Hot Lips Page: In Session / Various

A musical giant who could hold his own with the swingers and boppers in Carnegie Hall as well as holler the blues in a smoky nightclub, Texas-born trumpeter Hot Lips Page began with the South-Western territory jazz bands in the 1920s before moving to New York City as a serious rival to Louis Armstrong. Let down by his management, he forged his own career in the Big Apple with a small Harlem Jump band that would prove to be influential to the next generation of Jump Blues and R&B performers. This set cherry-picks the culturally important boogie, blues, jump and r&b recordings on which his presence and band is indelible. Hot Lips Page died in 1954 before he could really take advantage of the burgeoning international jazz festival scene or the impending rock 'n' roll explosion, without any quantifiable hits of his own but leaving his mark on hundreds of astonishing recordings, such as the 1948 chart-topper "Good Rockin' Tonight". A celebration of his legacy is long overdue.