Manny Albam - Classic Recordings 1957 (2020)

Manny Albam is a jazz baritone saxophonist, composer, arranger and producer, who started his career in the bands of Muggsy Spanier, Georgie Auld, Charlie Spivak and Boyd Raeburn, before achieving his greatest fame and success as an arranger working with small groups led by top names of the era and leading his own studio bands during the 1950s and ‘60s on a series of highly-regarded projects, often featuring his own compositions, before becoming a prominent jazz and music educator. The New Grove Dictionary Of Jazz sums his music up with the words “One of the most important jazz arrangers of the 1950s and ‘60s, Albam never lost touch with the qualities of swing and blues in his writing.” This great-value 25-track 2-CD set, which includes many extended pieces, comprises recordings from noted sessions and projects he led during 1957, which came out on the Coral label albums “Jazz Greats Of Our Time Vols. 1 & 2”, “The Blues Is Everybody's Business” and “West Side Story”. “Jazz Greats Of Our Time” features a 10-piece line-up which includes Art Farmer, Bob Brookmeyer, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Gerry Mulligan, Hank Jones, Milt Hinton, Osie Johnson performing a mixture of standards and originals. “The Blues Is Everybody's Business” comprises four extended variations on his composition of that title by different studio line-ups, and the collection concludes with selected titles from his “West Side Story” album, recorded after he had worked with Leonard Bernstein on arrangements for the original Broadway score. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable and impressive showcase for a jazz practitioner who deserves to be much better known.