Jazz lovers have great taste — and high standards — which can make them difficult to shop for during the holidays. If you find yourself wondering what to get the jazz fan in your life this season, JAZZIZ has you covered, no matter your budget.
From limited-edition vinyl to jazz-inspired swag, you’re sure to find something to warm the heart of even the pickiest jazz aficionado.
Of course, the absolute best gift you can give a jazz fan is a subscription to JAZZIZ Magazine. Sign up here to give the gift of engaging jazz journalism, award-winning photography and great music.
Jazz Swag
32 Bar Blues Jazz Foundation of America T-Shirt
Compelled by the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on live concerts, tours and gigs across the country, Santa Barbara-based 32 Bar Blues reached out to the Jazz Foundation with an idea to create a unique Jazz Foundation t-shirt to help raise awareness and crucial funds for the Jazz Foundation’s COVID-19 Musicians’ Emergency Fund. Additionally, they created a special Jazz Foundation section on their website with select products, including hand-picked CDs for sale from renowned musicians Brad Mehldau, Bettye LaVette, and Omar Sosa & Yilian Cañizares, plus a beautiful jazz book & CD “The Ghosts of Harlem” by legendary producer, photographer and JFA Board Member Hank O’Neal. Buy it here.
Miles Davis Sketches of Spain Hoodie
Keep warm and look cool at the same time courtesy of this Sketches of Spain hoodie from the official Miles Davis store. This one-piece pullover hoodie honors the legacy of Davis’ historic 1960 album, which featured compositions by arranger Gil Evans. With its striking yellow colorway and jumbo album cover print, this hoodie is sure to turn some heads. Buy it here.
It All Stax Up
The Stax online store features music, t-shirts, hoodies, holiday socks, bags, and other great merchandise. There is something for everyone and every age. Each item is perfect for gift-giving or for yourself. We’ve got you covered at Stax… ”Where Everything is Everything.” Browse the full line here.
Impulse! Purchase
In addition to putting out some phenomenal new releases over the past few years (including previously unheard albums by Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane), the expert jazz minds at Impulse! Records have been offering up some undeniably cool merch, like this throwback New Wave T-shirt. Browse their full merch line here.
Box Set Bonanza
Herb Alpert Is…
A career-spanning Herb Alpert Box Set is now available in an LP format featuring a coffee-table book and a five-piece 180-gram vinyl set, and as a three-CD set. Both physical formats will feature 63 songs spanning five decades of Alpert’s career, 180 pages of vintage photos, liner notes and an essay from respected music journalist Bud Scoppa. Buy it here.
Charlie Parker Chestnuts
Charlie “Bird” Parker, an architect of modern music nearly universally regarded as the greatest alto saxophonist who ever lived, released five 10-inch LPs via Mercury Records and producer Norman Granz’s pre-Verve label Clef Records in the early 1950s. For the first time, these building-blocks of bebop — 1950’s Charlie Parker With Strings, 1952’s Bird and Diz and Charlie Parker Plays South of the Border, 1953’s Charlie Parker With Strings (Vol. 2) and 1954’s Charlie Parker, have been packaged together in honor of Bird’s centenary dubbed Bird 100. Parker’s complete recordings from this important cornerstone of his career will be released on Verve/UMe as The Mercury & Clef 10-Inch LP Collection on December 18, available exclusively via uDiscover and the official Charlie Parker webstore. All five records have been newly remastered, pressed to 10” black vinyl, and housed in faithful reproductions of the original packaging. Pre-order it here.
A Swinging Holiday Set
This holiday season, Verve Records/UMe is boxing up some of the most classic jazz holiday titles and wrapping them in a new vinyl box set titled Verve Wishes You a Swinging Christmas. This lavish collection brings together Ella Fitzgerald’s Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas (1960), Kenny Burrell’s Have Yourself a Soulful Little Christmas (1966), Ramsey Lewis’s Sound of Christmas (1961) and Jimmy Smith’s Christmas ‘64 (1964) (also known as Christmas Cookin’) for the first time. With the holidays just around the corner, it’s the perfect swinging, syncopated backdrop to get you in the Yuletide spirit and soundtrack your festivities. Order it here.
John Mayall Blues Breaker Box Set
There are box sets and then there are BOX SETS. John Mayall’s ‘The First Generation’ set sits firmly in the latter category, being substantial both in the artifacts contained within and the superb music it encompasses. It is the first time a set of this size has been released documenting John Mayall’s early years and not only does it have all the albums from his much-lauded formative career but it also has unreleased tracks aplenty. Featuring Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Harvey Mandel, Blue Mitchell, Jon Mark, and many more superlative musicians, this mammoth package contains 35 CDs in all, plus a beautiful hardback book and much more. Order it here.
Hand-Picked by Avishai Cohen
“Avishai Cohen – The 50 Gold Selection” is a collection of the bassist’s most popular songs chosen by his fans through a 2019 fan survey in a unique Limited Edition Vinyl Box Set. Featuring six remastered Golden 180gr LPs, the box set was released by Avishai Cohen’s own label Razdaz Recordz/naïve, and also includes a 32-page hardcover book with notes written personally by Avishai, rare photos, a special poster and other exclusive content. “Avishai Cohen – The 50 Gold Selection” is a special thank you from him to his most loyal fans and followers in his 50th year, making it a unique exclusive collector’s item. The Vinyl box set features 50 selected tracks such as Remembering, Seven Seas, Eleven Wives, Morenika and Song Of Hope, from 12of his albums, including best-sellers Gently Disturbed, Aurora, Continuo, 1970 and many more. Order it here.
Playing & Listening
Gearbox Gold
The Gearbox Automatic plug-and-play turntable has filled the gap in the portable turntable sector with its high-quality components, including its high-fidelity built-in valve phono stage. This new MkII model is an upgrade, featuring an upgraded belt drive to ensure better speed stability, and uprated electronics for better all-round performance. Aside from its beautiful, see-through design, this European-made turntable comes with an endless number of features and is compatible with a new and improved Gearbox Automatic app for easy auto-detection of all your vinyl. Order it here.
Aeorphone Deluxe
Roland is launching a new, next-generation version of the original Aerophone. Introducing the Aerophone Pro, the new flagship model in the company’s acclaimed Aerophone series of digital wind instruments. Combining numerous design refinements and premium components with enhanced playability and a vast sonic palette from Roland’s SuperNATURAL and ZEN-Core sound engines, Aerophone Pro enables wind players to take their music where it’s never gone before.
Carbon Turntable
Pro-Ject Audio Systems is excited to unveil the new Debut Carbon EVO turntable as an addition to its critically-acclaimed Debut Collection. The new product features the brand’s famous one-piece carbon fiber tonearm technology, electronic speed selection, suspension elements from the EISA award-winning X1, and a factory-mounted Sumiko Rainier phono cartridge. Order it here.
Ella’s Jiggy Jazz
To celebrate the First Lady of Song’s legacy and the release of The Berlin Lost Tapes from the Norman Granz treasure chest earlier this year, Verve has teamed up with Jiggy for a limited edition jigsaw puzzle. The 500-piece Ella puzzle comes with original art by Italian artist Marta Cubeddu. It also comes in a reusable drawstring bag, box and includes puzzle glue to preserve your very own Ella Fitzgerald masterwork. Order it here.