Donald Byrd - Gigi Gryce (co-leaders) - "THE COMPLETE JAZZ LAB SESSIONS" (4-cd box set)
Going to make my way through this new box set today which arrived just in time for my birthday (to me, from me ... I am SO thoughtful!
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As per review ...
This four-disc collection contains all of the recordings of one of the most interesting jazz groups from the late `50s, the Jazz Lab, compiled here for the first time ever on one release. Co-led by Gigi Gryce and Donald Byrd, this set comprises the group's five original studio albums (including all existing supplementary tunes and alternate takes from the sessions), presented here in their entirety and in chronological order. This edition also includes the Jazz Lab's only known live performance, taped at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1957. As a bonus, a complete Oscar Pettiford LP, which constitutes the only other small group collaboration of Gryce and Byrd, and is a precursor to the Jazz Lab sound, as well as a rare 1955 Gigi Gryce quartet session (with Pettiford on bass) in its entirety, which despite having no real relation to the later Gryce-Byrd formation, was issued under the title of Jazz Laboratory Series (probably Gryce chose the group's name based on that previous release!).
PERSONNEL:
DONALD BYRD trumpet. GIGI GRYCE, alto sax on all tracks, plus:
Collective personnel:
Jimmy Cleveland (tb), Benny Powell (tb), Julius Watkins (fhr),
Don Butterfield (tu), Sahib Shihab (bar), Tommy Flanagan,
Wynton Kelly, Hank Jones, Wade Legge (p), Paul Chambers,
Wendell Marshall (b), Art Taylor, Osie Johnson (d).
Recorded in New York between February 4 & September 5, 1957.
CD1 [1-8] Jazz Lab (Columbia CL998)
CD1 [9-12] & CD2 [1-2] Gigi Gryce and the Jazz Lab Quintet (Riverside 12-229)
CD2 [3-9] New Formulas from the Jazz Lab (RCA-Victor Jap RCA6015)
CD2 [10-12] & CD3 [1-4] Jazz Lab (Jubilee JLP1059)
CD3 [5-12] Modern Jazz Perspective (Columbia CL1058)
CD4 [1-3] Jazz Laboratory at Newport (Verve MGV8238)
CD4 [4-12] Oscar Pettiford (Bethlehem BCP33):
Donald Byrd, Ernie Royal (tp), Gigi Gryce (as), Bob Brookmeyer (v-tb),
Jerome Richardson (fl, ts), Don Abney (p), Oscar Pettiford (b, cello),
Osie Johnson (d). New York, August 12, 1955.
Plus:
CD 3 [13] & CD4 [13-15]:The Jazz Laboratory Series: Do It Yourself Jazz Vol.1 (Signal S101/Savoy MG12145):
Gigi Gryce (as), Duke Jordan (p), Oscar Pettiford (b), Kenny Clarke (d). Hackensack, New Jersey, March 7, 1955.
