Released: 2000
Tracks: Pickin’ the Cabbage; Disorder at the Border; Salt Peanuts; I Can’t Get Started; A Night in Tunisia; Dizzy Atmosphere; Groovin’ High; Things to Come; One Bass Hit, No. 2; Manteca; Bloomdido; Tin Tin Deo; Birks’ Works; The Eternal Triangle; No More Blues (Chega De Suadade); Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac
Best track: The Eternal Triangle
Tracks to skip: I Can’t Get Started really grated on me; also I don’t care for No More Blues & Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac
This is one of the many discs that were released to accompany the Ken Burns’ Jazz series on PBS (which is excellent and highly recommended, even if it does feature too much Wynton Marsalis and basically says that there was no good jazz from the late 60’s until Marsalis “saved” it in the 80’s). This is the only one I’ve picked up and honestly probably the only one I will. Besides some questionable selections (No More Blues & Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac), the sound quality isn’t the greatest on a good number of these tracks. The first three songs, while great ones, have way too much hiss on them and are annoying to listen to. Some tracks sound like they were dubbed from vinyl, and you don’t want to hear that on a commercially released CD. Really, the first 6 tracks sound bad. And also I don’t think the track selection is good. While most of these are good songs, these aren’t the particular best versions (quality or performance) that are readily available. While listening to this I determined I’m actually going to sell this, because never listen to it and when I do I don’t enjoy it. The only song I really enjoyed and the reason I usually pull this out is The Eternal Triangle, which Dizzy did with Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins and can be found on Dizzy’s album Sonny Side Up (which I’m going to buy). There are much better Dizzy Gillespie compilations out there.
Rating: 75
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