‘50s Treasures From Roost Get New Life in CD Series

Roost Records isn’t a jazz label with as high a recognition factor as, say, Blue Note or Verve. However, the New York-based company released numerous albums of merit in the ‘50s and ‘60s by such respected musicians as Stan Getz, Sonny Stitt and Bud Powell.

The good news is that many of the old Roost albums, which have been unavailable for years, are now being released in CD on the Roulette Jazz label.

Roost--owned by producer Teddy Reig and named after the famed ‘40s New York nightclub--was one of the few independent companies that, like Ross Russell’s Los Angeles-based Dial Records, was “purely built on be-bop,” says Michael Cuscuna. Cuscuna produced the Roost re-issues for Roulette Jazz.

Among the Roost titles just released: “Moonlight in Vermont,” featuring guitarist Johnny Smith; “Jaws & Stitt at Birdland,” with saxophonists Eddie (Lockjaw) Davis and Sonny Stitt, and “Illinois Jacquet Rides Again,” a 1959 session spotlighting the former Lionel Hampton and Count Basie tenorman leading a 10-piece, swingoriented band.

Kicking off the series last summer was “Stan Getz: The Roost Sessions,” which documents Getz’s particularly lyrical 1950-51 period, and marks the recording debut of the influential pianist-composer Horace Silver.

Perhaps the most appealing of the new re-issues is the Davis-Stitt package, which combines in one album material that was previously released in part on both Roost and Phoenix labels. This go-get-’em, two-tenor sax affair, recorded in 1954, contrasts Davis’ warm, breathy sound and swing-styled approach with Stitt’s more effervescent tone and be-bop manner and finds the hornmen tackling standards and blues-based tunes with zest.