Holiday picks: Jazz discs, books for gifts that swing

The holidays are a great excuse to buy CD box sets and beautiful coffee-table books for that friend or relative who loves jazz — or those who need to be introduced to it. This year, some luxurious prizes await the aficionado as well as the budding young fan. (Prices are list prices; you may find discounts online or at retail outlets.)

CDs/DVDs

Jelly Roll Morton: "The Complete Library of Congress Recordings By Alan Lomax" (Rounder, $127.98, eight CDs and biography): This is Rounder Records' gift to jazz fans the world over. Save for a four-disc compilation, these historic recordings of the great New Orleans pianist and composer — the Rosetta Stone of jazz history — have been out of print for decades and have never been issued with modern sound-improvement and pitch-correcting devices.

Recorded for the Library of Congress in 1938 by legendary folklorist Alan Lomax, the original discs documented the life and music of Morton as he sat at a Steinway piano, talking, playing and tapping his foot on the hardwood floor. Morton tells yarns of old New Orleans and the birth of jazz, playing classic music along the way, from "King Porter Stomp" and "The Pearls" to filthy blues and "bad man" songs. Eloquent as a country preacher, he sometimes exaggerates — as in his notorious claim that he "invented" jazz in 1902 — but his tales are packed with such rich detail, fabulous characters and great music, they are impossible to resist.

The Rounder box, shaped like a piano, is beyond lavish, with bonuses including a reprint of Lomax's later biography of Morton, "Mr. Jelly Roll," and a 244-page PDF file that includes the complete transcript of the interviews, with Lomax's notes from unrecorded interviews. The notes turn up an item of local interest: Seattle pianist Oscar Holden, who often hired Morton, apparently met the New Orleans musician first in 1912, in Chicago, where Morton managed to spirit away Holden's gig at the Elite club.

Miles Davis: "The Cellar Door Sessions, 1970" (Columbia/Legacy, $109.98, six CDs): This is one of the most exciting, satisfying reissues from Davis' electric period, on a par with the contemporaneous "Live at the Fillmore East, March 1970." Until now, the only tracks ever released from these four nights in December at Washington, D.C.'s Cellar Door club were on the patchwork quilt called "Live/Evil," glued together from these tracks and, in one case, from another studio session entirely!

The sheer power of this band making up a new music as it goes along — call it jazz/rock, fusion, whatever you want — is just dazzling. And why wouldn't it have been? The players are Gary Bartz (saxophone), Keith Jarrett (Fender Rhodes and electric organ), John McLaughlin (guitar, on two discs only), Michael Henderson (electric bass) and Jack DeJohnette (drums).

Thanks to Henderson (Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin), the action is more grounded in groove than the more abstract "Bitches Brew," but, the mysterioso swirls, dramatic suspensions, modal explorations, wailing wah-wahs and sudden change-ups are all here. Brilliant.

Bill Evans: "The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961" (Riverside, $29.98, three CDs): On Sunday, June 25, 1961, pianist Bill Evans went into the Village Vanguard with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian for some live sessions. The resulting LPs, "Sunday at the Village Vanguard" and "Waltz For Debby," would indelibly imprint "My Romance," "My Foolish Heart," "Solar" and "Waltz For Debby" on the hearts and minds of jazz fans everywhere. Twelve of the 13 tunes Evans recorded were issued on the original albums (the 13th, on a double LP), and "The Complete Riverside Recordings" unearthed all but one of the alternate takes.

So if you already own the Riverside set, there's not much point in buying this one. But if you don't, or you would like to get to know these classic albums in their original setting, Evans is one player who surely merits the investment. No more proof is required than the alternate take of "Alice in Wonderland" on the first disc, which soars with the kind of oceanic emotion only Evans seemed able to draw from a piano. And, course, this is the trio with LaFaro, whose active, conversational style would change piano trios forever.

Chick Corea: "Rendezvous in New York" (Image, $99, 10 DVDs): The perfect find for the Chick Corea fanatic, this 60th-birthday project was filmed over three weeks at the Blue Note night club in New York. Corea, who wrote the classic "Spain" and led the supergroup Return to Forever, performs here in a dizzying array of groups, all playing well to extremely well. Among them: duets with Bobby McFerrin (plus banjo man Bela Fleck), Gary Burton and Gonzalo Rubalcaba; a reconstituted "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs" trio (Roy Haynes, Miroslav Vitous); the Chick Corea Akoustic Band (John Patitucci, Dave Weckl); and the Three Quartets Band (Michael Brecker, Eddie Gomez, Steve Gadd).

Each disc begins with explanatory interview footage. The last disc is a pastiche of the others, with interview and biomaterial interspersed.

Books

"The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues," Howard Mandel, general editor (Billboard Books, $45). Lavishly illustrated on glossy stock, this weighty coffee-table book presents jazz and blues side by side, decade by decade — not a bad idea, considering how closely they and their fans are linked.

Written by reliable scholars (James Hale, John McDonough, Bill Milkowski and others), the information is readable, up-to-date and works well as an exciting but not dumbed-down introduction to both genres. Though generally even-handed, the imprint of chief editor Howard Mandel is evident, in its slighting of the West Coast and non-American players; overvalorization of the avant-garde; and opinionated dismissal of certain musicians, particularly Diana Krall. All in all, though, a nice intro.

"Jazz," Jim Marshall (Chronicle Books, $40). Known as a rock photographer, Jim Marshall has taken several iconic photographs of jazz musicians as well, such as Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

Here he presents a previously unpublished portfolio of backstage shots from the Monterey Jazz Festival and New York nightclubs (1962-64), in a beautifully presented, one-to-the-page format. The probing, high-contrast black-and-white images often catch their subjects in deeply expressive moments. Coltrane listening to a playback. Allen Ginsberg staring, stunned, at Thelonious Monk. Miles Davis posing shirtless in a San Francisco gym.

Surprisingly, a few performers' names are misspelled (Chuck Israels, Gabor Szabó), particularly annoying in such a lavish book, but, overall, this is a top-flight addition to the annals of jazz photography.

Paul de Barros: 206-464-3247 or pdbarros@seattletimes.com