Box sets: five from the vaults
The autumn box set season is upon us, when jazz labels dig through their vaults and begin offering attractively packaged jewels in hopes of inspiring holiday gift-giving. Five such efforts to cross our desk recently are particularly noteworthy.
"Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis 1963-1964." Columbia/Legacy's latest lavish compilation from the great trumpeter's vast oeuvre. Its seven CDs cover the transitional period between the disbanding of Davis's early '60s rhythm section of Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb and the launching of his second great quintet with the 1965 album "E.S.P."
The set begins with a group Davis assembled for an April 1963 recording date in California, with George Coleman on tenor saxophone, Victor Feldman on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Frank Butler on drums, but by disc 2 Feldman and Butler have been supplanted by Herbie Hancock and 17-year-old Boston prodigy Tony Williams, respectively, and the quintet to come was now already 80 percent in place. Three tunes apiece from discs 1 and 2 became Davis's classic 1963 album "Seven Steps to Heaven."
Aside from four previously unissued outtakes from those two studio sets, everything else in this set -- 5 discs' worth -- was recorded live, much of it released domestically in the mid-'60s on "Miles Davis in Europe," "My Funny Valentine," and "Four and More." Coleman is eventually replaced on tenor sax by the more adventurous Sam Rivers for a July 1964 concert in Tokyo, and Wayne Shorter finally takes over for Rivers on the last disc, from a blistering performance in Berlin that September. Though most of the material is already available elsewhere, here it's in one spiffy package, with exemplary notes by former Globe writer Bob Blumenthal.
"Chet Baker, Prince of Cool" (Blue Note). Subtitled "The Pacific Jazz Years" (for the defunct label of that name), the set is made up of choice selections from 1952-1957, sensibly divided, one disc apiece, by the headings "Chet Sings," "Chet Plays," and "Chet & Friends." The first features that hauntingly fragile, feminine-sounding voice of his on standards like "My Funny Valentine" and "I Fall in Love Too Easily." The second features Baker's trumpet sans vocals on records he led, often with Russ Freeman on piano. The third has him in short-lived collaborations with fellow big names such as Gerry Mulligan, Art Pepper, and Stan Getz. Noted jazz author Ted Gioa contributes a deft historical overview/appreciation to this collection of Baker at his best -- "eternally young and preternaturally pure."
"Jimmy Smith Retrospective" (Blue Note). Thirty-seven of the 38 tracks on the four discs are culled from the greatest jazz organist's career from 1956 to early 1963. Smith is accompanied, as he was in those years, by sidemen as stellar as Lou Donaldson, Blue Mitchell, Jackie McLean, Art Blakey, Kenny Burrell, and Stanley Turrentine. Other highlights include crisply informative notes, numerous photos by Blue Note's legendary house photographer Francis Wolff, and Smith's treatments of such tunes as Horace Silver's "The Preacher," Ray Charles's "I Got a Woman," Donaldson's "Pork Chop," and his own "The Sermon" and "Midnight Special."
"The Legendary Oscar Peterson Trio Live at the Blue Note" (Telarc). The title of this set refers to the jazz club in New York. There is nothing new here: The four discs from this three-night, March 1990 reunion of the pianist's 1950s trio with guitarist Herb Ellis and bassist Ray Brown (joined by drummer Bobby Durham) were put out one per year from 1990 to 1993. But this is exhilarating music from genuine legends. The first two of the individual discs, "Live at the Blue Note" and "Saturday Night at the Blue Note," won three Grammy Awards between them. The notes by British jazz writer Alyn Shipton accompanying the set are slighter than those of the sets above, and the packaging is a good deal less elaborate.
"Albert Ayler: Holy Ghost" (Revenant). This nine-disc collection -- the biggest, strangest set of the five -- consists of rare and unissued recordings by the free-jazz legend from 1962 to 1970. Included is a 1962 pairing with Cecil Taylor in Copenhagen; trio work with Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray in New York in 1964; and Ayler's performance at the 1967 funeral of John Coltrane. Extras include two discs of sometimes bizarre interviews with Ayler, who seemed to suffer from religious mania toward the end of his short life (his body was fished from New York's East River in 1970, an apparent suicide at age 34); a 208-page hardbound book; and a peculiar assortment of memorabilia. Revenant doesn't quite toss in the kitchen sink, but close. It may be over the top for even most jazz buffs, but hardcore fans of Ayler and free jazz have been slavering for this set since word went out it was in the works. Based on a single-disc sampler sent out by Revenant, at least some of Ayler's musical explorations here are worth the excitement.
