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Since Duke Ellington's 1999 centennial actually occurred five years before this release, you would think the well of his unreleased recordings would be dry. But for this package, part of the Centennial Collections series that combines a CD with a DVD of historical material, Bluebird has unearthed seven previously unheard performances from a pair of 1941 radio broadcasts. While there's nothing earthshaking here, anything that further documents the legendary and short-lived Blanton/Webster band, featuring bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, is worth having. The rest of the CD is mostly '30s and '40s classics available on any number of compilations, but the DVD is chock full of collectible goodies including the impressionistic short film Symphony in Black (1934), which briefly features a young Billie Holiday; a 1937 short, Record Making with Duke Ellington and his Orchestra; five "soundies" from 1941; a "Jamboree" short of four pieces; and a 1941 audio interview in which Duke cheerfully tolerates a clueless questioner. —Lloyd Sachs

Limited edition Japanese 200 gram vinyl LP pressing of this classic album. Universal. 2007.

In the late '20s, when Duke Ellington was creating his first masterpieces, Earl Hines was defining the art of solo jazz piano, combining bright lead lines and potent rhythm with startling and erratic flights of keyboard invention. After decades of leading swing and Dixieland bands, Hines returned to small groups and solo piano in the '60s. If his creative powers had changed, they had actually increased, and his later recordings provided both much improved sound and the length (with full-length LPs) to let him trace his magical and unpredictable path for chorus after chorus. This two-CD set drawn from his recordings of Ellington material is among the finest of his later work, as Hines plays with genuine spontaneity and an elastic imagination on familiar and obscure compositions, from "Come Sunday " and the early "Black and Tan Fantasy" to the seldom-heard "Black Butterfly." Stuart Broomer

Heritage Jazz Collection. 6 Tracks.

Japanese Exclusive 1St Time On CD. In Glorious Mono Sound.Recorded In November 1964.