Start with the hits, move on to the B-sides and non-album tracks, and once those run out, find live recordings, video clips and demo versions. Thats the rule for the musical archivists who keep searching more deeply, and further afield, to fill the capacity of CDs and DVDs in this years crop of boxed sets and collections.
LESTER YOUNG WITH COUNT BASIE
Classic Columbia, Okeh and Vocalion (1936-1940)
Some of the tenor saxophonist Lester Youngs greatest playing happened under the hand of Count Basie in the 1930s, a large body of work with a lot of other things going for it. Here, too, were the sounds of Buck Clayton, Harry Edison, Dicky Wells, Freddie Green, Charlie Christian, Walter Page, Jo Jones, Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes and Billie Holiday. In these sessions, with bands numbering between 5 and 17 musicians, Young (above in 1940) found dramatic ways to be original: luxurious though never smarmy or ingratiating legato tracings through subtle and unusual harmony. His solos werent typical, in either their timbre or their logic; he seemed like someone with an impossibly beautiful interior life. And I love the sound here, too: cleaned, detailed, but not too bright. (Mosaic, four CDs, $68 via mosaicrecords.com.) BEN RATLIFF
LOVE TRAIN: THE SOUND OF PHILADELPHIA
Maybe the Philadelphia International label, founded by the producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, started out intending to be another Motown, making hits by putting gospel-rooted voices atop a hard-charging studio band. Thats what Mr. Gamble and Mr. Huff did with Jerry Butlers 1969 Only the Strong Survive, which is included on this set along with other early Gamble-Huff productions. By 1971, when the label started, their ideas were already leading elsewhere.
Mr. Gamble, Mr. Huff and their indispensable producer, the arranger and songwriter Thom Bell, made Philadelphia Internationals music a three-layer cake. Below were steadfast beats, suffused with Latin rhythms, that would bridge soul and disco. In the middle were singers who could pour on suavity or exhort like secular preachers, as the OJays did on Love Train. Up above was the labels signature: lavish orchestral arrangements, with darting, shivering strings and burnished horns.
Of course Philadelphia International recorded love songs like When Will I See You Again, by the Three Degrees (Fayette Pinckney, Valerie Holiday and Sheila Ferguson, above from left). But many of its best-remembered hits voice worries and aspirations: songs like Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes Bad Luck and McFadden & Whiteheads Aint No Stoppin Us Now. The label closed in the 1980s, leaving a catalog thats cheesy supper-club pop at its occasional worst and an inspirational fusion at best. And when current hip-hop producers want luxe, they sample Philadelphia International. (Philadelphia International/Legacy, four CDs, $49.98.) JON PARELES
JOHNNY CASH
At Folsom Prison: Legacy Edition
A good tribute celebrates a myth, a great one unravels it. And so it is with this 40th-anniversary revisiting of Johnny Cashs At Folsom Prison, which reveals the original album, one of the most visceral country recordings ever, to have been as slickly orchestrated as any studio project.
Theres the announcer dishing out instructions to the inmates on when to cheer. Theres Cash cursing and inciting the crowd by ragging on the authorities. And theres a whole second show from the same day that was, relatively speaking, listless; only a couple of songs made it onto the original release.
There are also things no record could ever capture. A significant part of the accompanying documentary is given over to the tale of Glen Sherley, the inmate who wrote Greystone Chapel, the surprisingly light song about jailhouse redemption with which Cash closed both of his Folsom sets.
Cash, with others, lobbied for Mr. Sherleys release, and then took him on the road, an act of extraordinary goodwill and navet. Unable to adjust to his new life outside the walls, Mr. Sherley retreated to bad habits and eventually took his own life.
His children provide moving testimony about their father here, especially about his admiration for Cash, whom they say they dont hold responsible for their fathers fate. Still, its a vivid and courageous reminder that seamlessness is always just an illusion. (Columbia/Legacy, two CDs and one DVD, $39.98.) JON CARAMANICA
TOSHIKO AKIYOSHI-LEW TABACKIN BIG BAND, MOSAIC SELECT 33
With music written by Ms. Akiyoshi, and the saxophonist and flutist Mr. Tabackin as its star soloist, this West Coast big band combined Ellingtonian principles with near-symphonic writing. It was a liminal moment: after Coltrane had come and gone, when Americans in general still shared a basic idea of what jazz was and Los Angeles could still sustain a scene of jazz musicians through the steady work available in television and film. The five albums here one of them is Insights, with its long-form tour de force Minimata, including the voice of a Noh actor form a valuable part of the story of jazz in the 1970s. (Mosaic, three CDs, $44.) BEN RATLIFF
AND THIS IS FREE: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHICAGOS LEGENDARY MAXWELL STREET
If you were ever a fan of Live on Maxwell Street a thrilling album by the blues singer Robert Nighthawk, recorded in Chicagos open-air Maxwell Street market in 1964, a document so vivid you can practically taste it you will need this. The performance was recorded by Mike Shea, who was making a documentary film about the market; that 47-minute film is included here as a DVD. Its a marvel, a sustained visual poem built of close-ups: dancing, bartering, huckstering, preaching, smoking and drinking. Mr. Nighthawk is a memorable part of the film, as is the blind singer and guitarist Arvella Gray; they are also on the fantastic accompanying CD, a collection of studio recordings from the 1920s to the 50s by blues singers (Baby Face Leroy, Daddy Stovepipe and Boll Weevil) who all used to play in the market for tips. (Shanachie, one CD and one DVD, $29.99.) BEN RATLIFF
ARABIAN PRINCE, INNOVATIVE LIFE: THE ANTHOLOGY, 1984-1989
For the Los Angeles gangster rap trailblazers N.W.A., the music collected here constitutes the road not traveled. Arabian Prince was an early, and brief, part of the crew like Dr. Dre, another group member, he was a D.J.-producer from the world of electro best known for producing J. J. Fads Supersonic. That song isnt here, but a dozen other tracks reveal Arabian Prince as an often sublime producer, whose electro was richly textured and frisky. (His rapping verges on the comic, though; try to ignore it.) One song here, Panic Zone, appeared on the 1987 album N.W.A. and the Posse, the last moment before synthesizers were drowned out by the sound of Compton gunfire. (Stones Throw, one CD, $14.98.) JON CARAMANICA
BLACK SABBATH, THE RULES OF HELL
Here is Black Sabbath, post-Ozzy Osbourne: the Ronnie James Dio years, 1980 to 1982, with a brief 1992 reunion. Its a different band. By this time the instrumental language of metal had changed, and Sabbath with it more gloss, more virtuosity, a little more speed. Mr. Dio replaced Mr. Osbournes dazed, keening howl with a lusty, theatrical vibrato, all assertion. Dio-era Sabbath sounds like a music of lock-step achievers, as opposed to a music of weedy losers. I guess thats why it never moved me, but on reflection these four albums sound stronger than I expected: definitely Heaven and Hell, the best of the lot, but even the 1992 reunion album, Dehumanizer. One disappointment: no video. (Rhino/Warner Brothers, five CDs, $54.98.) BEN RATLIFF
BOOTS, BUCKLES & SPURS: 50 SONGS CELEBRATE 50 YEARS OF COWBOY TRADITION How have the desires of cowboys changed over the last half-century or so? Not a whole lot, it turns out. They remain wide-open spaces, a perfect ride on a bull, and a woman who wont much trouble you when youre out chasing the other two. Produced in conjunction with the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association to commemorate the 50th National Finals Rodeo next month, this set, which spans every decade since the 1930s, features dozens of artists (Johnny Cash, Vince Gill, George Strait et al.) toasting the life. And yes, Mammas, Dont Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys is included here, though one suspects mainly as some sort of conceptual joke. (Sony BMG Nashville/Legacy, three CDs, $40.98.) JON CARAMANICA
THE COMPLETE ARISTA RECORDINGS OF ANTHONY BRAXTON From 1974 to 1980,
the jazz and new-music composer and saxophonist Anthony Braxton exercised his rich imagination on Arista Records a major label, then owned by Columbia Pictures. Amazing now to think that these records could be made for a company busy promoting Barry Manilow, but it was a woollier time, and Mr. Braxtons producers were Steve Backer and Michael Cuscuna, men of integrity. Out of print for ages, the records have had a long reputation for their conviction, their wild variety and sometimes even their polish. The material ranges from solo saxophone improvisations to fully notated work for 156 orchestra musicians; in between are excellent small groups including the bassist Dave Holland and the trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and the mind-opening album Creative Orchestra Music 1976, which messes with swing rhythm, marching-band arrangements and classical minimalism. (Mosaic, eight CDs, $136.) BEN RATLIFF
CALYPSOUL 70: CARIBBEAN SOUL & CALYPSO CROSSOVER 1969-1979
Propulsive rhythm is the only overarching concept on this collection of upbeat songs from all over the Caribbean. With bands from Trinidad (the plurality), Guyana, St. Lucia, the Bahamas and beyond, there are fusions in all directions, and country of origin is no predictor of style. Theres a frantic mambo by Marius Cultier from Martinique; flute-topped funk by Los Van Van from Cuba and a touch of Nigerian Afrobeat as the calypsonian Duke, from Trinidad, calls for Freedom in Africa. Theres more politics from Lancelot Layne, who pioneered a Trinidadian style called rapso, chanting about ghetto realities over stark percussion and flute; there are also brassy party tunes like Calypsoul, by Clarence Curvan and His Mod Sounds. Then as now, the Caribbean brewed beats. (Strut, one CD, $17.98.)JON PARELES
CHEAP TRICK, BUDOKAN!
What did the Japanese see in Cheap Trick that Americans were slower to grasp? Until the release of this box, its been tough to say. A handful of Japanese concerts were drawn from to create the live album At Budokan, now 30 years old. The DVD included here features the sole extant video recording of any of the shows, which were broadcast just once on Japanese television. In truth, despite an ineffably pretty Robin Zander, in a white suit, and a hopelessly frenetic Rick Nielsen, the sight of the band has less impact than hearing the screams it elicited on record so robust that, suddenly, a band we had been exporting needed to be imported right back. (Epic/Legacy, three CDs and one DVD, $49.98.) JON CARAMANICA
DANGELO, THE BEST SO FAR ...
What an optimistic title! The idiosyncratic soul man DAngelo, one of the most distinctive R&B singers in recent memory, has spent most of the eight years since his last album riding one of popular musics most spectacular downward spirals: alcohol and drugs, arrests, an almost complete retreat from public life. So tomorrows not promised, but were this collection just The Best, it would still be worthy. (Though would it have hurt to include the full seven-minute version of Untitled [How Does It Feel]?) DAngelos light voice has just a touch of viscosity, warmly wrapping itself around notes and words and holding tight, resilient and unshakable in a way the man hasnt been. (Virgin, one CD and one DVD, $18.98.) JON CARAMANICA
MILES DAVIS, KIND OF BLUE: 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Up for one last long, slow dance with the record industry before youre set free into the digital wilds? It will cost you, buddy: more than $100 for one album. Herewith you get Miles Daviss Kind of Blue CD, whose present remastering sounds great, although other reissues of the album in recent years have sounded great, too. Also: the album on 180-gram blue vinyl; some outtakes that you probably own; a live So What that you possibly own; tiny bits of conversation between musicians that you probably dont; a poster; an illustrated booklet; a stack of black-and-white photographs; a DVD talking-heads documentary that builds on one that was released with the 2005 reissue of the same album, at a much saner price. Do you need it? I dont know how compulsive are you? (Sony Legacy, two CDs and one DVD, $109.98.) BEN RATLIFF
