Norman Granz started Verve in 1956 with a specific purpose in mind: to record Ella Fitzgerald properly, with the budget and freedom her talent deserved. What grew from that original idea over the next several decades became something with no real peer in the history of recorded music: the largest and most important jazz catalog ever assembled under one roof.

The names that passed through Verve read like the complete story of jazz at its peak. Billie Holiday. Oscar Peterson, who became one of the label's most recorded artists and a defining voice in the postwar piano tradition. Bill Evans, whose sessions here remain some of the most quietly devastating records ever made. Stan Getz, who brought bossa nova to American ears through the Getz/Gilberto recordings, including The Girl from Ipanema, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1965. Dizzy Gillespie. Count Basie. Wes Montgomery. Jimmy Smith. Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Ben Webster.

Granz ran the label with a philosophy that was unusual for its time and that still stands out: he refused to book his artists in venues with segregated seating, treated everyone first class on the road, and believed that jazz deserved the same respect and presentation as any other serious art form. The records reflect that. These are not afterthoughts or budget reissues. They are documents of musicians at the height of their powers, recorded by people who understood what they were witnessing.

If jazz means anything to you, this is where a serious collection begins.