Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band was one of the most influential Dixieland groups of all time. With Watters and Bob Scobey on trumpets, trombonist Turk Murphy, clarinetist Bob Helm, and Wally Rose on piano, banjo, tuba (or bass), and drums, this band had a lot of power and enthusiasm. At a time when swing dominated jazz and bebop was ready to take over, Watters' successful extension of 1920s jazz was a major force in fueling the Dixieland revival movement. This four-CD set has all of the group's studio recordings plus live broadcasts from 1946-1947 and six rare performances by the wartime version of the YBJB featuring the talented but ill-fated trumpeter Benny Strickler. This reissue is absolutely essential for all traditional jazz fans and historians. The heated ensembles and joyous solos are great fun to hear.

The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert by Benny Goodman, Columbia Records catalogue item SL-160, is a two-disc LP of swing and jazz music recorded at Carnegie Hall in New York City on January 16, 1938. First issued in 1950, the landmark recording captured the premiere performance given by a big band in the famed concert venue. The event has been described as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz's 'coming out' party to the world of 'respectable' music." The title, mastered from preserved acetates,[c] was among jazz's first double albums,[2] first live recordings, and first to sell over a million copies. One of the earliest records of Benny Goodman music issued on the new long-playing format, the concert recording was also sold in a set of nine 45 rpm records in 1950 by Columbia. The subsequent discovery of the aluminum studio masters made from the original recording resulted in several high-quality CD reissues beginning in 1998.

The album The Winifred Atwell Collection (1994) is a compilation that celebrates the musical legacy of Winifred Atwell, a pioneering Trinidadian-born pianist who achieved significant popularity in the UK and Australia during the 1950s. Known for her boogie-woogie and ragtime performances, Atwell was the first Black artist to have a number-one hit in the UK Singles Chart with “Let's Have Another Party” in 1954 .This collection brings together some of Atwell's most beloved tracks, showcasing her versatility and skill across various genres, including boogie-woogie, ragtime, and light classical music. Her distinctive piano style, characterized by energetic rhythms and expressive melodies, is prominently featured throughout the compilation.

This is the debut long-player from Leon Redbone (guitar/harmonica/vocals/throat tromnet), a one-man folk/jazz enigma. Although it was incorrectly rumored that the artist was a musical visage of Frank Zappa, Redbone began getting notice during a stint in Toronto, Ontario, in the early '70s. For On the Track (1975), he offers a uniquely authentic revival of turn-of-the-century melodies, including those of the Singin' Brakeman, Mississippi Blue Yodeler Jimmie Rodgers ("Desert Blues") as well as Fats Waller ("Ain't Misbehavin'"). However, he liberally applies the same notable technique to a wide array of pop standards from the likes of Irving Berlin ("Marie") and Johnny Mercer ("Lazy Bones"). The minimalism in the arrangements provides an understated delivery focusing on Redbone's distinguished baritone vocals. This includes his self-proclaimed "throat tromnet" – an orally generated device that sounds like a combination trombone and trumpet. Accompanying him are quite an aggregate of studio stalwarts – such as percussionists Ralph McDonald (castanets) and Steven Gadd (drums) as well as legendary jazz heavies Milt Hinton (bass), Garnett Brown (trombone), Seldon Powell (sax), and Jonathan Dorn (tuba).

Reissue of original 1979 Album with Track 8: Bonus track (Previously Unreleased). Recorded and Mixed at A&M Recording Studios, Hollywood. All tracks (P) 1979 A&M Records. Special "Show Business" thanks to: Herb Alpert, Randy Badazz & Andy Armer. Paulinho Da Costa appears courtesy of Pablo Records. Stephanie Spruill appears courtesy of Arista Records. Photos by Photofest.

From Branch to Branch is the fourth studio album by Leon Redbone, released in 1981. It was his first on Atlantic Records and peaked at No. 152 on the Billboard 200 chart.

From the opening track, "Champagne Charlie," to the dazzling finale, "T.B. Blues," Leon Redbone presents an introspective collection of blues and big band melodies in timeless fashion, a rare feat because of its release date in 1978. The record was highly acclaimed and regarded as the purest of jazz and classic blues by a remarkable legend and icon in this musical form. Most of the record, like the amiable "Sweet Sue (Just You)" and memorable "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)," is filled with the best that blues and ragtime has to offer. The music itself is quite light and jolly during the more uplifting moments, with others such as "I Hate a Man Like You" very depressing and sorrowful. The band backing up Redbone is delightful, filled with jubilant horns, oboes, and trumpets. "T.B. Blues" closes out this record as a charming look back into the world of blues via pioneer Jimmie Rodgers. Two melodies written and composed by giant Jelly Roll Morton are featured here, with fresh and stunning new arrangements by Leon Redbone and company, "If Someone Would Only Love Me" and "I Hate a Man Like You".

Leon Redbone followed up his debut long-player On the Track (1975) with Double Time (1977), an equally enchanting, if not somewhat eclectic blend, of jazz, folk, blues and pop standards – all in Redbone's undeniably distinct throaty baritone. While the tunes may be familiar, these renderings are steeped in the artist's unique sensibilities. The results are uniformly ingenious and commence with a New Orleans ragtime flavored interpretation of Blind Boy Blake's dirty "Diddy Wa Diddie" blues. Augmenting Redbone's acoustic guitar is an extended cast of session stalwarts and a host of other musical notables – such as Milt Hinton (bass), Jonathan Dorn (tuba), Vic Dickenson (trombone) and Jo Jones (drums). Don McLean (banjo) sits in, supplying his criminally underutilized instrumental versatility on the endearing revamp of Jimmie Rodgers' "Mississippi Delta Blues." The decidedly demented reading of "Sheik of Araby" is nothing short of inspired insanity. Redbone incorporates a Screamin' Jay Hawkins-esque persona belting out a variety of hoots, snorts, howls and hob-gobbles set behind a hot-steppin' fret board flurry à la Django Reinhardt.

Jelly Roll Morton Realized By Artis Wodehouse - The Piano Rolls (1997) is a fascinating album that brings the legendary jazz pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton into the modern era, reimagined through the efforts of pianist Artis Wodehouse. This album is part of a broader movement to bring Morton’s influential piano rolls back to life, preserving and interpreting his early 20th-century piano compositions. The 1997 release features Artis Wodehouse’s own performances based on the original piano rolls recorded by Morton in the 1920s and 1930s.

"Nickelodeon Rag Time" (2003) is an album that features a collection of ragtime music, a genre that originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, there is no specific artist credited with this album, as it seems to be a compilation or an album under a general label. The album may have been produced for a nostalgic or thematic purpose, reflecting the fun and playful atmosphere associated with ragtime music, often tied to silent film eras or early American entertainment.

This expansive four-disc anthology essentially covers the recorded history of the guitar in the 20th century, beginning with the ragtime banjo that set the table for the role of the guitar in a jazz setting in the early 1900s, and then touching all the bases clear through to the post-postmodern possibilities of the instrument in the 21st century. Don't let the subtitle throw you, though, because Progressions: 100 Years of Jazz Guitar interprets jazz guitar in the broadest of strokes, as it includes not only pantheon jazz players like Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Les Paul, Wes Montgomery, and John McLaughlin but also provides an uncommon sweep by featuring Hawaiian stylists Roy Smeck and Sol Hoopii; Western swing aces Leon McAuliffe and Eldon Shamblin; country jazzman Hank Garland; rock virtuosos Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, and Jeff Beck; fusion funksters Larry Carlton, Al DiMeola, and Mike Stein; and hard to classify avant-garde players like Derek Bailey, Sonny Sharrock, James Blood Ulmer, and Marc Ribot.

This lavish 111-track, six-CD box set attempts the impossible – to tell the whole story of jazz. Essentially an updated version of 1987’s out of print The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, this expanded anthology is wonderfully diverse in the story it tells, with tracks from jazz artists across the stylistic board, from Stan Kenton to Sun Ra, Bill Evans to Chick Corea, Louis Armstrong to Cecil Taylor, with stops everywhere in between, and any conceivable branch of the genre is represented by at least one selection. That’s the good news. The bad news is that whole phases of jazz’s complicated history are treated like three-minute whistle stops so that the train can stay on schedule and on track. That said, it’s an impressive survey, and wonderfully assembled and annotated.

Randy Newman was the nephew of film composers Alfred, Emil, and Lionel Newman, which would suggest at least some familiarity with the field, even though he had only scored one minor movie (Cold Turkey). And in his songs, heard on his series of solo albums, he displayed far more knowledge of popular music styles of the early 20th century than any of his singer/songwriter peers. Listening to his records, you could always tell that he knew his way around Scott Joplin's rags. Who better, therefore, than Newman to make his debut as a big-budget film composer by scoring an adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime? So must movie producer Dino DeLaurentiis have reasoned in giving Newman the assignment. And the result worked out quite well. Newman naturally re-created much of the cakewalking Tin Pan Alley style of the turn-of-the-century era depicted in the film, but he actually had a more challenging assignment than might have appeared, since the story moves from one social stratum to another and ranges in tone from the comic to the melodramatic to the tragic.

Scott Joplin: Piano Rags is a 1970 ragtime piano album, consisting of compositions by Scott Joplin played by Joshua Rifkin, on the Nonesuch Records label. The original album's cover states the name as Piano Rags by Scott Joplin, as contrasting the album's spine. The record is considered to have been the first to reintroduce the music of pianist and composer Joplin in the early 1970s. It was Nonesuch Records' first million-selling album.

Even for the Mosaic label, this limited-edition 12-CD box set is miraculous. Unlike most of their other efforts, this is not a "complete" set, although each of the 65 sessions covered is complete. A collection of mostly formerly rare sessions made for Capitol during its first 11 years, the music ranges from Dixieland in the Bob Crosby Bobcats manner to some swing-oriented big bands and a touch of bop. The quantity (245 selections) and the high quality are both remarkable. Included are exciting sessions by Paul Whiteman, Eddie Miller, Nappy Lamare, Ray Bauduc, Marvin Ash, Wingy Manone, Johnny Mercer, Scatman Crothers, Deane Kincaide, Armand Hug, Frankie Trumbauer (his last recordings), Pud Brown, Bud Freeman, Zutty Singleton, Bobby Hackett, Sid Catlett, Al Casey, the Capitol Jazzmen, Jack Teagarden, Anita O'Day, Ten Cats and a Mouse, the Benny Carter big band, Jess Stacy, Joe Sullivan, Mel Powell, the exciting and very underrated Cootie Williams Orchestra, Murray McEachern, Rex Stewart, Sonny Greer, Louie Bellson, Carl Kress, Kay Starr, Red Norvo and Stan Hasselgard. A remarkable and highly enjoyable set which contains many previously unreleased recordings.