© -Volkher Hofmann, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Jazz went to Paris and other places in Europe to live. That might sound funny to many of those who don't spend a lot of time listening to jazz, but it's true. Although its birthplace was elsewhere, many musicians either relocated to Europe or found a more than appreciative audience there whereas in the US they were at times perhaps shunned or at best ignored. I think it was Dizzy Gillespie who once said something to the effect that jazz was too good for the United States. Without wanting to get too much into the racial implications here, it is a fact that at various times in US history, black (jazz) musicians had more than their share of problems, segregation more often than not relegating them to the back entrances of places they were playing at - and that was only a small part of the problem(s).
Paris, which had developed into the jazz center of Europe already in the beginning of the 20th century, offered many of these musicians a safe haven as well as a permanent home (later, Denmark, Sweden and sometimes Germany usurped that role) and jazz thrived because of it. One can even be as bold as to state that without Paris and Europe, jazz might never have been recognized as an art form. It was in Europe that jazz had gained that kind of recognition and, as far as I recall, it was jazz critics such as Leonard Feather (England) and Dan Morgenstern (Austria), who spent their entire lifetimes promoting it as an art form in the United States.
No matter what your take on jazz history is, it remains a fact that we all owe the bigwigs at Universal for releasing this wonderful run of spectacular recordings from mostly the 1950s and 1960s. If you got with the program right from the start, you had the chance to pick up over 100 regular reissues of classic LPs/EPs, a few more that were added "out of series", as well as four absolutely beautiful boxed sets that collected the best from the previous runs on 3 CDs plus a wonderful booklet and perhaps an extra recording or two each. One had the chance to buy these reissues separately or, for a limited time, in two slip-cased editions that either collected 25 or 75 of them and, if you kept your ears close to the ground, you will have the chance starting March 2007 to complete the series with the last 15 CDs coming up. There even was a catalog CD and a DVD (not seen by me) and if you look at the grand picture, this is definitely one of the most consistent and exciting reissue series of the 21st century, bar none. Kudos to Universal France for pulling it off.
Each CD is housed in a digipack cover, carries the "Gitanes Jazz Productions" logo, was carefully re-mastered, sports a wonderful Paris photo from that time period and includes a booklet in French and English with liner notes and complete session information. The spines are quite colorful and for packaging fetishists like me, the entire run brightens up a collection considerably.”
- Volkher Hofmann
