(Verve/Universal)
Herald rating: * * * *
Review: Graham Reid
One of the growth industries for record companies recently — because it's a cheap option — has been compilations under banners like "best classical album in the world, ever," and "the best drinking songs in the universe."
Most often the titles bear little resemblance to the mundane and ill-focused contents.
Superficially this double disc — with its lack of liner notes, catch-all title and free-ranging music — looks much like its predecessors.
But this collection has a great heritage jazz label to draw on (Verve), and the selection favours mid-tempo ballads (with some Latin around the fringes) so there's a coherence here which similar- looking compilations lack.
So who do you get? Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins, James Moody, Lester Young, Joe Henderson, Gerry Mulligan, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, John Coltrane, Benny Carter and more.
Two and a half hours of effortless sax. Sort of Tantric jazz when you think of it like that — and with just as much pleasure to be had.
Surprisingly consistent, coherent and full of low-key enjoyments, especially for newcomers to jazz and old hands wanting something undemanding for cocktail hour or after dinner.
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