ng jazz music, unquestionably has made the most beautiful boxed sets in the business. His special limited edition of Ella Fitzgerald's renditions of Gershwin's "songbook" appeared in a teak art-deco box with handles, a briefcase of sorts with fine metal hinges; inside were the records, stamped virgin vinyl in varied colors along with a booklet of photos and paintings, essays, and other written materials plus a page of original signatures by Fitzgerald and the Gershwins. (This whole assemblage, sans original signatures of course, has been shrunken to fit the new and spectacularly beautiful CD box, "The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Song Books.") Granz's set called "The Jazz Scene" was nearly as sumptuous a presentation of fancy vinyl, art, commentary, and memorabilia; it featured photographs by Gjon Mili, and a cover by David Stone Martin. This one is also currently available in a beautiful album of CDs--a miniature version of the old original book of records. Each of these projects was a kind of love letter from a producer to the artists he adored and their fans. On an inevitably less elaborate level, boxed sets for collectors and scholars were prepared with great care by Smithsonian, Bear Family, Franklin Mint, Time-Life, Reader's Digest, Mosaic, and sometimes by the commercial record companies capitalizing on the permanent value of jazz by presenting definitive and deluxe editions: the album equivalent of the Library of America. Here, as in the world of publishing, the album-as-anthology was often viewed as a teaching tool. The Smithsonian "Collection of Classic Jazz" set is the key example here: it is assigned all over the nation as part of the standard course of study in jazz's history and aesthetic values. The merit of the written parts of jazz record albums varies from publicity fluff and bunk to work of genuine critical/literary/historical value. Writers of liner notes include poets and novelists Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones), ...
