Otis Redding
Otis! The Definitive Otis Redding (1993)
If you're looking for a definition of Southern soul, it might well be the way Otis used impulse and exclamation to serve the tune at hand. If he wept, you wept, and if he exploded, you could feel something rumbling in your gut. This four-disc retrospective includes the singer's earliest recordings, his duets with Carla Thomas, and a variety of gems from "Shake" to "Tramp" to "Respect." Plus a disc of sweat-soaked live cuts.

Sammy Davis Jr.
Yes I Can! The Sammy Davis Jr. Story (1999)
Was Sammy Davis Jr. the most talented entertainer on the planet? This four-disc collection follows the dapper song-and-dance man as he hung with Hollywood's hippest, showed America a very sleek way of defining "cool," and smashed through the Vegas color barrier with his own inimitable interpretations of pop chestnuts. Don't be scared: He's way deeper than "The Candyman."

Charles Mingus
Passions of a Man: The Complete Atlantic Recordings (1957-1961) (1997)
Whether physically assaulting bandmates or composing tunes that churned with joy, lust, and rage, the bandleader/bassist could be considered the progenitor of the term "in your face." His larger-than-life persona is explicit on this collection of explosive ensemble music that finds convention after convention being broken by a black saint in a white heat.

John Coltrane
The Heavyweight Champion: The Complete Atlantic Recordings (2000)
Jazz's most revered icon had an enormous drive to create, and you can hear that volition in every line fired off by his tenor sax on this essential seven-disc retrospective. His Atlantic work finds him moving into a new level of eloquence, where simple blues motifs took on great emotion, and the thriller-diller antics of records such as Giant Steps instigated a pilgrimage toward nirvana.

Ornette Coleman
Beauty Is a Rare Thing: The Complete Atlantic Recordings (1993)
Perceived as a renegade in the late 1950s, the composer/bandleader gave jazz a truly new sound that was lithe, impetuous, and abstract. Heard through modern ears, his key work of the '60s, which featured trumpet, bass, drums, and alto sax, is as gorgeous as it is stimulating. And unusually personal, too. No wonder one disc is titled "This Is Our Music."

Various Artists
Rhapsodies in Black: Music and Words From the Harlem Renaissance (2000)
A heady dive into a time (1920s ) when uptown Manhattan was the cultural capital of the country, this 90-track collection spills over with poetry, jazz, swing, and blues. Each was crucial in qualifying African-American intellectualism and establishing a generation of artists - Jean Toomer, Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes - whose work has been deemed timeless.