Swing & Bebop Jazz, Vol. 1 Album

Ten bebop and big band cues for rooms where jazz is meant to be furniture. Eight small-group bebop takes — two coffee-shop versions in major and minor, a cocktail-bar house trio, a restaurant set, a near-four-minute session that simply runs — plus two big band numbers, one full enough to feel like an occasion and one that lasts ninety seconds.

What holds the album together is the drummer, or rather the lack of one. In almost every track here the kit is mixed so far down that the swing lives in the walking bass and the phrasing instead. That is what lets real bebop harmony sit under conversation, and it is also why none of these will carry a scene on their own.

All 320 kbps, no vocals, released under CC BY 4.0. Use them for cafe, bistro and cocktail-bar playlists, dinner service, vintage and period video, bookshops and galleries, and study or reading backgrounds. Credit Alex Morgan and you are done.