This exemplary reissue from 1994 is long out of print and I can't imagine that it will see a reissue except on some European out of copyright label - excellent sound from the original master tapes, full discographical info, liner notes, artwork - all praise to Polygram!
Stuff Smith - Have Violin Will Swing (Verve MGV 8282)
Carl Perkins (piano) Stuff Smith (violin) Curtis Counce or Red Callender (bass) Frank Butler or Oscar Bradley (drums)
Capitol Tower Studios, Hollywood, CA, January 21 & February 5, 1957
1-01 - It's Wonderful
1-02 - Comin' Thru The Rye
1-03 - Ja-Da
1-04 - (Back Home Again In) Indiana
1-05 - Calypso
1-06 - Blow, Blow, Blow
1-07 - I Wrote My Song
1-08 - Oh, But It Is
1-09 - Stop, Look
1-10 - Would You Object
1-11 - Crazy Rhythm
Stuff Smith (Verve MGV 8206)
Oscar Peterson (piano) Barney Kessel (guitar) Stuff Smith (violin) Ray Brown (bass) Alvin Stoller (drums)
Glen Glenn Studios, Hollywood, CA, March 7&12, 1957
1-12 - Desert Sands.
1-13 - Soft Winds.
1-14 - Things Ain't What They Used To Be.
1-15 - Time And Again (Aka 'don't You Think').
1-16 - I Know That You Know.
2-01 - It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing).
2-02 - In A Mellotone.
2-03 - Heat Wave.
2-04 - Body And Soul.
Dizzy Gillespie And Stuff Smith (Verve MGV 8214)
Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet) Wynton Kelly (piano) Stuff Smith (violin) Paul West (bass) J.C. Heard (drums)
NYC, April 17, 1957
2-05 - Rio Pakistan.
2-06 - It's Only A Paper Moon.
2-07 - Purple Sounds.
2-08 - Russian Lullaby.
2-09 - Oh, Lady Be Good!.
Review by Richard Palmer, Jazz Journal, February 1995:
This handsome and generous package collates three of Stuff Smith's finest IPs, recorded within three months of each other—Have Violin, Will Swing, Stuff Smith and Dizzy Gillespie and Stuff Smith. The first named, in particular, has long been a £50-plus collector's item, so to have it available with its two splendid companions for under £15 is welcome indeed.
In my view, Stuff was and remains by some distance the finest violinist jazz has produced, Amongst his rivals, only Nance and Ponty got anywhere near his marvellous sound—sonorously melodious, yet resonating with the kind of joyously sneering insolence that one associates with tenorist Lockjaw Davis. In addition, while nobody has remotely approached him for virility of swing or harmonic imagination, he had subtler qualities that captivate always, without slipping into the kind of saccharinity that jazz violin can be prone to. Stuff was a very special talent noticeably under-recorded almost throughout his career, and jazz owes Norman Granz a very large round of thanks for resuscitating his career when and in the way he did.
The two-and-a-half hours' music on offer is remarkably consistent in both inspiration and delivered satisfaction. All three pianists are marvellous: Perkins, especially, is a revelation, and it is sad to reflect on how little studio work he got, too. Particularly rewarding tracks from this date are Rye, where Stuff switches from blithe lyricism to red-blooded stomping with insouciant mastery, and virtually all the cuts with the great Red Callender—most of them Smith's own compositions that reflect his no-nonsense yet intriguingly sophisticated personality. The Peterson tracks are flawless, with Brown's remastered sound colossal and Kessel at the very top of his game: Desert Sands and Soft Winds are the pick here, though the three * tracks are valuable additions.
Nearly 40 years on, the Gillespie session still strikes one as breathtakingly audacious. Dizzy was from the start one of the most catholicly literate musicians jazz ever produced (only Ellington surpasses him in boldness of range and sure-footed encyclopedic eclecticism); even so, a trumpet-violin front line was taking quite a chance, and put a burden on Kelly which that wonderful West Indian shoulders triumphantly. Rio is I think the outstanding track, with Heard magnificent and the two horns exceptional both in solo and in partnership, but Lullaby and Moon are hardly less fine. The final cut with the Gordon Family's added vocalising isn't too bad, all things considered, but it is a pronounced anti-climax, and the only thing on the entire double-CD that in retrospect looks like a mistake. By then, however, it doesn't really matter.
Verve's releases over the last 18 months or so have been the best and noblest possible tribute to the man who founded the label and who is synonymous with all that is best in modern-mainstream. There could be no better or more fitting tribute to Norman Granz's enterprise, daring and imagination than this particular reissue, and it would also be hard to think of a more enjoyable and instructive one. A 1995 Top Ten choice for sure.
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