16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally Restored! Listen and Enjoy!, January 3, 2003
This review is from: Army Air Force Band (Audio CD)
It took 45 years, but we finally have a release of this album the way it was supposed to be! BMG, with the diligent help of AAF Band collector and scholar Ed Polic, have brought back the recordings from the original 5-LP set of 1956 along with nearly two dozen additional selections not included in that landmark album. It's a treasure - the liner notes provide recording dates and locations, personnel changes and other information absent from the original release. But more importantly, the CDs reverse what can only be described as tampering on the LP release. You can once again hear Glenn Miller's and announcer Don Briggs' introductions and audience reactions that were removed from the 1956 set, and the medleys are as originally performed rather than being spliced together from unrelated broadcasts.
The fidelity on all but a few of these 60-year-old recordings is amazing. There are new performances of several of Miller's civilian band hits, experimental pieces such as Mel Powell's concerto "Pearls on Velvet", and lush pop songs featuring the full 21-member string section and Johnny Desmond's smooth vocals. With the added ambience of the restored introductions and thunderous applause from the audience, there's a new sense of what it must have been like to listen to this phenomenal orchestra "live and in person"!
If you buy this album, I'd also suggest complementing it with the other two significant boxed sets of AAF Band recordings which have appeared in the last few years, since each one presents the orchestra from a somewhat different perspective.
Many of the tracks on this album were recorded somewhat earlier in the band's existence, in mid- to late 1943. The performances are by and large either taken from live broadcasts or remote concerts, and there is a spontaneity that few bands seemed to be able to match in the studio. If you think you know "In the Mood", just listen to it on this album! On the other hand, there are some missteps - a dropped note here and there, and some programming lapses (what WAS the Major thinking when he selected "Mother Machree"??? Paging Lawrence Welk!) - but they all add to the sense of "being there".
The other two sets I'd recommend are The Secret Broadcasts, studio recordings done in the spring of 1944, and The Lost Recordings, made in the UK in late 1944. The musicians were probably at their most cohesive during that early 1944 period, and it shows in a range of performances extending from Ellingtonian jazz to serious classical works. The UK recordings are noteworthy because you can hear how the orchestra was evolving towards the new style and repertory that would have kept Glenn Miller in the forefront of popular music, if only ....
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Army Air Force Band (Box Set), January 26, 2002
This review is from: Army Air Force Band (Audio CD)
I received the original 5-record album for Christmas in 1956. At the time it was a true landmark addition to the Miller discography. Thirty years later I purchased the 45-rpm boxed set. Now comes the CD re-release of this legendary work.
One cannot provide enough superlatives in description of this latest BMG release from the Miller library. It is one of the finest Miller releases yet to appear on compact disc...well produced and absolutely sparkling in its audio quality.
This set, along with the 9-volume AVID "Missing Chapters" series, shine as the definitive standards of the Miller AAF Orchestra representations, and should be a part of any Miller fan's collection.
One should give praise and thanks to Ed Polic, who has worked tirelessly in the effort to convince BMG to provide the public with so many previously unavailable Miller material.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
AT LAST THE RESTORED 1950's GLENN MILLER AAF ALBUM, November 1, 2001
This review is from: Army Air Force Band (Audio CD)
GLENN MILLER's Army Air Force Orchestra at it's BEST!!!!
WELL DONE BMG!!!! THE GREATEST GLENN MILLER ORCHESTRA EVER and restored as it was broadcast during 1943 to 1944. THIS IS THE ORCHESTRA THAT GAVE THE G.I's in Europe That much needed "HUNK O' HOME"...... THIS MUSIC & GLENN's memory will never die.....
THIS CD set should be an ALL TIME BEST SELLER!!!!!!!!!!
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