Ugly Beauty: The Month In Jazz – May 2017

Do you buy CD box sets? (Please answer in the comments; I'm genuinely curious.) I do. In the last couple of years, I've probably bought more box sets than stand-alone albums, for one simple reason: European copyright laws. Anything released before 1963 is public domain in Europe, which means that the catalogs of jazz labels like Blue Note, Prestige, Savoy, and many others are being repackaged at ridiculously low prices. And when I say ridiculous, I mean ridiculous: If you search for "eight classic albums" on Amazon, you'll see four-CD sets by pretty much any jazz legend you can think of, for less than $15 each -- the price of a single CD. You don't get erudite liner notes or anything, but you can gorge on the music. I own sets by Sonny Clark, Bill Evans, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Blue Mitchell, Art Pepper, Horace Silver, and others. Some are even more priced-to-move than that: Just last week, I bought a 10-CD box that contains 20 albums by the Modern Jazz Quartet...for $13.