The Mose Allison installment in Atlantic's Jazz Anthology series of 1970 is superior to most in that line simply on the grounds of time. Since Allison's songs were usually brief, Atlantic was able to fit 12 of them onto a single LP and thus provide a wider selection of his output, unlike others in that series that included only five or six tracks, making it serve as a pretty good capsule introduction to one of American music's most idiosyncratic individualists. Many of his most famous songs are here – "Your Mind Is on Vacation," "New Parchman," "I'm the Wild Man," "I Don't Worry About a Thing," and "Your Molecular Structure," along with covers like "Rollin' Stone" and a rushed live remake of his biggest "hit," Willie Dixon's "Seventh Son".

Madeleine Peyroux made a bit of a stir in 1996 due to her voice sounding remarkably close at times to Billie Holiday's. This wide-ranging set features Peyroux singing swing standards, originals and tunes that hint at country and folk music. Her supporting cast, which changes on each selection, includes a restrained James Carter on tenor and bass clarinet, Marc Ribot on dobro and guitar, trumpeter Marcus Printup, pianist Cyrus Chestnut and violinist Regina Carter, among others. A very interesting release which, despite the derivative nature of Peyroux's voice, is full of surprises. Highlights include "Walkin' After Midnight," "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," "La Vie en Rose" and "Muddy Water".

Although its programming has been juggled a bit, and the CD has been given liner notes, this Delmark release is a straight reissue of the original LP. Clocking in at around 38 minutes, the relatively brief set is the only recording that exists of Vinson, pianist Jay McShann, and guitarist T-Bone Walker playing together; the sextet is rounded out by the fine tenor Hal Singer, bassist Jackie Sampson, and drummer Paul Gunther. Vinson, whether singing "Plese Send Me Somebody to Love," "Just a Dream," and "Juice Head Baby" or taking boppish alto solos, is the main star throughout this album (originally on Black & Blue), a date that helped launch Vinson's commercial comeback.

This powerhouse set of live recordings from early in Robben Ford's distinguished career boasts solo-laden 10-minute-plus versions of B.B. King's "Sweet Sixteen" and John Lee Hooker's "It's My Own Fault." Ford, who has worked with Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, and George Harrison, plays surprisingly sweet, agile saxophone on Don Raye's jazz ballad "You Don't Know What Love Is." His voice–if still that of a very young man–is throaty and melodic on the King and Hooker cuts. But it's his guitar that takes centerstage. Owing heaps to electric bluesmen B.B., Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Albert King, and Mike Bloomfield, Ford's rich tone, deliberate lines, and tuneful bends were world-class even in 1972.

These rare treasures take you all across Billie's career-from '35, the year she debuted at the Apollo and first charted, to '59, the year she died. The stunning early performances include a 20-year-old Billie with Ellington in '35 and a 1937 radio broadcast from the Savoy Hotel in NY with the Basie Orchestra; you'll also hear rare rehearsal tapes, her Monterey '58 performance, songs on The Eddie Condon Show, The Tonight Show, The Steve Allen Show, an impromptu recording of Billie and friends singing My Yiddish Mamma, and more with Art Tatum, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and more! Includes 129 tracks: Swing Brother Swing; Fine and Mellow; I'll Get By; Billie's Blues; All of Me; Lover Man; Them There Eyes; You're My Thrill; I Cover the Waterfront; Porgy; Tenderly; God Bless the Child; My Man; Moanin' Low; Ghost of a Chance, and more.

Señor Blues is one of Taj Mahal's best latter-day albums, a rollicking journey through classic blues styles performed with contemporary energy and flair. There's everything from country-blues to jazzy uptown blues on Señor Blues, and Taj hits all of areas in between, including R&B and soul. Stylistically, it's similar to most of his albums, but he's rarely been as effortlessly fun and infectious as he is here.

Of the many mid-'50s Prestige jam sessions, Outskirts of Town is probably one of the more successful. If nothing else, it features a handful of players who did not record together on a regular basis. The all-star lineup featured, among others, Art Farmer, Idrees Sulieman, Jerome Richardson, Pepper Adams, Ray Bryant, Tiny Grimes, and Osie Johnson. Richardson and tenor man Jimmy Forrest are particularly exciting and take the set's opener, "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town," to unexpected heights, given the tune's mellow opening bars.

This set of Edgar Winter's jazzy remakes of older tunes and some new ones is all over the place. With a cast that includes guitarists Robben Ford and Hiram Bullock, Steve Lukather, and Michael Hakes, and bassists like Will Lee, Mark Meadows, and Tom Lilly, as well as trumpeter Lee Thornburg, one gets exactly what one expects: a slick, groove-infested ride through Winter's past and present.

While 2002's Down the Road was the best Van Morrison release in ages – with its autobiographical allusions, cultural critiques, and new band – it could not have prepared listeners for the jolt of this, his Blue Note Records debut What's Wrong With This Picture? While the album is hardly a straight jazz record, it does take the territory he explored on Down the Road another step further into the classic pop music of the 20th century filtered through his own Celtic swing, R&B, vocal jazz, and blue-eyed soul. The title track that opens the album is as close to an anthem as Morrison's ever written; he states with an easy, swinging, jazzy soul groove that he is not the same person he once was and wonders why that was so difficult for others to accept. There is no bitterness or bite in his assertions. If anything, the question is asked with warm humor and amusement as if it is indeed the listener's hangup if he/she can't accept Morrison "living in the present time." He asks, "Why don't we take it down and forget about it/'Cause that ain't me at all," as the song whispers to a close.

Maryland's Deanna Bogart is an explosive live performer, mixing in several streams of American vernacular music into her sets, ranging from funky R&B romps to hushed, Norah Jones-like jazz-pop ballads, and she just happens to be a dynamite barrelhouse piano player who also plays a pretty mean tenor saxophone, as well. Her versatility is truly astounding, and while it might be safe to say that everything she does grows out of the blues, to label her a blues artist doesn't even begin to cover the half of it. On Real Time she offers up a typically varied program of New Orleans R&B, late-night blues, smoky jazz ballads, a touch of country, and some rousing boogie-woogie piano instrumentals, but what keeps it all stitched together is her strong, sultry singing.

25 classic post-war West Coast Blues tracks from one of the great voices of the era. With informative notes this set is part of the Complete Blues series, described by Uncut magazine as ' a dazzling, comprehensive story of the blues…the most user-friendly compendium on the market'.

On The Blue Room, her second Decca recording, Madeleine Peyroux and producer Larry Klein re-examine the influence of Ray Charles' revolutionary 1962 date, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. They don't try to re-create the album, but remake some of its songs and include others by composers whose work would benefit from the genre-blurring treatment Charles pioneered. Bassist David Pilch, drummer Jay Bellerose, guitarist Dean Parks, and pianist/organist Larry Goldings are the perfect collaborators. Most these ten tracks feature string arrangements by Vince Mendoza. Five tunes here are reinterpretations of Charles' from MSICAWM. "Take These Chains" commences as a sultry jazz tune, and in Peyroux's vocal, there is no supplication – only a demand. Parks' pedal steel moves between sounding like itself and a clarinet. Goldings' alternating B-3 and Rhodes piano offer wonderful color contrast and make it swing. Her take on "Bye Bye Love" feels as if it's being narrated to a confidante, and juxtaposes early Western swing with a bluesy stroll. A rock guitar introduces "I Can't Stop Loving You," but Peyroux's phrasing has more country-blues in it than we've heard from her before. The use of a trumpet in "Born to Lose" and "You Don't Know Me," with Mendoza's dreamy strings, allow for Peyroux to deliver her most stylized jazz performances on the set.

The 2014 career-spanning anthology Keep Me in Your Heart for a While: The Best of Madeleine Peyroux, showcases tracks from throughout the Georgia-born, Paris-based vocalist's career. Starting with her 1996 debut album, Dreamland, and running through her 2013 studio effort The Blue Room, Keep Me in Your Heart for a While reveals Peyroux's transformation from a bluesy, Billie Holiday-influenced vocal ingenue to a mature and sophisticated interpreter of popular song, both new and old. Here we get such tracks as "La Vie en Rose," "Smile," "Between the Bars," "Dance Me to the End of Love," and more. Also included is Peyroux's previously unreleased recording of Warren Zevon's "Keep Me in Your Heart," from the film Union Square.

This Collectables compilation packages Esther Phillips' first two LPs for Atlantic, 1965's And I Love Him! and the following year's Esther Phillips Sings. Gradually switching from an R&B chart name to a pop singer with a subtle power over the blues and jazz, Phillips didn't hit the charts much during the year ("And I Love Him" was the big exception), but she did record great versions of some solid material: "Shangri-La," "It's All Right With Me," "Every Time We Say Goodbye," and others. The sound is solid as well, leaving this collection as a great next step after the Atlantic wrap-up, The Best of Esther Phillips (1962-1970).

Billy Flynn (born August 11, 1956) is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. In addition to his own work and works mentioned later, he has worked and recorded with Bryan Lee, Little Smokey Smothers, Mark Hummel, Willie Kent, Snooky Pryor, Big Bill Morganfield, John Brim, Jody Williams, Little Arthur Duncan, Deitra Farr, and Billy Boy Arnold. Billy's really got the rhythm of the blues down on this disc, and there is lots of spectacular guitar work sitting on top of those fine rhythms. Besides Billy's guitar, you'll find drums, piano, organ bass, sax (tenor and bari) and soulful vocal styling by Billy, Margaret Flynn, Nora Jean Welch and Al Kirk. Billy's mastery and sense of the appropriate should come as no surprise since he's played around the world in some fast, company and has earned a still -growing reputation. This fine project contains abundant amounts of satisfying guitar and very soulful, mid-tempo numbers that can occasionally remind one of Motown. Yes, it's very satisfying.