• Track Listing

This 25 track CD traces the origins of one of the greatest and most long lived jazz bands in history - The Modern Jazz Quartet, and specifically, it's legendary vibes player, Milt "Bags" Jackson. Originally the initials stood for "The Milt Jackson Quartet," but as the journey through the early history of the band, from recordings with jazz greats Thelonius Monk, Art Blakey, Sahib Shihab and Lou Donaldson will show, the influence of arranger, composer and director John Lewis began to tell on the band. The final eight tracks of this CD show the final Savoy recordings of the M.J.Q. before the inevitable happened and they were formally incarnated into The Modern Jazz Quartet just before Christmas 1952.