Fresh Sound Records established their Jazz City series to showcase musicians who are important in certain metropolitan areas, and no one could be more vital to his home -- in this case Los Angeles -- than Buddy Collette. A tireless in-house recording artist and concert performer, the multi-instrumentalist was in excellent form early on, as these recordings from 1956 and 1957 so brilliantly illustrate. This is the third such reissue for Collette via Fresh Sound, in this instance combining three of his most famous and cherished albums for the Contemporary and Challenge labels: Man of Many Parts, Nice Day with Buddy Collette, and Everybody's Buddy. These quartet and quintet dates feature many of Collette's originals along with standards played to perfection, and showcase the wide range of his ability to play woodwinds, including clarinet, alto and tenor sax, and especially flute. Considering the years these studio sessions were made, this is some of the most scintillating modern jazz music for and of the times, both pace-making and trend-setting. The small-ensemble dates that comprise Man of Many Parts represent definitive music for Collette, and the album is his single best effort. Four tracks with pianist Gerald Wiggins, bassist Eugene The Senator Wright, and drummer Bill Richmond include a sweet version of Makin' Whoopee, the repeat bassline-driven classic original Jazz City Blues, and the bopper Sunset Drive, all with the leader playing alto or tenor sax. His flute work on Frenesi is otherworldly, exploring upper registers while the drumming of Richmond adopts an Asian feeling. In a quintet with a completely different band alongside pianist Ernie Freeman and guitarist Barney Kessel, Collette dishes out four more new compositions, including the basic blues St. Andrew's Place on clarinet, the choppy calypso/Asian-tinged Jungle Pipe, a tenor-led ballad take of Cheryl Anne that is sprouted from the melody of Darn That Dream, and the unison sax/piano bopper Zan. Nice Day has Collette ditching the saxes while fronting a quartet featuring the outstanding pianist Don Friedman, doing the clean swinger A Nice Day on clarinet and the wishful-thinking ballad Over the Rainbow. The most astounding music on the collection features the energetic piano playing of Calvin Jackson with drummer Shelly Manne and bassist Leroy Vinnegar. They collectively begin cooled out on the repeat lines of Buddy Boo, ramp up a spiky rearrangement of There Will Never Be Another You, feature the pianist's unusual voicings supporting Collette's clarinet during a quite modified Moten Swing, do the somber original Fall Winds, and add a fundamental Blues for Howard. The Howard in question is guitarist Howard Roberts, who appears on Everybody's Buddy, originally a four-track EP. Roberts joins Wiggins, Wright, and Richmond for the slow clarinet feature You Better Go Now, Collette originals like the fast and fun bop of Tasty Dish and the pensive flute ballad I Still Love You, and Wright's Mrs. Potts, a midtempo guitar/sax workout. Known as a man whose versatility and immense talent are undisputed, it is still notable how much clarinet Collette plays on this collection. It is very tuneful, lilting, and bright, showing no discernible influence of any previous peers, especially not Sidney Bechet, Benny Goodman, or his bebop peer Buddy DeFranco. Aptly described as disciplined without being rigid, the brilliant Buddy Collette is one of the greatest musicians -- no matter the genre -- to walk the Earth, highly skilled, smart, and diversified far beyond a mere mortal musician. This was a heyday for Collette and his California colleagues, at a time when divisions between cool and bop were split on a regional basis. Thankfully, Buddy Collette always saw the big picture, as depicted in this set of extraordinary jazz music, highly recommended to all. ~ Michael G. Nastos, Rovi

1		Makin' Whoopee
2		Jazz City Blues
3		Sunset Drive
4		Frenesi
5		St. Andrew's Place
6		Jungle Pipe
7		Cheryl Anne
8		Zan
9		A Nice Day
10		Over the Rainbow
11		Buddy Boo
12		There Will Never Be Another You
13		Moten Swing
14		Fall Winds
15		Blues for Howard
16		You Better Go Now
17		Tasty Dish
18		I Still Love You
19		Mrs. Potts