Charles Brown - Classic Earliest Recordings (Box Set) (CD)

All Music Guide

This is a magnificent budget release from JSP, a label that is one of the best jazz/blues reissue labels around. The Classic Earliest Recordings represents Charles Brown at his peak as a performer, and these five full discs show off every facet of the artist's considerable gifts. Concentrating on Brown's recordings of the 1940s, many of the earliest tracks here see him backing Johnny Moore, and are widely regarded as some of the finest recordings of Brown's career. By disc five, which showcases classics such as "I Stumbled Over You," listeners hear Brown emerge as a singular artist in his own right, hugely self-confident, and fashioning a distinctive style that was to form the basis for the rest of his career. As usual from JSP, the remastering is magnificent, and the icing on what is a wonderful overview of Charles Brown's formative years.

- Thomas Ward, All Music Guide