Dixieland Music

This is album l of a combined album featuring the Dukes at DisneyWorld and the second album is a recorded session about a year earlier. I recommend getting both albums together "The Dukes Marching through DisneyWorld and...(?)"

The Dukes of Dixieland always bring a lot of energy to any song that they do and this album is no exception. If you are a fan you will love this album.

This is album l of a combined album featuring the Dukes at DisneyWorld and the second album is a recorded session about a year earlier. I recommend getting both albums together "The Dukes Marching through DisneyWorld and...(?)"

The Dukes of Dixieland always bring a lot of energy to any song that they do and this album is no exception. If you are a fan you will love this album.

It was autumn 1954, the dawn of the high-fidelity era, when I started collecting records. I was in second grade and determined to build a world-class collection.

One of the delights of record collecting back then was a genre that's disappeared today: large studio orchestra recordings of custom-tailored arrangements of largely Broadway-based standards from the 1920s-1950s. The arrangers were celebrities in their own right back then and their studio orchestras often featured (uncredited) members of leading symphony orchestras and many jazz stars.

Once a week I would go to my record store and prowl their shelves. On this particular day I spied an important looking box set called "The Columbia Album of Popular American Music." Inside the slipcase were 4 2-record albums, each dedicated to a single popular songwriter and arranged by a single arranger. It was a sumptuous box with a sumptuous price ...

There was one album dedicated to George Gershwin arranged by Percy Faith, another for Jerome Kern arranged by Paul Weston, Richard Rodgers arranged by Andre Kostelanetz, and, finally, an album dedicated to the least familiar composer to me, Cole Porter, arranged by a very young, unknown Frenchman named Michel Legrand.

I had to have this collection. Fortunately the holidays were around the corner and my grandmother, who supported my interest in music, wanted to know what I wanted for my present. I told her and the box duly appeared among my presents.

I listened to the Cole Porter/Michel Legrand album after listening to the 3 albums of music with which I was familiar. Their sumptuous, string-drenched, respectful arrangements were wonderful and I expected to hear something similiar from the unknown Frenchman...

Instead, I had one of the most exciting listening experiences of my life: arrangements of songs it turned out I knew (I just hadn't known they were all by a man named Cole Porter) that combined classical and hard-charging jazz elements in such an original, dynamic way as to represent recompositions of Mr. Porter's timeless originals.

Nearly 50 years later, I still feel the same way. Whenever I play this CD version, friends invariably ask who is it because the arrangements are so brilliant. Legrand's wit and sophistication match Porter's at every turn: they are almost surrealistic, with the musicians sounding like they are having the time of their lives.

Of course Legrand has long since become world-famous as a jazz-oriented composer in his own right (although never, in my opinion, approaching the unsentimental brilliance of his work on this album). But this album, despite its slightly congested sound, remains not just a pinnacle in his career, but one of the most intense examples of what arrangers of genius could accomplish before synthesizers and other digital resources started replacing overly expensive "live" studio orchestras of symphonic size.

This is the kind of reissue that usually goes out of print 2 minutes after it's released these days, so do yourself a favor and get it NOW for one of the most amazing examples of arranging genius you will ever hear.

Unfortunately, all tracks are mono-mastered, so that the CD is more suited to the background than to the foreground.

Michel Legrand, that master of orchestral color! For the most part, all the songs are enjoyable, but for a few ballads, Legrand misses the sentiment needed to convey the emotions Porter intended. The swing numbers are the best, with a highly original "Love for Sale" and "From this Moment On." Recomended to those who are tired of hearing the same traditional arrangements attached to Cole Porter classics.

JAZZ COLLECTOR'S EDITION * THE SMALL GROUPS features mainly late 1940s swing and bop. Source material ranges from acceptable to very good, and is most likely radio or V Disc transcriptions. Filtering levels vary. What makes this a particularly interesting album is the wide variety of groups offered. Many tracks here include spoken intros-- Jack Benny's Don Wilson is one announcer.

The set opens with the Harry James Sextet doing some bop. The Sonny Dunham sides are live, possibly recorded at a club. The Krupa and Herman cuts are a bit sub-par, fidelity-wise, while the Dorsey sides are very clear. Artie Shaw's "Dr Livingston I Presume" includes a harpsichord, of all things. Del Simmons closes with a rousing traditional Dixieland number to an appreciative audience.

Personnel are given for all groups. Some artists here: Charlie Teagarden, Billy Butterfield, Charlie Ventura, Nick Fatool, Red Norvo, Ziggy Elman.

This is a fun to listen to album. Recommended.

TOTAL RUNNING TIME -- 48:41