Three Jazz Box Sets For Stocking Stuffers

Transcript

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. For the jazz lovers on your holiday shopping list, jazz critic Kevin Whitehead suggests three box sets featuring memorable pianists, including Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, and another lesser-known keyboardist who backed Rosemary Clooney.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHICK COREA TRIO SONG)

KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: Chick Corea, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade on Thelonious Monk's work. It's from the Corea Trio's "Trilogy," one of those multi-CD boxes out this time of year that might make a nice present for some jazz fan you may know. All-star groups like this one, put together to play big-ticket concerts, can be more about showboating than interplay play. But this band can sound good gloriously tight. The playing is bright and crisp. They really listen to each other. They even sound rehearsed. It brings out the best in all of them.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHICK COREA TRIO SONG)

WHITEHEAD: The trio's live trilogy is on three CDs, and if it didn't violate the numerology, they might've whittled it down to two, maybe ditching three tunes with three guests whose help they don't really need. But there is a lot of very good playing here on diverse material. Moving on.

Pianist Herbie Hancock in his new autobiography devotes a lot of ink to a neglected period that's spotlighted in his three-CD set "Herbie Hancock: The Warner Bros. Years - 1969 To 1972." It was a transitional period, after Hancock got into electric keyboards but before he got super funky. At first, the music could sound kind of like his is acoustic jazz plugged in.

(SOUNDBITE OF HERBIE HANCOCK SONG)

WHITEHEAD: Herbie Hancock followed that with two albums built around his sextet, Mwandishi. Their free-form electric music owed a lot to Miles Davis' earlier fusion jams, only with more bass and some Sun Ra reverb.

(SOUNDBITE OF MWANDISHI SONG)

WHITEHEAD: After that moment, Mwandishi's music got gloriously weirder, like the players were daring each other. You can hear how it finally got too weird for Herbie Hancock, who pulled the plugs. But they got some great spacey textures blending horns and electronics.

(SOUNDBITE OF MWANDISHI SONG)

WHITEHEAD: Our last holiday gift pick features a very different keyboard wizard, backing singer Rosemary Clooney on songs recorded for her 1950s radio shows. Clooney was good friends with Bing Crosby, and he lent her the quartet he used for his own recently reissued radio stuff. It was led by keyboardist Buddy Cole whose zippy, gimmicky arrangements are so over-the-top, they're kind great.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOT A LOT OF LIVIN' TO DO")

ROSEMARY CLOONEY: (Singing) Life's a ball if only you know it. And it's all just waiting for you. You're alive. So come on and show it. There's such a lot of living to do.

WHITEHEAD: That's from "The Rosemary Clooney CBS Radio Recordings 1955 to 1961," a box from the mail-order house Mosaic. It's 104 songs on five CDs, though they could've fit on four. Clooney like Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire had the knack for swinging at tune even while singing it straight. At first, Buddy Cole brought her recycled Crosby charts, but they soon pursued Clooney's own interests. She loved Duke Ellington tunes and sings a few here.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DO NOTHIN' TILL YOU HEAR FROM ME")

CLOONEY: (Singing) True, I've been seen with someone new, but does that mean that I'm untrue when we're apart? The words in my heart reveal how I feel about you. Some kiss may cloud my memory. And other arms may hold a thrill. But please, do nothing till you hear it from me. And you never will.

WHITEHEAD: Buddy Cole rearranges Duke Ellington. Now, there's a concept. They do some ballads, too, but Rosemary Clooney, like the band, sounds more at home on an up-tempo numbers. Slow and tender can be lovely, of course. But sometimes, the frothier, the better.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EVERYTHING'S COMING UP ROSES")

CLOONEY: (Singing) Things look swell. Things look great. Going to have the whole world on a plate. Starting here, starting now, honey, every thing's coming up roses. Clear the decks, clear the tracks.

GROSS: Kevin Whitehead writes for Point of Departure and Wondering Sound and is the author of "Why Jazz?". He reviewed the box sets "Trilogy" by the Chick Corea Trio, Herbie Hancock's "The Warner Bros. Years - 1969 - 1972" and "The Rosemary Clooney CBS Radio Recordings 1955 to 1960." If you want to catch up on FRESH AIR interviews you've missed, check out podcast, which you can download on your phone app or on iTunes. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.