JAZZ & BLUES

Veterans do not get much more distinguished than Benny Golson, a composer, arranger, wonderful saxophonist and sometime pianist, whose work graces the albums of many of jazz's best-known names. Due to start a week's residency with the Jonathan Gee Trio at Ronnie Scott's on Monday, he is just one beneficiary of the vibrant reissue market, and swinging bop does not get better than his Benny Golson and the Philadephians on Blue Note. Golson also recorded for Chicago's Chess, though pianist Ahmad Jamal is perhaps the best known of the artists who turned out for this, thanks to a vote of confidence from Miles Davis. Some of his finest recordings feature on Cross Country Tour: 1958-1961.

Pianist Ramsey Lewis, also still around today, is most famous for records such as "The `In' Crowd" made for Chess four decades ago. The mesh of pop and gospel with jazz made a lasting impression on James Williams. His Ramsey Lewis Trio in Person 1960-1967 concentrates on the pop, but offers plenty of insight as to what all the fuss was about.

Another to have enjoyed a degree of success at Chess is James Moody, the former Dizzy Gillespie alumnus best known for the tune "Mood for Love". A hard-bopping saxophonist, he is represented by At the Jazz Workshop, a 1961 session, and by Moody's Mood For Love, on which he is joined by Golson on piano.

Doug Sahm is to Texas music what Dr John is to New Orleans: a living jukebox. His new record, Get A Life (Munich Records), is full of great Texas shuffles, Louisiana hoe-downs and off-the-wall lyrics. Demon Records' Edsel reissue imprint has recently released 1970s albums by Sahm and his longstanding collaborator Augie Meyers: Tex-Mex, and a lot else besides, at its best.