Customer Reviews

Best Of The Big Bands

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All 16 tracks onthis CD are vintage 40's cuts. Columbia-Sony's CEDAR digital processing system make 90% of them sound like they were recorded 4 years ago rather than 45! I have all the cuts on 78's and LP's, and the difference is astounding!! What's more, the musical integrity of the original tracks is maintained...BUY IT

The one thing you must know about this first-class album, the overwhelming reason you should buy it, is this: it has an alternate take of "Sentimental Journey." While talk of alternates conjures up the Trane and Elvis and makes eyeballs glaze over, the distinction here isn't academic; the alternate outlasts the master by forty seconds. (Will "The Expert" Friedwald was so busy conjuring up liner-note malted milks he didn't notice.) It also underlines Alec Wilder's dictum that this smoochiest of ballads must be done "VERY slowly." In another age, with a better technology, this would be the master take. The song's intrinsic excellence made it a million seller; here, it becomes even more self-evidently a landmark of American music.
And "Sentimental Journey" was central to Les Brown's ensemble going from an entertaining but conventional dance band to an awesome, electrifying presence, absorbing the modernity of post-war swing without being swamped by it. (It's hard to judge here with the jumbled contents and lack of a sessionography.) And there was no better symbiosis than between Brown and his "super-canary" Doris Day. The two would record and perform for a combined century and never did better. She brought the sex and the band brought the wolf whistle. For that you'll have to turn to Collectors' Choice Music's two-disc anthology (itself an expansion of a previous "Best of the Big Bands" release). As a start, however, you can't go wrong with this excellent set.

This is probably the best collection of Les Brown's work available, though the packaging is minimalist. "Leap Frog" is well known from the soundtrack of the original "Nutty Professor" movie.