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Various Artists - The Blue Note Years, Vol. 1: Boogie Blues & Bop 1939-1955 (1955)

Track listing:
Volume 1
  1. Boogie Woogie Stomp Albert Ammons 3:38
  2. Chicago Flyer Meade "Lux" Lewis 4:00
  3. Reminiscing At Blue Note Earl Hines 4:29
  4. Summertime Sidney Bechet 4:12
  5. Profoundly Blue Edmond Hall Celeste Quartet 4:09
  6. After You've Gone James P. Johnson 4:27
  7. Old Stack O'lee Blues Bechet-Nicholas Blue Five 4:15
  8. Blues For Clarinets Jimmy Hamilton 4:20
  9. Topsy Ike Quebec Swing Seven 3:03
  10. Blue Harlem Ike Quebec 4:34
  11. Tiny's Boogie Woogie Tiny Grimes Sextette 2:59
  12. Lop-Pow Three Bips A Bop 2:42
  13. Oop-Pop-A-Da Three Bips A Bop 2:53
  14. Our Delight Tadd Dameron 2:59
  15. Lady Bird Tadd Dameron 2:52
  16. Boperation Mcghee Navarro Boptet 3:10
  17. Tin Tin Deo James Moody 2:48
  18. Moody's All Frantic James Moody 2:33
Volume 2
  1. Well, You Needn't Thelonious Monk 2:58
  2. 'round Midnight Thelonious Monk 3:11
  3. Criss-Cross Thelonious Monk 2:57
  4. Bouncing With Bud Bud Powell 3:04
  5. A Night In Tunisia Bud Powell 4:17
  6. Glass Enclosure Bud Powell 2:24
  7. Born To Be Blue Wynton Kelly 3:28
  8. Bags' Groove Milt Jackson 3:06
  9. Tempus Fugit Miles Davis 3:52
  10. Safari Horace Silver 2:51
  11. Carvin' The Rock Lou Donaldson Clifford Brown 3:58
  12. Get Happy J.J. Johnson 4:54
  13. Easy Living Clifford Brown 3:45
  14. Timepiece Gil Melle 3:15
  15. Message From Kenya Art Blakey Sabu 4:35
  16. The Gig Herbie Nichols 4:25
  17. Lady Sings The Blues Herbie Nichols 4:24
  18. Quicksilver Art Blakey Quintet 6:38

Notes

There have been many jazz labels as diverse and musically satisfying as Blue Note, but few have carried the same mystique as Alfred Lion's label, since they not only had the sound, they had the style. Like any label, it had its up and downs, but decades after its inception, the label remained beloved by almost all jazz aficionados. So, when the label's 60th anniversary rolled around in 1998/1999, it made sense that they decided to celebrate in grand style. Not only did they reissue many of their classic albums with glorious remastered sound and restored artwork, they compiled the gargantuan box set The Blue Note Years: 1939-1999, which contained no less than seven separate double-disc sets spotlighting different genres and eras in Blue Note's history (with the noticeable omission of anything recorded between 1968-1974, when Alfred Lion left the label and the new owners instigated pop-jazz, funk, groove and fusion recordings). Certainly, a 14-disc box set isn't for casual fans, but anyone curious about digging deep into the label's past will be thrilled with the set. Each volume -- for the record, they are Boogie, Blues & Bop, The Jazz Message, Organ and Soul, Hard Bop and Beyond, Avant Garde, New Era and Blue Note Now as Then -- stands as its own little mini-history, covering the major players with representative songs. Sometimes the choices are familiar, sometimes they're not, but they're almost always revelatory, especially when taken in conjunction with the songs that surround them. True, the box is a lot to digest at once (perhaps that's why Blue Note later released all seven volumes individually), but anyone willing to devote the time and money to this set will be richly rewarded.