Featured Release: Jazz Icons: Series 4
Naxos / Reelin’ in the Years 2.108003
Format: DVD

Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Picture Quality
Overall Enjoyment

For each of the last four holiday seasons, Reelin’ in the Years Productions, distributed by Naxos, has done jazz fans an immense favor by releasing DVDs of live performances originally filmed or videotaped for broadcast on European television. Each DVD in the Jazz Icons series is available individually, but the complete sets (except for the first one) include a bonus disc of additional footage. Jazz Icons: Series 4 contains seven discs of live music by Anita O’Day, Jimmy Smith, Coleman Hawkins, Art Blakey, Woody Herman, Erroll Garner, and Art Farmer. The bonus disc contains additional performances by Garner, Hawkins, and Smith.

Jimmy Smith fans will want to see his 90-minute performance at Salle Pleyel in Paris in 1969. Eddie McFadden on guitar and Charlie Crosby on drums round out Smith’s trio, and the two journeyman players deserve to be better known. McFadden was the guitarist on The Sermon! and House Party, two of Smith’s great 1950s Blue Note records, and Crosby played with B.B. King and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. The trio burns through a 23-minute version of "The Sermon" and proves equally adept at ballads on "The Days of Wine and Roses." The bonus disc includes 25 minutes of Smith on Danish TV, with Nathan Page on guitar. The footage of the Danish performance is a bit clearer and the sound balance is better (Smith is too closely miked during the Paris show, and he occasionally overpowers McFadden), but the enjoyment on both discs comes from watching the skill and drive of the three musicians as they interact on stage.

Coleman Hawkins opens both of the European shows on his DVD with "Disorder at the Border," his own composition. The quartet he fronts in 1964 in Belgium plays the tune quickly, driven by bop drummer Kansas Fields, whose joyous interjections on the snare and kick drum give the tune a brisk pace. The great swing drummer Jo Jones creates an entirely different feel for Hawkins’s appearance in England two years later in a quintet with Harry "Sweets" Edison. The tune, which is less rushed, is definitely more swing than bop. Hawkins sounds more confident on the earlier set, but he gains strength during the second half of the British show and his ballad playing in both performances is sterling. Hawkins plays his signature tune, "Body and Soul," in a 1966 appearance in England that’s included on the bonus disc. 

Seven years separate Anita O’Day’s 1963 appearance in Sweden and an opening in Norway for a European tour. Her sense of humor, unfailing feel for time, and playful way with a lyric are firmly intact in both. She scats her way through "Four Brothers" in the second show and stretches time to the breaking point on "Let’s Fall In Love" during both performances. She tests the mettle of both European trios that back her by pushing them through swift, witty versions of "Tea for Two." O’Day was a sassy and agile vocalist with a lively stage presence, and it’s a joy to watch her work.

Woody Herman’s Herd tears through a stomping set in England; Art Blakey (this is his second DVD in the series) steers a hot band through four powerful, lengthy tunes for French television; Errol Garner demonstrates his improvisational genius, along with his sheer joy in playing music, for audiences in Belgium and Sweden; and Art Farmer leads a quartet that includes Jim Hall on guitar through a varied and well paced set. All the discs feature expertly written and informative liner notes and first-class packaging, although smaller DVD cases would have made storage easier.

As should be expected from sources more than 40 years old, the sound and picture quality vary and there are occasional technical glitches. All the performances were shot in black and white, and the DVDs run from 60 to 90 minutes. I can’t imagine a jazz lover who wouldn’t be delighted with this collection.

. . . Joseph Taylor