Barry White?!

Beginning with Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band, Central Avenue Sounds encompasses a huge array of such legendary jazz performers as Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum, Lionel Hampton, Lester Young, Ernie Andrews, Dexter Gordon, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker and Wardell Gray; such blues/R&B titans as T-Bone Walker, Pee Wee Crayton, Johnny Otis, Roy Milton, Joe and Jimmy Liggins, Hadda Brooks, Percy Mayfield, and Jimmy Witherspoon; such jive entertainers as Slim Galliard, Nat "King" Cole, Hadda Brooks, Big Jay McNeely, Camille Howard and the little-known but sublime Nellie Lutcher; plus dozens of others. Many cuts are making their CD debuts here as well.

Of course, no four-disc set can be all-inclusive (where are Art Pepper and Gerry Mulligan, for example?), but Rhino comes close, presenting LA jazz in all its mutations and permutations. It's a glorious listen and an important history lesson from beginning to end.