Dixieland Music

Jazz and classical music collectors alike will find this disc a joyful romp. The selections are drawn from private collections of 78 rpm records, Columbia and affiliated labels, 1937-1947. Sony, employs from the Netherlands remarkable sound engineering and restoration on each track. Formidable lack of hiss and distortion is achieved through the process. The instrumental detail from the mono recordings is truly enhanced. Besides the bands of Miller, Goodman, and Herman; lesser known artists who would have gone down in obscurity are also featured. Some of the jazzy/classical arrangements will have you toe-tapping or foxtrotting
accross the room. At the very least, the informative booklet will help make this set a conversation piece.

This CD contains some older recordings of various swing Jazz and big bands giving their own interpretation of classical music. The age of the recordings certainly takes away from the quality of the sound, but at the same time, gives the sound a sort of nostalgic feeling to it. In any case, as the title implies, the music swings in a great way!

I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys big band or nostalgia. Also, anyone who enjoys listening to various arrangements on classical music themes. It makes for a great addition to any collection.

This little item is extremely original because it involves classical music being played in a jazz style. Most people don't seem to appreciate classical music, and most don't seem to appreciate jazz, so I doubt many would like this, but i sure know I did. I have an extensive music collection, and this was the missing link. I thought I had everything before I bought this. You can seriously call this the gift for someone who has everything. The music-lover will enjoy this. Make sure they either like classical or jazz, though, or it might not be a good gift idea.

Contrary to it's name, not all of the songs are written by Beethoven. there is acollection of music by all kinds of famous classical artists, performed by a collection of famous jazz artists. Everyone knows most of the songs, you just probably don't know it. A lot of poeple know a lot of classical songs, but just don't know their names. This CD is top quality, even though the songs were recorded in the 30's and the 40's. It's surprising. The CD is like nothing I've ever heard before, and that is the majot reason that I really like it. And because most of the songs are familiar even to those who don't listen to classical music.

The album, The Best of Al Hirt, featuring the Grammy award-winning trumpet player, Al Hirt, includes some of his best work chosen from the more than fifty albums he recorded in his career. This album combines genres of blues, jazz, and pop to keep the listener tapping his foot, not to mention keep him mesmerized by Hirt's amazing talent and ability. The listener can close his eyes and be transported to another day and time. The songs on The Best of Al Hirt seem to walk one through the sights, sounds, and feelings of an entire year.
The second song, "Sweet Georgia Brown," sounds like an exciting, summer storm. The song begins with a powerful trumpet that seem to be warning winds of a great storm. As the trumpet plays forte to piano, the winds blow stronger to more calm. After the trumpet introduction, the clarinet and saxophone join in as heavy rain, adding to the storm's velocity. After an interlude of just heavy rain, the trumpet comes back to life, blowing like strong wind. The trombone interrupts with explosions of thunder. Relaxing echoes of the piano take place of the noisy storm; its notes sound like calm, sprinkling rain and signal the end of the monstrous storm. Without warning however, symbols crash and drums sound to illustrate the return of thunder and lightning. Immediately following are all of the elements of the exciting storm combined; the trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, drums, and trombone create the sounds of a summer storm that has not yet ended.
The third track, "New Orleans," sounds like a cloudy, winter day. The song is obviously blues from the beginning. The trumpet plays, calmly, moving down the music scale constantly as if the notes were flakes of snow falling slowly from the sky. The snow continues to fall until the tempo begins to move more quickly. The trumpet turns into more of a jazz sound, and drums are added to the arrangement. It is as if the sun has peeked from behind the clouds, giving hope and holding promise that the day will not be so cold and depressing. Unfortunately, the clouds move to conceal the sun, and it is back to the blues. By the end, the trumpet seems to be pleading for the sun to come back out as it screams to a much higher register than the rest of the song.
The seventh song, "Stardust," sounds like a clear, spring morning. The mood is calm, quiet, and extremely laid back. The trumpet is not blasting but slow and melodious. The morning seems to be warming up as the sound of the trumpet seems to wake up and speed up slightly. Spring's sense of hope is evident through the key in which the song is in, and the clarinets sing as if they are tired birds returning home from the south. The trumpet playfully sings alone with energy, illustrating the plants growing and turning green. By the end of the song, spring has seemed to arrive.
The final song, "Java," sounds like a cool, fall afternoon. The upbeat tempo from the beginning suggests a comfortable day with the sun shining. The trumpet and saxophone take turns; colorful leaves fall to the ground and are crunched underneath feet. The cycle continues until gusts of wind come, blowing the trumpet's notes up and down the music scale. The crunched leaves are blown all over the place. The trumpet ends the song playfully, suggesting children diving into a pile of leaves with the last, strongly-accented note.
Mixed in with the rest of the incredible pieces on the album, The Best of Al Hirt, are these four songs that illustrate the seasons of a year. Memories of spring, summer, fall, and winter are bound to come back to the listener.

The Dukes of Dixiland - great music of course! But I had barely put it on the CD player than I had to change it, and only then realized that I was only getting 19 minutes of Dixieland for the money. Since most of my CD's go to 45 minutes or more, I felt a bit short-changed.

I feel ripped off after buying this CD. Somehow it didn't register that there were only 8 cuts on the disk--a total of about 25-26 minutes of music. Seems to me that ten bucks is a little steep.

A CD with 8 tracks and a total time of 19 minutes is unsatsfactory, especially when one of those tracks is clearly an outtake, or should have been. On that particular track, the trumpet comes in about two measures too soon, realizes his mistake and stops playing until the rest of the band comes in. Oops!

The CD is monaural, which would be okay, except that it was apparently recorded with only one microphone (perhaps around 1949-50?). The result is that, for most of the album, the piano and bass are barely audible.

None of the players are identified, except that the cover picture is apparently of the Assunto family.

I have heard a LOT of Dixieland Jazz in my 66+ years, and no one does it better. The essence of the feelings of each musician is totally awesome.

With just 13 selections, this hardly touches the surface of his best with Decca. Also, I have always wondered about the title "The Best Of The Decca Years Vol. One." If anyone has ever seen a Volume Two I'd sure like to hear about it.

This kind of release may have had a place in the early days of CDs but let's face it, now that the buying public knows that some can contain upwards of 30 selections on a single disc, this just doesn't cut it anymore.

The sound quality (AAD) is good, and there are four pages of liner notes written by Joe Goldberg along with a nice photo of Louis and the All Stars in 1949 (Cozy Cole, Jack Teagarden, Arvell Shaw, Barney Bigard, and Earl Hines]. There is also a track-by-track listing of the contents showing the musicians on each, and three Decca label reproductions for In The Shade Of The Old Apple Tree [with The Mills Brothers in 1937], Blueberry Hill from 1949, and La Vie En Rose from 1950.

And just to re-assure the doubt expressed by another reviewer, these are all the original single release renditions - it says so right in the liner notes.

A great example of the man's work. Long Live Satch! As an added bonus, he teams with the Mills Brothers in what I believe may be the happiest song in the world... In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree. A great disk at a great price.

Louis Armstrong has excelled greatly in the fields of vocal and instrumental music. Artists of our day rarely accomplish the same feats as he has. May he rest in peace.

Here are the songs that will always be associated with SATCHMO before the sixties.In his career,LOUIS recorded with virtually every record company:DECCA,RCA,VERVE,COLUMBIA and even CAPITOL(the soundtrack of HIGH SOCIETY).In the best of department,he is the world champion.Trying to compile the numerous greatest hits cds in his catalogue is quite a task.This one is among the ones that delivers the goods.Once you've heard ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STEET done by him or everything else heard here,you can never imagine another doing it.As LOUIS says to BING during GONE FISHIN:you ain't tight up you dog and THE GYPSY although she often lies was right when she told you to buy this.This disc is offered at a low price and ... is never out of stock with SATCHMO.

I'm no expert on Louis Armstrong (though I do have some of his early Hot Five recordings), so I couldn't tell you whether or not these recordings represent the best versions of various standards or not. Armstrong probably recorded some of the tunes a dozen times. But this disc is a great intro to the style -- Armstrong's commanding trumpet solos as well as his inimitable gravelly voice.

The best track is probably the first, "Sunny Side of the Street." There are two big trumpet solos here, one at the beginning and one at the end -- and they are both magnificent. Please forgive me Wynton Marsalis, but I have always doubted Armstrong's techincal proficiency -- at least with regard to polish and note-perfect virtuosity -- but the man had musical cojones, no question about it. He steamrolls through this evergreen with his trumpet on full blast, in a kind of drunken swagger, knocking everyone else out of the water (listen to how he obliterates the trombone bit that precedes his second solo at the end of the song). I think that "swagger" in his trumpet lines is more or less the same thing as rubato, combined with lots of strategic note-slurring; anyway it sounds swell.

I also love the recording of "Lazy River," on which Louis groans and grumbles and mumbles in between singing the verses (I love it when he says "Modulate, daddy, modulate!" as the piano solo comes in). The funny thing is that a lot of the seemingly "improvised" mannerisms on this recording (all that stuff at the beginning, "talking" to the trombone -- "way down, way down, way down" etc.) are almost exactly the same as those on another version of the same song from over 20 years earlier. Apparently when Louis found something he liked, he stuck with it.

Lots of other good stuff here. The duet with Louis Jordan, "(I'll Be Glad When You're Dead) You Rascal You," is delightful. Ditto the lazy "Gone Fishing" with Bing Crosby ("I'm real gone, man"). This disc features the version of "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" that Nora Ephron used in "Sleepless In Seattle." Unfortunately not all of Louis' costars hold up well -- even the liner notes admit the chorus on "That Lucky Old Sun" is "unspeakable" (their words), and the Mills Brothers, backing up Satch on a 1930s recording of "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree," seem quite dated compared to Armstrong, however influential they may have been back in the day.

All in all, a good collection.