A legendary aura surrounds the four initials JATP: collectively they refer to Jazz At The Philharmonic, an unforgettable series of concerts and recordings produced from the ‘40s to the ‘70s by Norman Granz, the most famous impresario in jazz history. His aim was to bring jazz out of the clubs and into major venues with jam sessions involving the day’s leading artists. This 3-disc set, complete with an introductory booklet by Alain Tercinet, contains several concerts (for the first time on CD) that were recorded in Paris in 1958 and 1960. Here, the Old School faces the New: stalwarts of Swing (Roy Eldridge, Jo Jones, Coleman Hawkins…) against Boppers (Dizzy Gillespie, Lalo Schifrin, Sonny Stitt…), and also musicians who’d never played in Europe before, like Stan Getz or Shelly Manne and his orchestra. This set shows the vivacity of jazz during this period, and completes the Fremeaux collection that began with recordings by Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald taken from those same JATP tours. Patrick FReMEAUX
