Various Artists – Blues In The Night (ca. 1963)

Music Minus One, founded in 1950 by Irv Kratka, was a New York-based company that produces, for educational purposes, sheet music that comes with records/CDs/downloads of recordings without the soloist’s part (e.g. a piano concerto without piano) to play along with. There is sometimes also a second version at a reduced tempo or with the solo part included. Many of the recordings utilized well-known and acclaimed musicians for the accompaniments.

In 2016, at the age of 90, Kratka sold the company to Hal Leonard Corp. (by disc.org)

Music Minus One was founded in 1950 and their sing-along and play-along records quickly became an industry standard. For the first time, even hobbyist players could solo with a professional orchestra thanks to the high-quality recordings that accompanied each book. Over the years the library has grown to nearly 900 titles. The Music Minus One recordings feature world-class musicians and orchestras from the United States, Vienna, and elsewhere in Europe. Most recordings allow the player to listen to the full recording featuring a soloist, then pan the recording to remove the soloist so they could step in and play the lead. (musicdispatch.com)

And here´s a pretty good jazz album by Music Minus One featuring Joe Wilder:

Joseph Benjamin Wilder (February 22, 1922 – May 9, 2014) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. His Grandchildren are Bleu Roberson, Lilly Townsend and Grey’cia Roberson(Last named after his middle name)

Wilder was awarded the Temple University Jazz Master’s Hall of Fame Award in 2006. The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with its highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award for 2008.

Wilder was born into a musical family led by his father Curtis, a bassist and bandleader in Philadelphia. Wilder’s first performances took place on the radio program “Parisian Tailor’s Colored Kiddies of the Air”. He and the other young musicians were backed up by such illustrious bands as Duke Ellington’s and Louis Armstrong’s that were also then playing at the Lincoln Theater. Wilder studied at the Mastbaum School of Music in Philadelphia, but turned to jazz when he felt that there was little future for an African-American classical musician. At the age of 19, Wilder joined his first touring big band, Les Hite’s band.

Wilder was one of the first thousand African Americans to serve in the Marines during World War II. He worked first in Special Weapons and eventually became Assistant Bandmaster at the headquarters’ band. Following the war during the 1940s and early 1950s, he played in the orchestras of Jimmie Lunceford, Herbie Fields, Sam Donahue, Lucky Millinder, Noble Sissle, Dizzy Gillespie, and finally with the Count Basie Orchestra. From 1957 to 1974, Wilder did studio work for ABC-TV, New York City, and in the pit orchestras for Broadway musicals, while building his reputation as a soloist with his albums for Savoy (1956) and Columbia (1959). His Jazz from Peter Gunn (1959), features ten songs from Henry Mancini (“Peter Gunn”) television score in melodic and swinging fashion with a quartet. He was also a regular sideman with such musicians as NEA Jazz Masters Hank Jones, Gil Evans, and Benny Goodman. He became a favorite with vocalists and played for Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Johnny Mathis, Harry Belafonte, Eileen Farrell, Tony Bennett, and many others. Wilder earned a bachelor of music degree in 1953, studying classical trumpet at the Manhattan School of Music with Joseph Alessi, where he was also principal trumpet with the school’s symphony orchestra under conductor Jonel Perlea. In the 1960s, he performed on several occasions with the New York Philharmonic under Andre Kostelanetz and Pierre Boulez and played lead for the Symphony Of The New World from 1965 to 1971.

He appeared on The Cosby Show episode “Play It Again, Russell” (1986),[5] and played the trumpet in the Malcolm X Orchestra in Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X” (1992).[6] Since 1991 he returned as a leader and recorded three albums for Evening Star. He died on May 9, 2014, in New York City, of congestive heart failure. (by wikipedia)

Another fine musician on this album is Hank Jones.

American jazz pianist, bandleader and composer, born 31 July 1918 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA and died 16 May 2010 in Manhattan, New York, USA. He recorded over sixty albums under his own name, and countless others as a sideman. He was part of an in-demand rhythm section in New York City for years which was hired for hundreds (if not thousands) of diverse gigs, which included Milt Hinton, Barry Galbraith and Osie Johnson.

He received the NEA Jazz Masters Award and was also honored with the ASCAP Jazz Living Legend Award and the National Medal of Arts.
His brothers were trumpeter Thad Jones and drummer Elvin Jones. (by wikipedia)

Listen and enjoy this rare album and you can play along, if you can and want !

Personnel:
George Duvivier (bass)
Sonny Igoe (drums)
Hank Jones (piano)
Mundell Lowe (guitar)
Joe Wilder (trumpet)
+
Dave Bailey (drums on 04. + 08.)
Jimmy Crawford (drums on 01. + 05.)
John Mehegan (piano on 04. + 08.)
Ed Safranski (bass on 04. + 08.)
Chuck Wayne (guitar on 02., 04, 05. + 08.)

Tracklist:
01. Birth Of The Blues 3.27
02. Boulevard Of Broken Dreams 5.59
03. About A Quarter To Nine 3.01
04. Can’t We Be Friends? 5.51
05. Sweet Georgia Brown 3.13
06. Brother Can You Spare A Dime? 4.45
07. The Blues In The Night 6.41
08. Louisiana Hayride 3.03

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Hank Jones – Lazy Afternoon (1989)

Henry Jones Jr. (July 31, 1918 – May 16, 2010), best known as Hank Jones, was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with the NEA Jazz Masters Award. He was also honored in 2003 with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) Jazz Living Legend Award. In 2008, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. On April 13, 2009, the University of Hartford presented Jones with an honorary Doctorate of Music for his musical accomplishments.

Jones recorded more than 60 albums under his own name, and countless others as a sideman,[6] including Cannonball Adderley’s celebrated album Somethin’ Else. On May 19, 1962, he played piano as actress Marilyn Monroe sang her famous “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” song to then U.S. president John F. Kennedy.

Born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Henry “Hank” Jones moved to Pontiac, Michigan, where his father, Henry Jones Sr. a Baptist deacon and lumber inspector, bought a three-story brick home. One of seven children, Jones was raised in a musical family. His mother Olivia Jones sang; his two older sisters studied piano; and his two younger brothers—Thad, a trumpeter, and Elvin, a drummer—also became prominent jazz musicians.[8] He studied piano at an early age and came under the influence of Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, and Art Tatum. By the age of 13 Jones was performing locally in Michigan and Ohio. While playing with territory bands in Grand Rapids and Lansing in 1944 he met Lucky Thompson, who invited Jones to work in New York City at the Onyx Club with Hot Lips Page.

In New York City, Jones regularly listened to leading bop musicians, and was inspired to master the new style. While practicing and studying the music he worked with John Kirby, Howard McGhee, Coleman Hawkins, Andy Kirk, and Billy Eckstine.[10] In autumn 1947, he began touring in Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic package,[10] and from 1948 to 1953 he was accompanist for Ella Fitzgerald, and accompanying her in England in the Fall of 1948, developed a harmonic facility of extraordinary taste and sophistication. During this period he also made several historically important recordings with Charlie Parker, which included “The Song Is You”, from the Now’s the Time album, recorded in December 1952, with Teddy Kotick on bass and Max Roach on drums.

Engagements with Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman followed, and recordings with artists such as Lester Young, Cannonball Adderley, and Wes Montgomery, in addition to being for a time, ‘house pianist’ on the Savoy label. From 1959 through 1975 Jones was staff pianist for CBS studios. This included backing guests such as Frank Sinatra on The Ed Sullivan Show. He played the piano accompaniment to Marilyn Monroe as she sang “Happy Birthday Mr. President” to John F. Kennedy on May 19, 1962.[1] By the late 1970s, his involvement as pianist and conductor with the Broadway musical Ain’t Misbehavin’ (based on the music of Fats Waller) had informed a wider audience of his unique qualities as a musician.

During the late 1970s and the 1980s, Jones continued to record prolifically, as an unaccompanied soloist, in duos with other pianists (including John Lewis and Tommy Flanagan), and with various small ensembles, most notably the Great Jazz Trio. The group took this name in 1976, by which time Jones had already begun working at the Village Vanguard with its original members, Ron Carter and Tony Williams (it was Buster Williams rather than Carter, however, who took part in the trio’s first recording session in 1976); by 1980 Jones’ sidemen were Eddie Gómez and Al Foster, and in 1982 Jimmy Cobb replaced Foster. The trio also recorded with other all-star personnel, such as Art Farmer, Benny Golson, and Nancy Wilson. In the early 1980s Jones held a residency as a solo pianist at the Cafe Ziegfeld and made a tour of Japan, where he performed and recorded with George Duvivier and Sonny Stitt. Jones’ versatility was more in evidence with the passage of time. He collaborated on recordings of Afro-pop with an ensemble from Mali and on an album of spirituals, hymns and folksongs with Charlie Haden called Steal Away (1995).

Some of his later recordings are For My Father (2005) with bassist George Mraz and drummer Dennis Mackrel, a solo piano recording issued in Japan under the title Round Midnight (2006), and as a side man on Joe Lovano’s Joyous Encounter (2005). Jones made his debut on Lineage Records, recording with Frank Wess and with the guitarist Eddie Diehl, but also appeared on West of 5th (2006) with Jimmy Cobb and Christian McBride on Chesky Records. He also accompanied Diana Krall for “Dream a Little Dream of Me” on the album compilation, We all Love Ella (Verve 2007). He is one of the musicians who test and talk about the piano in the documentary Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037, released in November 2007.

In early 2000, the Hank Jones Quartet accompanied jazz singer Salena Jones at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Idaho, and in 2006 at the Monterey Jazz Festival with both jazz singer Roberta Gambarini and the Oscar Peterson Trio.

In June 2005, Jones was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music at 20th anniversary of jazz education at the Umbria Jazz Festival, in Perugia, Italy.

Hank Jones lived in Cresskill NJ, upstate New York and in Manhattan. He died at a Calvary Hospital Hospice in The Bronx, New York, on May 16, 2010, survived by his wife Theodosia (by wikipedia)

And here´s one of his countless solo albums:

Hank Jones, the father of Detroit’s piano legacy (preceding Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris and Roland Hanna) is teamed on this Concord CD with the typically superb bass of Dave Holland, the supportive drumming of Keith Copeland and (on half the songs) Ken Peplowski’s alto (with just a touch of his clarinet). Jones performs a diverse yet unified set of standards and originals. His use of celeste on a moody “Lazy Afternoon,” his Monkish “Intimidation” and a trio romp on “Speak Low” are among the highpoints of the excellent release by an ageless master. (by Scott Yanow)

In other words: Another superb album by one of the greatest piano player in the world of Jazz … and he was accompanied by three wonderful musicians !

Personnel:
Keith Copeland (drums)
Dave Holland (bass)
Hank Jones (piano)
Ken Peplowski (saxophone, clarinet)

Tracklist:
01. Speak Low (Weill/Nash) 4.13
02. Peedlum (Jones) 5.05
03. Lazy Afternoon (Moross/Latouche) 7.45
04. Work Song (Adderley/Brown Jr.) 4.20
05. Intimidation (Jones) 4.46
06. Lament (Johnson) 6.09
07. Comin’ Home Baby (Tucker/Dorough) 5.05
08. Passing Time (Jones) 5.06
09. Sublime (Jones) 5.16
10. Arrival (Parlan/Simmonds) 4.56

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