Resonance Records goes out of its way again to unearth yet another significant chapter in jazz history, and once again, it's one that relatively few fans have ever heard. This performance of Jaco Pastorius' Word of Mouth Big Band was captured during George Wein's Kool Jazz Festival at Avery Fisher Hall. It was broadcast on NPR's Jazz Alive program, but this double disc contains the entire performance, with more than 40 minutes of additional music.

Just as the title implies, 25 Years of Greatness is a career-spanning 32-track compilation covering most of the highlights of the Wolfe Tones' first quarter of a century. There is the important caveat, however, that like many folk groups, the Wolfe Tones have recorded many of their most popular songs several times, and this collection tends to favor more recent and/or more arranged versions of the Spartan originals that graced early albums like Let the People Sing. That's not as much of a problem as it would be with some groups, however, as the Wolfe Tones have wisely resisted any temptation to "update," "modernize," or otherwise ruin a traditional Irish folk style that has worked for them for so long; even the Fairport Convention-like electric track of the new "Rock On Rockall" has a bracingly traditional feel to it. This is the Wolfe Tones set to have if you're having just one, but there's plenty more where this came from.

With an impressive run of hits in the '80s – thanks to a country sound washed in a sleek, pop sheen and with enough rock dynamics to put it all over – Alabama built an early template for how to be a country group in the 21st century. They had chart hits in three different decades, a pretty impressive lesson in longevity in a business that hardly encourages it. This well-sequenced set features some of the group’s most enduring songs, including “I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why),” “Song of the South,” and “Mountain Music,” among others, and makes it easy to hear why Alabama was so ubiquitous in the genre.