The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise

When selecting songs for our anniver-sary CD, we aimed to include the widest possible range of music that was played from the 1920s till 1950s. In addition to songs in the traditional hot-jazz or swing spirit, you will also hear recordings of rare arrangements using a harpsichord (Summit Ridge Drive) or a Hammond organ The Moon Is Low and Jitterbug Waltz). Other rarities on the CD are the transcrip-tions of exactly 100-year-old recordings that document how jazz was played in its early days (Lassus Trombone and Sax-O-Phun). Burlesque, originally recorded by Reginald Foresythe's English orchestra in 1936, is very experimental and timeless in the context of jazz music. Also, in two solo piano pieces you can enjoy the textbook-perfect stride-piano style of Fats Waller (Love Me Or Leave Me) and the elegance of Teddy Wilson (My Blue Heaven).

We celebrated the band's anniversary with the recording of a beautiful arrangement Happy Birthday Fats Jazz Band for an extended big band. The brass section was enlarged and joined by our esteemed colleagues. And finally, the bonus track Solitude is (to me) a very moving musical farewell to Fats Waller, who recorded exactly this version during his last recording session in Septem-ber 1943. I am overjoyed that I was able to record it on an instrument that enchanted Waller as an organist - an electric organ, designed in 1934 by Laurens Hammond, now known throughout the world as the Hammond organ.