Jazz Fans -A Night Out With Verve

I just received this box set the other day as a Birithday present from my wife and kids.

A Night Out With Verve is, Wining, Dining, Dancing and Romancing. This is an excellent 4 disc compilation of some of the greatest jazz music of all time. The artists represented on this collection are a virtual "who's who" of jazz giants. The highlights are far too numerous to mention, I could go on and on. There's Miles Davis performing the Thelonius Monk classic 'Round Midnight, Perdido by Duke Ellington, But Beautiful by Stan Getz and Bill Evans and Isn't It Romantic by Benny Carter. There are also outstanding vocal performances such as Billie Holiday's It Had To Be You, Reaching For The Moon by the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald, Little Girl Blue by Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong and a most romantic reading of I Should Care by The Velvet Fog, Mel Torme.

The sound quality is outstanding. Whether your jazz collection contains hundreds of albums by these great masters or you're a jazz neophite, I highly recommend this wonderful box-set. There are many many hours to savor, as you wine and dine and dance and romance.
A definite mood maker and the sound quality is great!

Disc: 1

1. Come Dance With Me - Oscar Peterson Listen Listen
2. There Is No Greater Love - Dizzy Gillespie Listen Listen
3. As Long as I Live - Kenny Burrell Listen Listen
4. I Wished on the Moon - Coleman Hawkins Listen Listen
5. Smooth One - Junior Mance Listen Listen
6. On the Sunny Side of the Street - Jimmy And His Orchestra Hodges
7. Whisper Not - Anita O'Day
8. Lil' Darlin' - Joe Pass
9. Love You Madly - Monty Alexander
10. What's New? - George Benson
11. Broadway - Tal Farlow
12. You Are Too Beautiful - Sonny Rollins
13. Portrait of Jennie - Wynton Kelly
14. Fall Out - Paul Desmond
15. Vie en Rose - Michel Legrand
16. I Still Love Him So - Roy Eldridge

Disc: 2

1. If I Had You - Kenny Burrell
2. Once I Loved (Amor Em Paz)
3. Isn't It a Pity? - Sarah Vaughan
4. My Foolish Heart - Bill Evans
5. I Remember Clifford - Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers
6. It's Nice to Be With You - Jim Hall
7. It Might as Well Be Spring - Astrud Gilberto
8. Isn't It Romantic? - Benny Carter
9. When a Woman Loves a Man - Ella Fitzgerald
10. This Can't Be Love - George Shearing
11. You Go to My Head - Chet Baker
12. Autumn in New York - Tal Farlow
13. But Beautiful - Stan Getz
14. Agua de Beber - Antonio Carlos Jobim
15. Manhattan - Sonny Rollins

Disc: 3

1. (Ad Lib) Fast Dances - Fred Astaire
2. Party Blues - Ella Fitzgerald
3. Sister Sadie - James Clay
4. Organ Grinder's Swing - Jimmy Smith
5. Perdido - Duke Ellington
6. Back Beat Boogie - Harry James & His Orchestra
7. At Last - Marlena Shaw
8. Little Girl Blue - Louis Armstrong
9. So Danço Samba (I Only Dance Samba) - Luiz Bonfá
10. Shall We Dance? - Cassandra Wilson
11. Rose Room - Buddy DeFranco
12. King Porter Stomp - Benny Goodman & His Orchestra
13. Taking a Chance on Love - Nicholas Payton
14. Corner Pocket - Count Basie Orchestra
15. (Ad Lib) Medium Dance - Fred Astaire


Disc: 4

1. I've Got a Crush on You - Sarah Vaughan
2. It Had to Be You - Billie Holiday
3. You're a Weaver of Dreams - John Coltrane
4. This Love of Mine - Al Hibbler
5. Misty - Don Byas
6. Invitation - Dinah Washington
7. Nearness of You - Hank Jones
8. Time After Time - Stephane Grappelli
9. Imagination - Billy Eckstine
10. That's All - Harry "Sweets" Edison
11. I Should Care - Mel Tormé
12. 'Round Midnight - Miles Davis
13. Someone to Watch over Me - Rahsaan Roland Kirk
14. It's Easy to Remember - Johnny Hartman
15. Reaching for the Moon - Ella Fitzgerald
16. You Don't Know Me - Shirley Horn
17. Where Are You - Ben Webster
18. There's No You - Louis Armstrong
19. Memories of You - Clifford Brown

 

Thanks for the recommend Gary. It's nice to see a Don Byas recording make the cut!

 

Gary - I got this a few years back while on a short trip to Canada and felt the song selection was very good. Glad you are enjoying it.

I think there's a complementary set called "A Night in with Verve" as well.

 

Shoot...no Cal Tjader? Great set otherwise--this is the type of thing I would recommend to someone who was interested in getting an introduction to jazz...especially Verve's take on it. IIRC, they had a set about a decade ago, 3 or 4 CDs, that I almost bought. May have been an anniversary set.

Enjoy! Verve has always been one of my favorite labels.

 

Rudy - I prefer the Blue Note style by a little, but Verve does have a great catalog. I just wish they'd release more of it... especially some Johnny Hodges with organ!

 

Yep. Verve 50th Anniversary. The Verve Story 1944-1994 . 4 CD's. Cal Tjader- Soul Sauce

Great Stuff.

 

What's funny is that I almost bought that set because "Soul Sauce" was on it! Good thing I waited--the entire Soul Sauce album was released a year or two later.

Can't say I listen to much Blue Note, but you mentioned the word "Style". All the labels back then had style! You could almost tell which label a recording was on by the sound of it.

When I got my A&M Corner set up as a website, I got a few e-mails asking why I would devote a site to a *label* and not an individual artist. It's the "family" aspect of it! Labels had some unique artists, and these artists were often on their labelmates' recordings. The same producers and engineers often worked behind the consoles. I'm most fond of labels like A&M, Verve, the 50's/60's Columbia jazz, Columbia's fusion era post "Bitches Brew"...even the RCA in the 50's and 60's on the popular "black" label. The most recent label I can think of is GRP Records. In their heyday (before Universal's "purging" dumped most of the artists out onto the street and their CDs into cutout bins), there was a GRP "sound" to their recordings. Even Windham Hill's earlier years were like that.

And if you liked one A&M artists, for instance, there was a good chance you'd like others, even without hearing them. You can't shop by labels today! Except in the case of the audiophile labels like MoFi, DCC, et al...but those are a bit different. (Usually premium reissues of existing recordings.)