Jazz is one of the major music genes before the arrival of rock & rolls. Even after the trend in music shifted in the mid 1950s, lots of non-rock music (including jazz) still populated mainstream pop chart and radio waves throughout the first half of 1960s.

This issue of ACE’s Golden Age of American Popular Music series focuses on those that managed to break into the Pop Hot 100 chart during the high time of rock & rolls. Many oldies music fans may recognize some titles such as Stan Getz & Astrud Gilberto’s “The Girl from Ipanema”, Ramsey Lewis’ “The ‘In’ Crowd”, and Eddie Harris’s “Exodus”. The rest may sound less familiar to non-jazz fans, although some actually broke into pop’s top40 domain, but still the real music gems. The producers purposely selected only the singles version of the songs which are, sometimes, rarer than the album version. Some of them, such as Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” and Lee Mogan’s “The Sidewinder”, are available here for the first time on CD. Among the highlights are one-time hits such as Jimmy Smith’s “Walk on the Wild Side”, Moe Koffman’s “Swingin’ Shepherd Blues”, Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind”, Young Holt Trio’s “Wack Wack”, Jimmy McGriff’s “I’ve Got A Woman”, and Cannonball Adderley’s “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”. It is an excellent way to give an overview of jazz influences during the era of rock & rolls - an album that would appeal both jazz and non-jazz fans alike.