Customer Reviews

1924-1938

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

 

 

During my student years in the 70s I heard these tracks for the first time in a set of 4 old and noisy LPs I borrowed: "The Fletcher Henderson story". I copied some of its best tracks to my old hissing tape recorder, and for years I enjoyed this joyful original music, despite the ticks and hissing. I especially liked the arrangements and the enthusiastic solos of the many famous musicians that made part of their debut in this great band (like Lester Young, Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, etc.). You can hear the excitement and joy of playing together. Listen for instance to "Back in your own backyard".

Until now I never found these "best" tracks back again in any record shop, so I was amazed to find most of them here together on one CD. I bought it, and it is still one of my favourites from the early days of jazz.

A very nice cross section of Fletch's wonderful bands. While we become accustomed to less than hifi sound from this era, the variations in recording quality from track to track are distracting. Cuts are arranged randomly, although liner notes are by date so looking up band members on any track is difficult. The scope of the recordings and the reasonable price still make this a good intro to the upbeat complex arrangements and the high musician craftsmanship that mark the most under appreciated big band of the era.

Imagine my disappointment in recieving a copied disc. The inlay is on piece of card with a photocopied graphic. No track info. I have other Giants of Jazz CD's so I know that there is something amiss. So what now, worse, it was Amazon itself that I ordered off. My theory is that the mp3 tracks have simply been burned onto a CD and the inlay scanned. I can't even find out where to complain on site.

Fletcher Henderson is one of the most under-appreciated figures in 20th century American music (his arrangements for the Benny Goodman Orchestra, for instance, represented some of Goodman's greatest hits), and this CD should go a long way to introducing you to his genius.

Henderson is joined here by a virtual Who's Who of the greatest musicians of the 1920's-1940's, and there's not a bad track on the disc; in fact, most of them are absolute gems.

My personal favorite track on this CD is Fletcher Henderson's arrangement of "Big John's Special," a song written by his brother, Horace.