After Hours - Grand Award Collection

 As much as I love jazz and the directions it is going, some nights I love looking back. This is one of those nights.

I have a few of these Grand Award lps. What a weird way of selling records. The encouragement of peeling off the cover and framing it seems a bit out there to me. None the less they produced some decent records with cool covers. Someone can come along and tell us if these sessions were originals or not.

Side 1 sports a fine cast with Hawkins standing out. I just dig his lyricism on these tunes. Side 2 doesn't swing as hard but it covers Hoagy Carmichael in no less of a deft manor.

Cover by Arthur Shilstone - whose fame rests mostly with outdoor/landscapes paintings - is pretty damn cool...and remains intact.

1. Caravan

2. Sweethearts On Parade

3. My Blue Heaven

4.Organ Grinder's swing

5. Honeysuckle Rose

6. Perdido

7. Stardust

8. I Get Along Without You

9. Rockin' Chair

10. Georgia On My Mind

11. New Orleans

12. Blue Orchids

1-6  Cozy Cole's All Stars
Cozy Cole - drums
Coleman Hawkins - tenor sax
Rex Stewart - trumpet
Tyrone Glenn - trombone
Claude Hopkins - piano
Billy Bauer - guitar
Arvell Shaw - bass

7-12 Marian McPartland's Quintet
Marian McPartland - piano
Jimmy McPartland - trumpet
Jimmy Rainey - guitar
Trigger Alpert - bass
Joe Morello - drums

Grand Award G.A. 33-334