Various Artists The Jazz Collection (12CD)(jazz)(mp3@320)[rogercc][h33t]

With the success of his Dave Brubeck Quartet in the 50's and 60's and the incredible public response to their style of playing, pianist Dave Brubeck was at once embraced by the public but spurned by jazz critics. His importance in jazz history is unmistakable: the Quartet, headlined by Brubeck and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, helped to reawaken public interest in jazz after World War II, was an integral part of the new but erroneously named "West Coast Cool Jazz" style which was to characterize American jazz in the 50's and 60's, and their tour de force, the innovative Time Out, released in 1959, spawned the first million-selling jazz record in modern jazz history with the singles "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk" .,
Between the years of 1959 and 1965, the Quartet won Down Beat magazine's reader's poll five times; the top spot in the Billboard reader's poll in '65 and '66; for twelve consecutive years, '57 through '68, Perhaps due to the overwhelming popular acclaim, Brubeck left the Quartet in 1967 to develop his composing skills, already apparent in his jazz compositions, in the realms of ballets, operas, and scores. He persists as a grand old man of jazz, however, by both participating in periodic reunions or forays into popular jazz and by suffusing his compositions with jazz influences.

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion.
For nearly six decades, Miles Davis has embodied all that is cool – in his music (and most especially jazz), in his art, fashion, romance, and in his international, if not intergalactic, presence that looms strong as ever today

Count Basie was among the most important bandleaders of the swing era. With the exception of a brief period in the early '50s, he led a big band from 1935 until his death almost 50 years later, and the band continued to perform after he died. Basie's orchestra was characterized by a light, swinging rhythm section that he led from the piano, lively ensemble work, and generous soloing. Basie was not a composer like Duke Ellington or an important soloist like Benny Goodman. His instrument was his band, which was considered the epitome of swing and became broadly influential on jazz.

When guitarist Tal Farlow (1921 - 1998 ) died in July 1998, at the age of 77, he left behind an unmatched legacy of jazz guitar music. He began his career in the 1940's as a contemporary of the centuries most recognized and influential jazz guitarists and quickly rose to a preeminent position among them.
A sign painter by trade, Tal Farlow took up the guitar seriously after hearing Charlie Christian on the radio. He was so impressed with Christian's playing that he taught himself how to play all of Charlie Christian's solos by listening to Benny Goodman records.

Described by Duke Ellington as “not only the world’s greatest drummer...(but also) the world’s greatest musician,” Louie Bellson had expressed himself on drums since age three. At 15, he pioneered the double bass drum set-up. At 17, he triumphed over 40,000 drummers to win the Gene Krupa drumming contest.
He performed on more than 200 albums with such greats as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Woody Herman, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Louie Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, James Brown, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett, Mel Torme, Joe Williams, Wayne Newton and Bellson’s late wife Pearl Bailey.

Curtis DuBois Fuller (born December 15, 1934, Detroit) is an American jazz trombonist, known as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and contributor to many classic jazz recordings.
While in Detroit he was a schoolfriend of Paul Chambers and Donald Byrd, and also knew Tommy Flanagan, Thad Jones and Milt Jackson. After army service between 1953 and 1955 (when he played in a band with Chambers and brothers Cannonball and Nat Adderley), Fuller joined the quintet of Yusef Lateef, another Detroit musician. In 1957 the quintet moved to New York, and Fuller recorded his first sessions as a leader for Prestige Records.
Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records first heard him playing with Miles Davis in the late 1950s, and featured him as a sideman on record dates led by Sonny Clark and John Coltrane; Fuller's work on the latter's Blue Train album is probably his best known recorded performance. Fuller led four dates for Blue Note, though one of these, an album with Slide Hampton, was not issued for many years. Other sideman appearances over the next decade included work on albums under the leadership of Bud Powell, Jimmy Smith, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan and Joe Henderson
Fuller was also the first trombonist to be a member of the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet, later becoming the sixth man in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in 1961, staying with Blakey until 1965. In the early 1960s, he recorded two albums as a leader for Impulse! Records, having also recorded for Savoy Records and Epic after his obligations to Blue Note had ended. In the late 1960s, he was part of Dizzy Gillespie's band. He went on to tour with Count Basie and also reunited with Blakey and Golson.

Clifford Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956), aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings. Nonetheless, he had a considerable influence on later jazz trumpet players, including Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan, Booker Little, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Valery Ponomarev, Wynton Marsalis, and many others.
He won the Down Beat critics' poll for the 'New Star of the Year' in 1954; he was inducted into the Down Beat 'Jazz Hall of Fame' in 1972 in the critics' poll.

Along with Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, he was one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. He is known as a powerful musician and a vital groover; his brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was and continues to be profoundly influential on mainstream jazz. For more than 30 years his band, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz. The band's legacy is thus not only known for the often exceptionally fine music it produced, but as a proving ground for several generations of jazz musicians; Blakey's groups are matched only by those of Miles Davis in this regard.

While Eddie's work on the vibes was brilliant, it is his original jazz style on the piano that is most remembered. His percussive style and intense pounding left hand technique has rarely been duplicated even to this day. Known to some as "Eddie the Bear," he attacked the piano like a ferocious beast. It was said that he drove the beat enough on the piano that drums were an unnecessary commodity. Eddie's music comes back to life on many recordings produced from the mid-fifties to the time of his death. These recordings capture the unbelievable sense of time and concept of "swing" rhythm that is Eddie Costa.

One of the most distinctive of all pianists, Erroll Garner proved that it was possible to be a sophisticated player without knowing how to read music, that a creative jazz musician can be very popular without watering down his music, and that it is possible to remain an enthusiastic player without changing one's style once it is formed. A brilliant virtuoso who sounded unlike anyone else, Erroll Garner on medium-tempo pieces often stated the beat with his left hand like a rhythm guitar while his right played chords slightly behind the beat, creating a memorable effect. His playful free-form introductions, his ability to play stunning runs without once glancing at the keyboard, his grunting and the pure joy that he displayed while performing were also part of the Erroll Garner magic.
After working locally in Pittsburgh, he moved to New York in 1944 and worked with Slam Stewart's trio during 1944-45 before going out on his own. By 1946 Garner had his sound together and when he backed Charlie Parker on his famous "Cool Blues" session of 1947, the pianist was already an obvious giant. His unclassifiable style had an orchestral approach straight from the swing era but was open to the innovations of bop. From the early '50s Garner's accessible style became very popular and he never seemed to have an off day up until his forced retirement (due to illness) in early 1975. His composition "Misty" became a standard. Erroll Garner, who had the ability to sit at the piano without prior planning and record three albums in one day (all colorful first takes), made many records throughout his career .

Guitarist Sal Salvador's (1928 - 1999) career paralleled those of Johnny Smith, Chuck Wayne, Jimmy Raney and Mundell Lowe. In fact, from his earliest days in New York, Sal Salvador was in an elite group of guitarists that came up in the 1940's. Before he was known as a featured soloist in his own right, he appeared as part of the rhythm section on an early Mundell Lowe recording, became friends with and was mentored by Johnny Smith and jammed with his room mates Jimmy Raney and Tal Farlow. And, although some of them might be better known outside of jazz guitar circles, Sal Salvador was their equal in every way.

Arguably the greatest jazz drummer of all time, the legendary Buddy Rich exhibited his love for music through the dedication of his life to the art. His was a career that spanned seven decades, beginning when Rich was 18 months old and continuing until his death in 1987. Immensely gifted, Rich could play with remarkable speed and dexterity despite the fact that he never received a formal lesson and refused to practice outside of his performances.

With his natural sense