This week’s theme: Selected tracks from the Prestige Swingville label. Featured artists include Claude Hopkins, Coleman Hawkins, Buddy Tate, Bud Johnson, Keg Johnson, Shorty Baker, Doc Cheatham, Clark Terry, Paul Quinichette, Buck Clayton, Nat Pierce, Jimmy Hamilton, and many more.

This week we do the first in a new Unsung Artists Series, focusing on the Vice President, tenor saxophonist Paul Quinichette. Featured artists include John Coltrane, Charles Rouse, Sarah Vaughan, Clifford Brown, Herbie Mann, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Brooks Kerr, Gene Ramey, Sam Woodyard,Jimmy Jones, Joe Benjamin, Roy Haynes, Webster Young, Mal Waldron, Joe Puma, Earl May, Ed Thigpen, Count Basie, Buck Clayton, Dickie Wells, Gus Johnson, Al McKibbon, Walter Page, Freddie Green, Sonny Payne, Thad Jones, Nat Pierce, Joe Newman, Paul Chambers, Wynton Kelly, Charlie Shavers, Clark Terry, Jimmy Cleveland, Jimmy Cobb, Barry Galbraith, Cecil Payne, Hank Jones, Jo Jones, Sweets Edison, Snooky Young, and more.

Oliver Nelson, The Blues and the Abstract Truth, Impulse 5. This is an original mono promo copy with the white label. The record is listed in M- condition and the cover looks to be about VG++. The bidding is at $100.

This is one that is completely new to me:

Jazz at JJ’s. This is a three-record boxed set that doesn’t really have a label. It’s a limited edition pressing and, if the Jazz Record Center listing describes it as “very rare” you know that it is, indeed, very rare because they are not given to hyperbole. It features Buck Clayton, Vic Dickenson, Hank Jones, Kenny Burrell, Milt Hinton and includes a personal letter from the record’s producer to Milt Hinton. Looks like a pretty interesting collectible, one I’ve never seen. The start price is $200 and so far there are no bidders.

serve as introductions to some of the songs. The readings were performed by Gilbert Millstein, who was a writer for The New York Times and who also contributed liner notes to this record.  In addition to Millstein’s notes and commentary, there is also an essay by Nat Hentoff. Here’s an excerpt: “The audience was hers from before she sang, greeting her and saying good-bye with heavy, loving applause. And at one time, the musicians too applauded. It was a night when Billie was on top, undeniably the best and most honest jazz singer alive.”

As a great recording, as well as a piece of jazz history, this is quite a nice package. It also features Roy Eldridge and Buck Clayton on trumpets; Coleman Hawkins, Al Cohn and Tony Scott on reeds; Carl Drinkard on piano; Carson Smith on bass; Chico Hamilton on drums; Kenny Burrell on guitar. The tracks are: Lady Sings the Blues; Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do; Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone; I’ll Be Seeing You; I Love My Man; Body and Soul; Don’t Explain; Yesterdays; My Man; I Cried For You; Fine and Mellow; I Cover the Waterfront; What A Little Moonlight Can Do.

As always, we have one copy of this record to give away to one fortunate reader of Jazz Collector. To be eligible to win the record, all you have to do is comment on the Jazz Collector site — anywhere on the site — between now and Monday Oct. 12, when the contest ends. At that point all of the eligible names will be placed into a hat, or something like a hat, and the lovely Mrs. Jazz Collector will choose, at random, the winning name. As always, we even pay for the shipping, so it is truly a free collectible, as our previous winners will all attest. So please, begin commenting on the site and we hope to have our greatest contest yet.