From Jimi Hendrix and Joni Mitchell to Miles Davis and Frank Zappa, 2024 box sets abound

When it comes to CD and vinyl box sets, when is too much simply too much? In a word, never.

How else to explain this year’s release of such massive sets as Bob Dylan and The Band’s “The 1974 Live Recordings,” which features 417 previously unreleased recordings that are spread over 27 CDs and clock in at 29 hours and 13 minutes?

Or Neil Young‘s “Archives Vol. III (1976-1987),” which includes 198 songs on 17 CDs and 5 Blu-Ray discs that have a playing time of more than 28 hours?

Or the late Irish blues-rock guitar legend Rory Gallagher’s “The BBC Collection,” which boasts 182 live recordings on 18 CDs and two Blu-Ray discs that clock in at, well, does the playing time of any box set really matter for diehard fans who crave every possible recording by their favorite artists?

This year’s releases also include the Grateful Dead’s 19-CD archival concert recordings package, “Friends of the Devils” (which follows last year’s 17-CD Dead concert collection, “Here Comes Sunshine”), and the two-volume “Josef Krips Edition” (which offers 43 CDs featuring the towering Austrian orchestral conductor).

By comparison, the recent sets by two former members of Roxy Music — guitarist Phil Manzanera’s 11-CD “50 Years of Music” and singer Bryan Ferry‘s 5-CD, two-vinyl album “Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023” — seem almost lightweight. That is, until you factor in the fact that the Ferry and Manzanera sets each include a hefty, 100-page hardbound book.

Of course, these musical deep dives don’t come cheap. The list price for the Young CD box set is $450, and the retail price for some vinyl album sets can be exponentially higher. But those steep prices are precisely the point.

As is the case with blockbuster Hollywood film releases, many of the biggest (and highest-priced) box sets come out in the last quarter of the year — the better for artists and their record companies to capitalize on the lucrative holiday shopping market. Unlike Hollywood blockbusters, however, a good number of box sets are limited-edition releases that become almost instantly collectible.

Young’s box set was limited to 5,000 copies that have all been snapped up. All copies of Dylan and The Band’s “The 1974 Live Recordings” have also been sold, according to Dylan’s website, although you can buy it for marked-up prices on eBay and other resale outlets.

Those with even more money to spare can purchase a used copy of the massive 2016 Decca Records set, “Mozart 225: The New Complete Edition 2,” a 200-CD opus that has a current asking price of $2,384.04 on Amazon. The 25-pound set cost a bit over $300 when it came out seven years ago and all 5,556 copies were quickly purchased.

Not to be outdone, in 2017 Kiss bassist and vocalist Gene Simmons put out a 150-song, 38-pound box set that cost $2,000. Unless, that is, you opted for the $25,000 Executive Producers Experience or the $50,000 Home Experience, both of which included Simmons personally delivering a copy of his box set to you.

Simmons, thankfully, did not release a new box set this year, although dozens of other solo artists and bands did. Here, in alphabetical order, are our reviews of 10 standouts — and of one whose lavish packaging outweighs its uneven music.

Miles Davis, ‘Miles in France, 1963 & 1964: Miles Davis Quintet, The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8’

How dramatically can a first-rate band evolve in just 15 months? And how much can one new musician impact the sound, feel and artistic approach of that band?

Those questions are answered with this Miles Davis box set of eight vinyl albums, which weighs 6 pounds and is also available as a six-CD set. The music was recorded at five concerts in France, three of them in the summer of 1963 and two in the autumn of 1964. This collection is historically significant for several reasons, starting with the fact that four of the five concert recordings were not previously released.

All five concerts feature Davis leading what, after a single change of personnel, quickly became known as his Second Great Quintet. Three of its members were new additions to Davis’ band who would help change the face of jazz: bassist Ron Carter, who was 26 in 1963; pianist Herbie Hancock, who was 23; and drum phenom Tony Williams who was all of 17.

The pivotal saxophone position, which was held by George Coleman in 1963, profoundly changed when Wayne Shorter replaced him in 1964. What had been a band already approaching greatness almost immediately became a band that regularly achieved creative transcendence. Coleman plays very well on the 21 selections from 1963 on which he is featured, which include such Davis classics as “So What,” “Walkin’ ” and “Joshua.” But Shorter’s playing on those same songs a year later is on another level as he probes and pushes the music, inspiring his bandmates to take increasingly larger chances right alongside him.

A master of nuance and space, Davis has rarely sounded better on trumpet, while Williams’ explosive drumming lights one fire after another. Hancock begins to come into his own on these recordings, while Shorter is nothing short of revelatory, as his alternately mind-bending and rhapsodic solos on “So What” and “Stella by Starlight” vividly attest.

The shape-shifting results are transformational for the performers and for the music, which becomes aural putty as the quintet stretches and reconfigures the songs they are playing with increasing intensity and expertly controlled abandon.

This box set provides the earliest documentation of how this fabled band would irrevocably change the face of jazz by creating a vital new template for small-group interplay and improvisational ingenuity. Or, as bassist Carter observes in the set’s accompanying liner notes: “(Miles) allowed us to do whatever the chemist allowed his proteges in the lab to do. ‘Take these chemicals I’m giving you guys and see what we come up with. Just call the fire department if necessary.’ ”

Miles Davis’ “54: The Prestige Recordings” (Courtesy Craft Recordings)

Miles Davis, ’54: The Prestige Recordings’

Released to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Prestige Records and the 70th anniversary of Miles Davis’ 1954 recordings for the label, this box set is available in both vinyl (four albums) and CD (two discs) configurations. There have, of course, been multiple previous sets commemorating the fabled trumpeter’s 1951-1956 tenure with Prestige, but 1954 was an especially significant year for Davis in several ways.

Having kicked his heroin habit and taken up boxing, he approached his music anew with fresh vigor and focus, in the process establishing himself as a formidable force who would soon become one of the most influential and dominant artists in or out of jazz. It was also the year that saw Davis perform at the inaugural edition of the Newport Jazz Festival/ where his set included “Walkin’,” an early hard-bop classic that would become the title track of his 1957 Prestige album of the same name.

A response to the urbane cool jazz style Davis had pioneered, hard-bop drew from blues, gospel and R&B to produce a more soulful approach to jazz. The hard-bop favorites “Walkin’ ” and “Blues ‘n’ Boogie” are among the the 20 songs showcased on this handsomely packaged compilation, which exclusively features recordings Davis made in 1954 with different lineups of musicians. The players include fellow hard-bop pioneers Art Blakey and Horace Silver, Modern Jazz Quartet vibraphonist Milt Jackson, pianist and bebop co-founder Thelonious Monk, trombonist J.J. Johnson and budding tenor sax colossus Sonny Rollins, who was only 23 at the time of these recordings.

But hard-bop is just one of the styles highlighted on “1954,” which also features such timeless gems as “Solar,” “Four” and the Jackson-penned “Bags’ Groove” along with the blues-drenched “Blue Haze,” and a wonderfully fleet version of the standard “Love Me or Leave Me” that features a bravura muted trumpet solo by Davis. All of the songs have been remastered and the vinyl version appears here on 180-gram vinyl pressed in Germany. The accompanying booklet includes the original liner notes by jazz scholar Dan Morgenstern and an insightful new essay by the award-winning Davis author Ashley Kahn.

Jimi Hendrix, ‘Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision’

Electric guitar revolutionary Jimi Hendrix completed only three studio albums prior to his death in 1970 at the age of 27. Since then, there have been a staggering 86 posthumously released albums credited to this trailblazing Seattle native, whose ear-popping fusion of blues, rock and soul continues to resonate more than half a century after his passing.

All but one of the 39 songs featured on this three-CD package are newly released, but with a major caveat. They have been previously available, but not in the versions presented here, which feature 20 newly remixed iterations and 18 alternate takes. What makes this collection really stand out, then, is its context, since the songs frame the nearly 90-minute film documentary that is included on a Blu-Ray disc.

The documentary chronicles the birth and legacy of New York City’s famed Electric Lady Studios. It was built to Hendrix’s exacting specifications as a home base for him to record in, 24/7, whenever he wanted. It is also where such varied artists as Stevie Wonder, Led Zeppelin and Carly Simon recorded not long after the studio’s grand opening in late August 1970, barely three weeks before he died. Artists who subsequently made albums at Electric Lady range from Patti Smith and the Rolling Stones to Daft Punk and Kanye West.

Hendrix recorded a slew of his final songs, including “Dolly Dagger,” “Freedom” and “Angel,” at Electric Lady and several versions of both are included here. Happily, they differ enough to provide welcome insight into how Hendrix’s music evolved from session to session, and how he welcomed the opportunity to mold and refine his music, be it by adding new twists or eliminating parts to best serve his songs.

The documentary celebrates his work and offers commentary from some of the recording engineers and musicians who worked at Electric Lady over the years, including such close Hendrix pals as Buddy Guy and Steve Winwood. Film director John McDermott, long a noted Hendrix authority, digs deeper by including home movies Hendrix shot in his nearby apartment. The film’s focus is well-balanced between celebrating the history of the studio and of this legendary artist, who recorded all 39 of the songs featured in this box set at Electric Lady in the final days of his short but momentous life.

Yusef Lateef, ‘Atlantic Lullaby, The Concert from Avignon’

A triple threat on tenor and alto saxophones and flute, Yusef Lateef was one of the first major jazz artists to incorporate Asian and Middle Eastern music influences into his work, and to perform on such instruments as the arghul, an Egyptian reed instrument, and the shehnai, an Indian oboe.

Named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2010, Lateef died in 2013 at the age of 93. Recorded in France in 1972, this previously unreleased two-CD live album finds him stretching out at length with a first-rate band that includes pianist Kenny Barron and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath. Highlights include the rollicking “Yusef’s Mood” and the lilting ballad “A Flower.” Best of all is the nearly 26-minute long “The Untitled,” a fleet tour de force that swings mightily but also features moments of tender introspection.

John Lennon, ‘Mind Games: The Ultimate Collection’

At first glance, this handsomely packaged collection appears to live up to its “ultimate” billing. Weighing in at 3.2 pounds, it contains six CDs, two Blu-Ray discs and a 136-page book that offers detailed recording information, quotes from Lennon (who was shot to death in 1980), his wife, Yoko Ono, various musicians featured on this 1973 album, and more.

The 30-pound “Super Deluxe Edition,” which is already sold out despite a list price of $1,350, also includes a Perspex reproduction of Ono’s minimalist 1968 sculpture, “Danger Box,” a hologram-engraved EP, four posters, two books, a word puzzle, bespoke I-Ching coins, an audio documentary, and a replica of Lennon’s kitchen sink, replete with a washcloth and toothbrush. (I’m joking about the sink, but it doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch.)

Where things falter, alas, is with the music itself. The 12-song “Mind Games” was Lennon’s fourth solo studio album following the 1970 implosion of The Beatles, the band he had co-led for 10 life-changing years. Produced by his son, Sean Ono Lennon, “Mind Games: The Ultimate Collection” features six different versions of the same 12 songs from the original album, in exactly the same order on each disc. They include “The Out-Takes,” “The Ultimate Mix,” “The Raw Studio Mixes,” the stripped-down “The Elements Mixes” and the even more stripped down “The Elemental Mixes,” which completely removes Lennon’s vocals from each of the 12 songs.

Such a forensic approach might be merited if “Mind Games” was one of Lennon’s best albums. Sadly, it is one of the least distinguished works of his career, an uneven, largely innocuous effort that is pleasant at best and pedestrian at worst. When Lennon sings: “I don’t know what I’m doing” on the bluesy “Aisumasen (I’m Sorry),” it seems like a candid acknowledgement from a great artist trying to regain his footing without having any clear path to do so.

Lennon and Ono began an 18-month separation not long after “Mind Games” was made. Hearing recording studio banter between the couple lends some appeal to “The Evolution Documentary,” to which a CD and a Blu-Ray disc on this set are devoted. This is also, so far as I can recall, the only Lennon album to feature a pedal-steel guitarist (the outstanding Sneaky Pete Kleinow, a charter member of the pioneering country-rock band the Flying Burrito Brothers).

Likewise, some audiophiles may welcome the opportunity to hear these 12 songs remixed in Dolby digital surround sound and Dolby Atmos. But with a list price of $128.77 on Amazon, “Mind Games” offers too many very slight variations on a threadbare theme. A better bet is to get the two-CD version, which is priced at $24.96 and features the outtakes disc and the newly remastered version of the original album. Shelling out anything more is difficult to imagine.

Joni Mitchell, ‘Archives — Volume 4: The Asylum Years (1975-1980)’

Joni Mitchell, at just 33, was already a singular voice of a generation in 1975, the first year her music is chronicled on this expansive six-CD set. But she was a constantly restless legend who was eager to challenge herself and explore new artistic vistas. And she did so even though it meant confounding her audience and losing a sizable number of fans in the process.

That is precisely what happened with her seminal albums “The Hissing of Summer Lawns,” “Hejira,” “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” and “Mingus,” which were released between 1975 and 1979.

This 83-song collection is a veritable treasure trove for Mitchell devotees. It features 29 studio recordings and 54 live cuts, including a disc devoted entirely to her 1975 and 1976 performances on the Bob Dylan-led Rolling Thunder Revue tour.

Hearing the evolution of such Mitchell gems as “Coyote,” “Furry Sings the Blues” and “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter,” which appear here in multiple versions, offers fascinating insight into how she crafted and honed her music on stage before making her definitive studio versions. Ditto the early demo and alternate versions of “Sweet Sucker Dance,” “A Chair in the Sky” and other songs from Mitchell’s 1979 album, “Mingus,” her bold collaboration with jazz giant Charles Mingus.

She recorded that album with such stellar musicians as pianist Herbie Hancock and electric bass wizard Jaco Pastorius, who also joined her on tour. This set features some terrific live recordings by that band. It also adds earlier studio sessions of some of the same songs with an entirely different lineup of musicians, including ace baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, bassist Eddie Gomez and former Miles Davis and Mahavishnu Orchestra guitarist John McLaughlin.

As good as they are, they did not have the specific feel, attitude and approach Mitchell was seeking to complement her increasingly sophisticated songs and exceptionally penetrating lyrics. Just how deep is demonstrated in the accompanying 36-page booklet, which features an extended conversation between her and filmmaker (and longtime friend) Cameron Crowe. Recounting Dolly Parton’s response to hearing the “Hejira” album for the first time, a clearly delighted Mitchell says: “And when it was over, (Dolly) turned to me and said, ‘If I thought that deep, I’d scare myself to death.’ ”

Sun Ra, ‘At The Showcase: Live in Chicago, 1976-1977’

During a career that spanned 60 years, Sun Ra created a unique musical legacy that combined big band music, cutting-edge jazz and Afro-futurism with consistently arresting results. In the process, he greatly influenced a broad array of artists that ranged from Elvis Costello and Henry Rollins to Sonic Youth, the George Clinton-led Parliament-Funkadelic and Little Feat’s Lowell George.

Jazz saxophone giant John Coltrane briefly lived with Ra and his band at their Philadelphia commune in the late 1950s. Other future luminaries, including bassist Richard Davis and future Kool & The Gang trumpeter, also spent time learning from Ra, an Alabama native who was 79 when he died in 1993.

A visionary composer, band-leader pianist and electric keyboard player, Ra — as I wrote in his San Diego Union-Tribune obituary — had long claimed to be from Saturn. He drew inspiration from ancient Egyptian mythology, black spiritualism, the Koran, the Bible, astronomy, science fiction, ritualism and a variety of obscure and familiar texts and beliefs. Ra, who called his band the Arkestra, described his highly theatrical performances as “cosmo-dramas” and maintained he was not a part of the universe, but of the “omniverse, outside of what is called reality.”

His set-the-controls-for-the-heart-of-the-sun musical explorations are reflected in the titles of some of the 13 selections on this two-CD set, which was recorded at three Chicago concerts in 1976 and ’77. They include “View From Another Dimension,” the nearly 18-minute-long “Calling Planet Earth & The Shadow World” and “Greetings From The 21st Century.” Also included is Ra’s best-known composition, “Space is the Place,” which is also the name of a 1972 science-fiction film for which he co-wrote the script and composed the musical score.

Recorded in between his highly acclaimed mid-1970s tours of Europe, this dozen-song collection finds Ra and his Arkestra firing on all cylinders. Their performance is characteristically edgy and wildly daring, while retaining a propulsive sense of swing that nods to Ra’s early big-band days.

The 3-minute, 24-second “Ebah Speaks in Cosmic Tongues,” an over-the-top vocal feature for Akh Tal Ebah, overstays its welcome by about 3 minutes, and the brief opening number, “New Beginning,” is unfocused. But things quickly pick up from there as Ra, saxophonists John Gilmore, Danny Thompson and Marshall Allen, and the rest of this 18-piece ensemble ignite.

Allen, who became the Arkestra’s leader after Ra’s death, is still leading the group — in concert and on record — six months after celebrating his 100th birthday in May.

Emily Remler, ‘Cookin’ at The Queens, Live in Las Vegas, 1984 & 1988′

Jazz guitar sensation Emily Remler was only 32 when she died from heart failure in 1990, but she packed a lot of music into her short life. The New Jersey native made seven increasingly assured solo albums and collaborated with everyone from fellow guitarist Larry Coryell and saxophonist Richie Cole to singer Rosemary Clooney and keyboardist David Benoit.

Taken from a pair of live radio broadcasts recorded at the 4 Queens Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, this two-CD, 17-song set — the first release of Remler’s music in more than 30 years — is a welcome addition to her discography. Performing in a quartet setting on the first disc and with a trio on the second, Remler’s winning combination of fluidity and finesse is nicely showcased throughout.

Inspired equally by such six-string icons as Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass, she shines equally on such svelte bossa nova classics as “How Insensitive” and “Manha de Carnaval” as she does on a quicksilver rendition of saxophone giant Sonny Rollins’ “Tenor Madness” and the Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers’ staple, “Moanin’.”

Frank Zappa, ‘apostrophe (‘) 50th Anniversary Edition’ & Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, ‘Whiskey a Go Go, 1968’

Released in 1974, “apostrophe (‘)” quickly became the first and only Top 10 solo album by Frank Zappa, thanks in part to the popularity of its satirical, nominally Eskimo-inspired song, “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow.” More credit is due to the top-rank musicians featured on the album, including keyboardist/singer George Duke, former Cream bassist Jack Bruce, French jazz-fusion violin star Jean-Luc Ponty, ace drummer John Guerin (who, like Zappa, was a former San Diegan), and — providing backing vocals on the deviously twisty “Montana” and several other numbers — the previously uncredited Tina Turner and the Ikettes.

Zappa, who died in 1993 at the age of 52, was one of the greatest iconoclasts in or out of rock music, and one of the most versatile. Or, as he told me in a 1983 San Diego Union interview: “Put yourself in my shoes: if I wake up and want to write a cowboy song, I can do it; if I get up the next day and want to write an opera, I can do it; if I want to write a heavy metal song the day after that, I can do it. The rock stuff is the simplest, because it only requires eight guys.”

No matter the idiom, there was nothing simple about Zappa’s intricate, meticulously crafted music, which required both pinpoint precision and improvisational dexterity. Both aspects are showcased on the 50th anniversary edition of “apostrophe (‘),” which includes 5 CDs and one Blu-Ray disc. The album’s original nine songs appear here in remastered form, along with alternate tracks and outtakes, on the first disc.

But that’s just the start. Two discs apiece are devoted to a pair of 1974 concerts recorded six months apart in Colorado and Ohio. The lineup of musicians changed during that half-year period. But the musical excellence of Duke, vibraphonist and marimba phenom Ruth Underwood, drummer Chester Thompson and the other players is uniformly excellent throughout. And such standout songs from “apostrophe (‘)” as “Cosmik Debris,” “Stinkfoot” and the Duke-sung “Uncle Remus” were reborn nightly on stage, thanks to Zappa’s tireless quest to inject new life and unexpected twists into each of his concerts.

There is also a generous amount of bonus material, multiple mixes (including one quadraphonic sound), a 52-page booklet, and spirited reinventions of such Zappa gems as “King Kong,” “Uncle Meat” and “The Dog Breath Variations.”

The two-part “King Kong is also featured on the recently released three-CD live set, “Whiskey a Go Go, 1968.” It was recorded at the titular Hollywood nightclub by Zappa and his pioneering band, the genre-leaping Mothers of Invention, which combined rock, pop, R&B, doo-wop, blues, psychedelia and avant-garde freak outs with a biting sense of satire.

The 32 songs on “Whiskey” — including such classics as “Hungry Freaks, Daddy,” “Plastic People” and “America Drinks & Goes Home” — skewer everything from blind conformity and the budding hippie counterculture to oppressive U.S. government social policies and drunken cocktail-bar patrons whose loud blathering often drowned out the live music being performed.

Recorded on a single 1968 summer night, “Whiskey” captures its era and place reasonably well. Members of the Rolling Stones and Turtles were in attendance, along with the band Alice Cooper, which was one of the opening acts and was signed to Zappa’s Bizarre Records label. But the fact this triple-album remained unreleased for 56 years underscores that it sounds more like an aural time capsule artifact than a time-transcendent work.

Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy, ‘The Mighty Warriors, Live in Antwerp’

Recorded at a 1995 concert in the Belgian city of Antwerp on pianist Mal Waldron’s 70th birthday, this previously unreleased two-CD set bears offers welcome documentation of a ferociously talented band that was co-led by former Billie Holiday and John Coltrane pianist Waldron and soprano sax master Steve Lacy. The two, who had worked together as a duo for 37 years when his concert took place and are both now deceased, shared a near-telepathic sense of  communication on stage.

In bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Andrew Cyrille, they had two exceptionally formidable counterparts who could deftly negotiate even the most twisty musical turns while maintaining a solid yet flexible rhythmic foundation. Together, this quartet of equals makes its striking original compositions and such Thelonious Monk classics as “Epistrophy” and “Monk’s Mood” sound fresh and vital enough to suggest they were recorded last week, not 29 years ago. And Cyrille’s wonderfully crafted solo on “Snake Out/Variations On a Theme by Cecil Taylor” is a masterclass in percussive ingenuity.