Verve Records has announced Verve Records: The Sound of America, a new collection created for the label’s 70th anniversary. The set, available as a four-LP box and a two-CD edition, gathers recordings from the Norman Granz era by artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Oscar Peterson, Charlie Parker, and Jack Kerouac. It is available to pre-order now.
Norman Granz biographer Tad Hershorn curated and co-produced the collection, which surveys the range of material issued by Verve during Granz’s leadership. Alongside vocal jazz and instrumental performances, the 30-track program includes Parker with strings, Kerouac’s Beat poetry, and stand-up comedy. Selections include Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s “You Won’t Be Satisfied (Until You Break My Heart),” Peterson’s “Tenderly,” Holiday’s “I Thought About You,” and Parker’s “Laura.”
The anthology also reaches beyond the label’s best-known singers and soloists. Its tracklist includes Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Art Tatum, Buddy Rich, Mel Tormé, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and others. Spoken-word and comedy selections include Kerouac’s “The Subterraneans,” Mort Sahl’s “The Future Lies Ahead,” Jonathan Winters’ “Football Game,” and Shelley Berman’s “Department Store.” The LP sequence closes with Astaire’s “No Strings (I’m Fancy Free),” while the CD edition presents the same program across two discs. Other tracks pair Lionel Hampton with Getz and Fitzgerald with Armstrong, reflecting the collaborative sessions represented across the set.
The release forms part of Verve 70, the label’s yearlong anniversary campaign. Verve, founded by Granz in 1956 as a home for Fitzgerald, has also scheduled an anniversary concert at SummerStage in Central Park for September 2, 2026. The event will feature Samara Joy, Liana Flores, aron!, and Sparklmami, with Christian McBride and Mei Semones appearing as special guests. The broader campaign includes additional releases and reissues tied to the anniversary. Verve’s current roster includes Jon Batiste, Kurt Vile, Arooj Aftab, Diana Krall, and Samara Joy, extending a catalog that also includes Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, and much more.
