Fats Waller, If you Got to Ask, You Ain’t Got It (Bluebird/Legacy). This is not a comprehensive Waller set, but a well chosen three-disc survey of the stride pianist whose song writing, singing and irrepressible personality made him an American favorite son in the 1930s and early ’40s. Even listeners who have the seventeen CDs Bluebird released toward the end of the last century will want this box because of the 98-page booklet. The photographs, the introduction by producer Orrin Keepnews and the masterly notes by Dan Morgenstern make it one of the best studies of Waller. The music, from 1926 (“St. Louis Blues”) to 1942 (“Jitterbug Waltz”) is sublime.