Teddy Charles - The 1950s Album Collection (2024)

This 4CD collection features 8 of Teddy Charles’ most accomplished works from the 1950s, compiling some of the great innovator’s finest musical output
Born Theodore Charles Cohen on April 13th 1927 in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, jazz musician and composer Teddy Charles, whose instruments were the vibraphone, piano, and drums, studied at the Juilliard School of Music as a percussionist. Later he began to record and made personal appearances as Teddy Cohen, writing, arranging, and producing records. In 1951, he changed his last name to Charles.

Known as an innovator, Charles’s main work was recorded in the 1950s, with polytonal albums such as New Directions, Collaboration: West, Word from Bird, and The Teddy Charles Tentet. He was a studio musician for Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Shelly Manne, and Dion. From the late 1950s onwards, Charles worked primarily as a record producer. He was also a co-leader of the Prestige Jazz Quartet.

Although somewhat overlooked in the jazz history books, vibraphonist Teddy Charles was, for a period, an important participant in the early Third-Stream movement, using aspects of classical music to revitalize West Coast-style jazz.

This 4CD collection features Teddy Charles’s finest music, all recorded in the 1950s and featuring an impressive cast of backing musicians throughout. A near-perfect introduction to this giant of jazz, and perhaps the ultimate compilation of the great man’s music, everyone with even the vaguest enjoyment of this musical form will surely obsess over this multi-disc set.