Various Artists - Jazz For A Day At The Beach (2003)

Jazz for a Day at the Beach, as released by Savoy Jazz in 2003, is a continuation of the popular Jazz For series released by 32 Jazz in the late '90s. Those discs contained songs from the catalog of the Muse label from the '70s, '80s, and '90s, and so does this disc. The 16 tracks are spread over two discs, and jazz giants like Woody Shaw, Sonny Criss, Jack McDuff, and Houston Person all contribute tracks and brush shoulders with jazz middleweights like Cecil Brooks III, Russell Gunn, and Buster Williams. As the title suggests, the songs are relaxed and the mood is swinging in a polite and sophisticated way. Although the songs date from well beyond jazz's peak years, the performances are uniformly solid and the disc is a nice low-priced collection of mellow jazz perfect for relaxing on a sunny beach.