Concord Jazz Classics from Ella/Oscar, Monk, Tjader/Getz and Blakey Coming March 15

Concord Music Group continues its Original Jazz Classics Remasters series with the reissue of four new titles on March 15, 2011:  Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers - Ugetsu; Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson - Ella and Oscar; Thelonious Monk - Monk’s Music;

and Cal Tjader / Stan Getz - Sextet.

Originally launched in March 2010, and enhanced by 24-bit remastering by Joe Tarantino, the series showcases some of the most pivotal recordings of the past several decades the most influential and creative artists in jazz history

Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers' Ugetsu was recorded live at Birdland in New York City in June 1963 for Riverside. The set features trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, trombonist Curtis Fuller, pianist Cedar Walton and bassist Reggie Workman.  The CD ends with four bonus tracks, including a previously unreleased cover of George Shearing’s 1949 bop classic, "Conception."
The delightful Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson collaboration,  Ella and Oscar was recorded in May 1975 for Pablo and produced by jazz impresario Norman Granz, who’d founded the label just a couple years earlier. The album is a series of duets that also features bassist Ray Brown on four of the original nine tracks. Brown also appears on two of the four previously unreleased bonus tracks included in the reissue.
Thelonious Monk's Monk’s Music was recorded in New York in June 1957 for Riverside, with musicians that include trumpeter Ray Copeland, alto saxophonist Gigi Gryce, tenor saxophonists John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins, bassist Wilbur Ware, and drummer Art Blakey. Downbeat named the record one of the top five albums of 1958.
Cal Tjader/ Stan Getz Sextet was recorded for Fantasy at the Marines Memorial Auditorium in San Francisco in February 1958. Bandleaders Tjader and Getz are backed by pianist Vince Guaraldi, guitarist Eddie Duran, bassist Scott LaFaro, and drummer Billy Higgins. There no bonus tracks because no alternate takes or outtakes have been found in the Fantasy/Concord vaults.