Robert Baird, Phil Brett, Ray Chelstowski

Pops, as he was affectionately known by friends and fans, was an inveterate maker of scrapbooks and tapes of his music. By spring 1969, he had a pair of Tandberg reel-to-reel recorder/players up and running. One of his then-new treasures was a set of tapes made by the BBC from television broadcasts recorded the preceding summer. Music from those tapes—13 tracks in all, four for the first time ever—has just been released on CD, LP, and streaming, as Louis in London.

Edward Kennedy Ellington led the Duke Ellington Orchestra (pointedly not a band) from the piano for more than 40 years, using hands and facial gestures instead of a baton. He used charm, flattery, and a deep understanding of human psychology to bind his virtuosos to the orchestra and get the sounds he wanted. Often in collaboration with arranger/composer Billy Strayhorn, the great unsung hero of Ellington's story, Ellington composed music of all lengths and for all occasions for the orchestra he toured the world with from the 1920s into the 1970s.

Now reissued by Blue Note Records as part of its Tone Poet Series, this three-LP edition, which comes from a different source than previous releases, is that rare audiophile reissue where the sonic differences are immediately audible.

Recording music is complicated, and without the crucial assistance of producers and engineers, a lot of great records—not to mention successful musical careers—would not happen. Producers Steve Albini and Michael Cuscuna, two key figures from the music world who departed in recent months, richly deserve to be celebrated.

Though they worked in widely disparate genres—Cuscuna primarily in jazz, Albini in punk and noise rock—they are connected by their extraordinary efforts and unfailing taste. Both were exacting, dedicated, and supremely talented. Without the passion and obsessive nature of this one-of-a-kind pair, such records as Nirvana's In Utero and Mosaic Records' boxed sets, including The Blue Note Hank Mobley Fifties Sessions, to name just two examples, would not exist. Cuscuna and Albini were guides and molders, shaping music and our perceptions of it.