A Look at the Sound of RCA Jazz

by Various Artists

Rare & Hard-To-Find Audio CDs (series)

In the '90s, RCA's jazz department had its hands in different pieces of the jazz pie -- everything from new hard bop and post-bop recordings to new NAC/smooth jazz releases to reissues of big-band swing hits of the '30s and '40s. So when RCA assembled this jazz-oriented compilation in 1995, there was a lot to choose from. By 1995, RCA had been recording jazz for 78 years; in 1917, RCA Victor released the first official jazz single when it put out the Original Dixieland Jazz Band's recording of "Livery Stable Blues." Allegedly, cornetist Buddy Bolden recorded a cylinder in 1898, but that cylinder has never been found -- which means that RCA owns the oldest official jazz recording in existence. Spanning 1946-1995, this 53-minute CD offers a sample of what was, in 1995, RCA's past and present. The good news is that A Look at the Sound of RCA Jazz is diverse -- which is good news if you appreciate a wide variety of jazz. The bad news is that the disc is uneven. Some of the tracks are excellent, including Dizzy Gillespie's classic 1946 recording of "Manteca," a 1952 recording of Duke Ellington performing "Caravan" at a Seattle concert, and a 1983 recording of Carmen McRae singing "Don't Explain" (from her For Lady Day CD). Some of the more NAC/smooth jazz-oriented material is weak -- tunes by Warren Hill and Marion Meadows are the worst offenders -- but most of the tracks are neither great nor terrible. They're simply decent. The thing is that, given the number of five-star recordings that RCA has in its vaults, there is no reason why A Look at the Sound of RCA Jazz couldn't have been superb from start to finish. ~ Alex Henderson