Update: Hear here.
I haven’t heard much noise around the recent news that
Wolfgang’s Vault, the online concert repository, has acquired the rights to recordings from the most glorious years of the Newport Jazz
Festival. This surprises me a bit. The initial batch of music, available as a
free stream or reasonably priced download, consists of full sets by Dakota Staton, the Count
Basie Orchestra (with Joe Williams and Lambert, Hendricks & Ross), and Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, all from
50 years ago. As Ben Ratliff notes in the piece linked above: “There are chillingly good performances in the 1959
crop, from half-inch three-track tapes mixed for stereo, made with stage
microphones that pick up the nuances of the drums and the growls of the band
members.” And more, much more, is apparently on the way.
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