Shopping List: The New and the Notable
"City of Dreams: A Collection of New Orleans Music" (Rounder)
No single box set could possibly contain the cornucopia of styles and personalities that distinguish New Orleans music. "City of Dreams," however, provides a rock-solid introduction to the scene on four CDs representing the Crescent City's R&B voices, Mardi Gras street sounds, funky fundamentals, and unique piano stylists, respectively—from Al Johnson's "Carnival Time" to Tuts Washington's "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?"
Nat King Cole, "Welcome to the Club/Tell Me All About Yourself," "Penthouse Serenade/The Piano Style of Nat King Cole" (Collectors' Choice)
Nat King Cole recorded almost exclusively for Capitol Records, and Collectors' Choice is reissuing nearly all his 18 albums as a series of nine twofers. These two packages focus on the often-neglected jazz side of Cole's quintessentially cool artistic persona. Cole meets the Count Basie Big Band on "Welcome to the Club," with arrangements by Capitol's in-house jazz czar Dave Cavanaugh, who also shepherds him through "Tell Me All About Yourself." "Penthouse Serenade" and "The Piano Style of Nat King Cole" focus on Cole's underrated jazz instrumentals, which could be as richly romantic as his vocals.
"The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 8: 1968" (Motown)
Sixty-eight was as tumultuous a year for Motown Records as for the rest of the country. But even the departure of the legendary writing team of Brian and Edward Holland and Lamont Dozier couldn't keep this hit machine down, as demonstrated by the 144 titles on these six smoking CDs. The five tracks by the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and the Temptations, which half-filled Billboard magazine's year-end Top-10, were just the icing on the cake.
Josh Roseman, "New Constellations" (Accurate)
Brooklyn trombonist Josh Roseman taps into his Jamaican roots on a live album that brilliantly channels and updates ska greats the Skatalites' own 'bone man, Don Drummond (1932-69). Roseman mixes originals with two Drummond tunes, a couple of reggae classics, and the Beatles' "I Should Have Known Better" on an album that demonstrates that avant-garde jazz and sheer entertainment need not be mutually exclusive categories.