The Montreux Collection (Remastered) [Live]

For three days in 1975 producer Norman Granz largely took over the Montreux Jazz Festival and recorded nearly everything; he had a similar arrangement with the 1977 edition. This double-LP (whose contents have mostly not been reissued yet on CD) has music from nine different groups ranging from unaccompanied solos by guitarist Joe Pass and pianist Oscar Peterson to an octet. Just listing the all-star performers should be enough to water the mouths of most straightahead jazz fans. In addition to Pass and Peterson there are trumpeters Roy Eldridge, Clark Terry and Dizzy Gillespie, tenors Johnny Griffin, Zoot Sims and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, altoist Benny Carter, Toots Thielemans on harmonica, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, pianists Oscar Peterson, Count Basie and Tommy Flanagan, bassists Niels Pedersen and Keter Betts and drummers Louie Bellson, Mickey Roker and Bobby Durham plus Ella Fitzgerald sings "The Man I Love." The music is essentially standards and blues but the classic musicians come up with enough surprises in their solos to hold one's interest throughout.