in chronological order. Starting with Dizzy Gillespie playing an unaccompanied version of "The Star Spangled Banner" that opened the very first festival and progressing up until the 1996 edition, there are many memorable selections. Billie Holiday is assisted by Gerry Mulligan on "Fine and Mellow." Mulligan and Art Farmer team up for an excellent version of "Blueport" that almost but not quite reaches the heights of Jeru's 1960 big-band version. Thelonious Monk is heard in 1964 playing "Straight No Chaser" with a workshop group; there are solos by his longtime tenor Charlie Rouse and altoist Buddy Collette, and a long one by trumpeter Bobby Bryant. In one of their earliest meetings, Dizzy Gillespie ( still in his prime in 1973 ) teams up with 20-year-old trumpeter Jon Faddis on "Manteca." Count Basie's band ( with trombonist Al Grey ) sounds inspired on "I Needs to Be Bee'd With," as does Joe Williams, who sings the full-length version of "Goin' to Chicago." Wynton Marsalis in 1983 reinvents Thelonious Monk's "Think of One," while Sarah Vaughan sounds typically miraculous on "If You Could See Me Now." The colorful release ends with four outstanding tenor solos: Sonny Rollins on the cooking blues "Keep Hold of Yourself," Bob Berg taking a strong cadenza on "I Loves You, Porgy" with Chick Corea, Joshua Redman having a good time on "Home Fries," and Craig Handy emerging as the main voice on Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island." Recommended. -- Review by Scott Yanow, AMG.



This collection ranks along side the many great jazz concert events such as Jazz At The Philharmonic, The Newport Jazz Festival and Jazz At Carnagie Hall. Boasting such legends as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck and more. And, on the vocal side you get Billie Holiday, Carmen McRea, Shirley Horn, Sara Vaughan and Joe Williams.  One of the brightest moments to be heard here is the spontainous improvisation by Dave Brubeck during his performance of For All We Know. As an unexpected plane flew overhead, Brubeck responds with the opening bars of the US Air Force Theme, "Off We Go Into The Wild Blue Yonder..."



All in all you'd be hard pressed to find any concert festival collection or anthology as versitle and delightful as this. Hats off to Warner Brothers for culling together fourty years of great jazz in one beautiful collection. ~ marleyscott



Monterey Jazz Festival: 40 Legendary Years D1 tracks:

01 Star Spangled Banner - Dizzy Gillespie (01:43)

02 For All We Know - Dave Brubeck (06:15)

03 Fine and Mellow - Billie Holiday (03:33)

04 Blueport - Gerry Mulligan (10:43)

05 Blue Daniel - Cannonball Adderley (06:34)

06 Straight No Chaser - Thelonious Monk (11:19)

07 Chelsea Bridge - Duke Ellington (03:53)

08 Don't Let It Happen Here - Charles Mingus (08:55)

09 Younger Than Springtime - Oscar Peterson (05:51)

10 I Wish I Knew - Carmen McRae (03:31)

11 Manteca - Dizzy Gillespie & Jon Faddis (09:21)