The Mercury Records Jazz Story

Mercury's jazz division had two distinct and important fathers. John Hammond brought his expertise and connections when Mercury bought Keystone Records in the late 1940's. And Mercury was the issuing company and distributor for Norman Granz's pre-Norgran/Verve recordings. Although both Hammond and Granz had departed Mercury by the mid-50's, they established the company in the jazz world.
Mercury, under its Emarcy label, released LPs by many important post-swing and bebop artists including Clifford Brown and Max Roach, Clark Terry, Dinah Washington, Nat and Cannonball Adderley, Sarah Vaughn, Maynard Ferguson, Jimmy Cleveland, Herb Geller and others. By the early 1960's, Mercury was releasing jazz under the flagship label and was an early leader in the new stereo sound releases.
Highlights of the early and mid-60's included albums by Quincy Jones, Buddy Rich, Cannonball Adderley, Charles (then called Charlie) Mingus, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughn, Max Roach and others.
In the early 1950's, Norman Granz started his own record company, Norgran, which later became Verve. In an ironic twist, both Mercury and Verve are now owned by Universal Music Group and Mercury's jazz library falls under the Verve division. Since the early 1990's, Verve has reissued many Mercury jazz titles on CD, often taking care to use original master tapes and including session material not included on the original LPs.
In addition, Mosaic Records in Stamford CT has issued several box sets spotlighting the Mercury and Verve recordings of various artists including Max Roach, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie and Buddy Rich. (en.wikipedia.org)


Compilation supervised by Michael Lang; Selected and sequenced by Dan Morgenstern; Researched by Ben Young; Mastered by Steven Fallone at PolyGram Studios; Notes edited by Peter Pullman



Tracklist, CD.1
01. Idaho / Gene Ammons (2:51)
02. Feather Brain / Muggsy Spanier (2:52)
03. I Cried for You / Dinah Washington (2:27)
04. I'll Always Be in Love with You / Paul Quinichette (3:01)
05. The Iron Hat / Ben Webster (2:57)
06. Don't Blame Me / Paul Gonsalves (3:18)
07. Eleanor / Art Blakey (2:54)
08. Moroccan Blues / Art Mardigan (3:05)
09. 'S Wonderful / Helen Merrill (3:12)
10. I've Got to Be a Rug Cutter / Erroll Garner (2:20)
11. Demanton / Gerry Mulligan (5:36)
12. Flossie Lou / Clifford Brown & Max Roach (4:02)
13. Love Letters / Max Roach (8:55)
14. Hoppin' John / Cannonball Adderley (4:38)
15. My Old Flame / Max Roach (3:36)
16. Three Little Words / Sarah Vaughan (3:43)
17. I Hadn't Anyone till You / Eddie South (3:32)
18. Weaver of Dreams / John Coltrane (5:35)
19. Willow Weep for Me / Conte & Pete Candoli (4:30)
20. (Back Home Again in) Indiana / Buddy Rich (3:18)


Tracklist, CD.2
01. Take the "A" Train - Exactly Like You / Charles Mingus (3:36)
02. The Midnight Sun Will Never Set / Quincy Jones (4:34)
03. Improvisation for Unaccompanied Saxophones / Al Cohn & Zoot Sims (2:26)
04. I Can't Get Started / Coleman Hawkins & Sol Yaged (4:30)
05. Struttin' with Some Barbecue / Pete Rugolo (2:25)
06. Sugar (That Sugar Baby o' Mine) / George Wein (4:37)
07. Scrapple from the Apple / Buddy DeFranco (4:47)
08. Mood Indigo / Julius Watkins (3:03)
09. The Big Cat / Terry Gibbs (4:28)
10. 3-in-1 Without the Oil / Roland Kirk (2:33)
11. Raincheck / Art Farmer (3:40)
12. Washboard Blues / Art Hodes & Truck Parham (2:38)
13. El Toro Grande / Woody Herman (4:59)
14. Squeaky's Blues / Oscar Peterson & Clark Terry (3:28)
15. Waltz for Ruth / Art Blakey (3:28)
16. Blues for Bird / Lee Konitz (5:41)
17. Groovin' High / Dizzy Gillespie (6:04)
18. Kid Dynamite / Paul Bley (3:13)
19. Sometimes I'm Happy / Jimmy Smith (4:47)


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