Complete Quartets & Quintets

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Product Description

When Verve producer Norman Granz brought Lionel Hampton and Oscar Peterson together for the first time in 1953, he fostered one of the great collaborations in the august history of the label. The two laid down some of the most memorable small-group recordings in all of jazz over the space of two years, and you'll find the COMPLETE sessions here, over six hours of music, most of it on CD for the first time! This sumptuous 5-CD package includes a 50-page booklet, a specially designed 19" x 28*1/2*" poster and more goodies, plus two unreleased tracks. Review In the boxed-set department, there are your must-haves, your best-ofs, your previously unreleased treasure chests, and a set like this - a collection that does absolutely nothing but give pleasure. It ain't important, ain't essential, ain't the artists' most important work (for Hamp, look to his small-group RCAs; for Oscar, check out his Verve trio stuff), it ain't even in a nice box (it's in a flimsy, ugly, burlap-and-cardboard box). But the next time you hear somebody introduce a concert by saying, "Folks, we're going to be swinging for you tonight," you can hold this up as a standard to the term "swinging." These guys swing so hard it hurts. Hampton and Peterson met in a recording studio in September, 1953. By a year and two weeks later, they had recorded several years' worth of albums, everything in this five-CD set. They were typical Verve affairs - the players called the tunes in the studio (standards, of course) and blew. Bassist Ray Brown and drummer Buddy Rich were there, guitarist Herb Ellis made a date, and clarinetist Buddy DeFranco joined a date. We're not talking minimalism. We're talking sweaty, grunting (Hamp and Oscar both grunting, at times with frightening ferocity), in-your-face swing - torrents of notes (even on the ballads), all sluicing through a groove as wide and deep as a canyon. They cascade through "Dinah," "Flying Home," "Indiana," and a few dozen others - sultans of swing in their domain. It's a set you might not need, but - and this is the ticket - it's a set you'll continue to pull down from the shelf for one reason: pleasure.--- Lee Jeske, JAZZIZ Magazine Copyright © 2000, Milor Entertainment, Inc. -- From Jazziz