The 36-disc anthology bearing the antiquated title
That Devilin' Tune covers a timeline extending from 1895 to 1951. During those years, sound recording technology and the increased rapidity of travel and communications caused jazz to evolve more quickly than anyone ever dreamt that it could or would.
Vol. 4 revisits the cultural landscape in the U.S. during the years immediately following the Second World War, when singers like
Doris Day and
Peggy Lee were succeeding in a marketplace increasingly dominated by pop vocalists, even while musical innovators like
Charlie Parker,
Lester Young,
Warne Marsh, and
Lennie Tristano were expanding the possibilities of creative improvisation in ways that resonated with what was being accomplished in all of the arts throughout the world.
Vol. 4's 195 tracks vividly illustrate the contrasting simultaneity that makes mid-20th century music so compelling in retrospect. Here, modernists such as
Charles Mingus,
Bud Powell,
Dodo Marmarosa,
Miles Davis,
Lee Konitz,
Thelonious Monk, and
Charlie Mariano mingle with survivors and living legends like blueswoman
Hociel Thomas, bandleader and arranger
Fletcher Henderson, pioneer jazz violinist
Joe Venuti, and old-time jazz heroes
Kid Ory, Big Eye Louis Nelson De Lisle,
Omer Simeon,
Knocky Parker, and Kid Thomas. There's also a rare live recording of the
Dizzy Gillespie band when its lineup included a virtually unknown tenor saxophonist named
John Coltrane. The variety in this set is stunningly variegated but never seems irrationally programmed, even if hyper-expressive vocalist
Al Hibbler is in the same playlist with archetypal Cuban drummer
Chano Pozo, Argentine bandoneon virtuoso
Astor Piazzolla, ex-vaudevillian
Al Jolson, and heavyweight country & western swing players
Merle Travis,
Moon Mullican, and
Hank Penny, representing the rural honky tonk outgrowth of ragtime, barrelhouse, boogie, and swing.
That Devilin' Tune was the title of
Vol. 1, an action-packed anthology of vaudeville, ragtime, hot jazz, and novelty music dating back as early as 1895, and may at first seem odd as applied to this fourth installment, which is so filled with early modernity, but the lesson here is simple enough. As an overall title for the entire set and each of its volumes, ‘That Devilin' Tune' emphasizes the fact that jazz and anything it touches has always existed as one continuous braid of traditions. Furthermore, it is that healthy tendency to absorb and be absorbed by other genres that makes jazz so exciting, challenging, rewarding, and predictably unpredictable. That's what this gigantic anthology of great music is all about. ~ arwulf arwulf