Customer Reviews

17 #1's

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I enjoy big band music, and Tommy Dorsey's trombone is STILL incredible. However, the present collection was compiled very literally as all of the band's singles that charted at number one. Much of the band's best music did NOT make it to number one, so we miss some real treasures such as 'Opus One', 'Blue Skies' and almost all of the early career of Frank Sinatra. To make things worse, the sound quality on many of these number ones is atrocious. This would be understandable in light of the era (1930s), but the Homefront collection from a couple of years later sounds so much cleaner that this album is a distraction.

That said, there are still a few gems here. 'Indian Summer' and 'Satan Takes a Holiday' are great instrumentals, and the Dorsey/Sinatra 'In the Blue of Evening' is treasurable. Others, such as 'Dolores' and 'Marie' really were huge hits and remain listenable. But 'The Music Goes Round' and 'Dipsy Doodle' have aged very poorly -- Edythe Wright may have been a talent in her era, but these novelty ditties do not serve her well. If you are seriously interested in the history of American popular music, you will appreciate the entire album, but I otherwise doubt you will find many occasions to drag these old chestnuts out for the CD player.

If you are interested in a nice TD sampler, the Homefront 1941-1945 album is more listenable. For completists, the 17 Number Ones is an important purchase.

This has several problems to which others have alluded: the first is it seems to have been thrown together willy-nilly from whatever was available, and neither of the credited creators seems to have cared much. So we get ancient heavy filtering and deticking in some tracks and unaltered metal parts on others. Every track on this album could sound good. But Sony Music is essentially abandoning all but the latest pop dreck, so there will be no room for improvements even for downloads.

The second is the selection. These may be "number-ones" by some arbitrary eenie-meenie-minie-moe of Joel Whitburn's (and record popularity polls from these days were very arbitrary), but for the most part they may not even rank in the top-ten with some Dorsey fans, being largely the plush, sedate, metronomic stuff of the days when TD led a dull conventional pop band, before Sy Oliver arrived; and he didn't change everything as most of the concluding ballads are Axel Stordahl's, for better and for worse. What we do not have is the zing and pow of some of his best jazz sides; these appear on other anthologies which of course SME has deigned fit to delete -- not to mention three Rhino MGM-soundtrack albums, all of which are long gone. Indeed SME's idea of the perfect Tommy Dorsey anthology is the one that ends with the stripper music for Elvis. Thankfully its two-disc revise of selections from its '94 all-Sinatra box shows that, with a dedicated producer, TD's power will always shine through.

Downright amateurish! That's all I can say about this one. It was obviously thrown together as a quick, cheap after-thought by pulling various cuts from previous reissues and assembling them without regard to their sound. Some of them are muffled and bland. Others are tinny and squeaky. A few sound good, but they all should. "I'll Never Smile Again", one of the most moving TD recordings, is horribly marred by some kind of filter being turned up and down at random during playback.

Awful, guys! Just awful. Should be done over.

This is an exelelnt cd, the best palce to start when exploring the exciting swing music of Tommy Dorsey. A wide variety of Dorsey's groups are covered here including his early "hot" sides with his Calmbake Seven, a "hot" dixieland dance jazz band, with "hot" rhythm singer Edythe Wright(Dorsey's mistress at the time). Some of the Clambake 7 highlights are The Dipsey Dooddle, The Big Apple, and Music Maestro Please(all with acceptional vocals by Miss wright). The later part of the cd covers the big band with novlelty songs like Marie(sung squarely & stiffly by Jack Leonard), as well as sinatra's early hits which showcase ole blues eyes as the 1st singer to show emotion and sensuality in song wit hsuch great songs as I'll Never Smile Again. this is the perfect Dorsey cd, and by the way sound quality is SUPERB, I've never heard such great mastering, they don't monkey with the sound, this is the way the msuic was heard in the 30's and 40's. Classic swing & dixieland small group hot jazz!!!

the CD is in great shape (though the hinge of the case was damaged). Great music and great price--THANK YOU.

The majority of the songs in this collection sound like they were recorded direct from a 78 rpm turntable - with a dull needle!

There are plenty of Tommy Dorsey CDs out there with improved sound quality containing the same songs, especially those where Frank Sinatra & The Pied Pipers were the vocalists.

The liner notes [if you can read them - blue ink on a purple background and the smallest font possible makes for hard reading] are minimal.

RCA and BMG should be ashamed of themselves for putting this piece of garbage on the market in this day and age. No wonder it's "currently unavailable" and used copies are going so cheaply. Avoid it unless you want a fancy coffee coaster.

Since the Big Band era came to an end years before I was born it is difficult for me to wade through all of the various CD offerings out there. It is hard to know what is worthwhile and what is mediocre. What I do know is this. When a song reaches Number One on the Billboard music charts there is usually a very good reason. This is what attracted me to this marvelous CD in the first place. As a collector interested in the popular music of virtually the entire 20th century I frankly do not have time to completely explore the complete discography of many artists. As such, what I am generally looking for is the best collection of hits available. This CD originally released back in 1990 offers just that. Imagine finding 17 #1 hits on one CD. How many artists out there had that many tunes reach the top of the charts?
And whats not to like about the music? The Seventeen Number Ones spans an eight year period from 1935 to 1943. Quite surprising to me was the fact that there was only one instrumental among them--1937's "Satan Takes A Holiday". Ah, but there are certainly some great vocalists who sang with the Dorsey band over the years. Edythe Wright appears on some of the very earliest numbers including "On Treasure Island" and the bouncy "The Music Goes 'Round and Around" from 1935. Jack Leonard can be heard on 4 tunes including "Marie" and the lovely "All the Things You Are" which to me is one of the seminal tunes of the Big Band era. And of course Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers are featured on 4 numbers as well including my favorite song on the CD 1941's "Dolores".
Some people are unhappy with the sound quality on this CD. These songs do not appear to have been remastered. But remember, this one was released way back in 1990. I for one find a certain charm in hearing this music the way it would have sounded back in the 1930's and 1940's. My biggest problem with this CD is with the liner notes. What genius thought that it would be a great idea to print the liner notes with royal blue ink on a magenta background? And given the miniscule size of the print it is virtually impossible to read. But all in all, I would not hesitate to recommend this one. Enjoy!

In the 20's & 30's Tommy Dorsey played hot jazz, and when the Dorsey Bros. Orch. broke up Tommy led a hot dance band, and the Clambake Seven, a swing combo. This cd starts in with a big hit Marie, showcasing the bands cutsie commercial side, then there are really hot cuts like Music Goes Round & Round which feature the hot vocals of the gorgeous and swingin' Edythe Wright. Also there are good examples of "society swing" like The Dipsey doodle, and You. As well as dance crazes like The Big Apple. Then the sweet side of the band is showcased with Sinatra's vocals on songs like Dolores. Exellent overview of the many sides of Dorsey's music, and a great intro to the lilting swing vocals of Miss Edythe Wright.

I think the cd is pretty good. It has some harder to find Dorsey stuff but at the same time the track listing on the cd itself is a maze to try and figure out. Rather than listing the song and whom lended their vocals it has the vocalists on a seprate charte with song numbers near their names for the songs that featured them. It gets confusing when there is more than one vocalist and the order isn't even in a very distinguishable way that can be quickly looked at. The song quality is decent.