From Spirituals To Swing

By TERRY TEACHOUT

Record producer extraordinaire John Hammond, whose discoveries ranged from Count Basie to Bob Dylan, turned impresario in 1938 and 1939 for a pair of Carnegie Hall concerts featuring an eye-popping array of now legendary jazz, blues and gospel artists, including Basie, Sidney Bechet, Charlie Christian, Benny Goodman, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Big Joe Turner. Both concerts are available for the first time on CD, in digitally remastered sound, with 23 previously unreleased tracks thrown in to sweeten the pot. This three-disc boxed set is a platinum mine of great American music.

--By Terry Teachout