Customer Reviews

Bix & Tram

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

 

 

These four CD's stand, in my opinion, as one of the monuments of the work of the late great John R. T. Davies, scarcely less remarkable than his remastering of the Armstrong Hot Fives and Hot Sevens. Alas, they stand in direct competition to the new Mosaic set, also documenting the symbiosis of Frankie Trumbauer and Bix Beiderbecke. Both sets make available much of the best work of these two musicians, Bix lionized, Tram far less well-known but certainly worth the attention of anyone who cares about music, whether it is called "jazz" or not. As for Bix, these CD's include not only his work performances with Trumbauer, but his beautiful "Bix Beiderbeck & his Gang" sides, and his occasional piano work.
There has been increasing criticism of JSP, with the purport that it steals sound recordings in ways that clearly go beyond the law, not limiting itself to picking up performances, such as these, which have fallen out of the fifty-year international copyright protection. This particular set is clearly a legitimate re-mastering, not a burn-over. Listeners will have to make their own decision between this and the Mosaic set.

Rarely you are able to hear as well remastered recordings as these ones. Actually, they will bring you to the year 1927! You will get shivers when you listen to this, especially record # 1 in this box. One of the best cd boxes I have ever purchased.

Just finished listening to this set, and must say that the sound from these '20s recordings is not bad at all (and I own plenty of this re-mastered material); I would probably rate this 4*, but went up a notch to counteract the ridiculous 1* rating by another reviewer - not sure 'what' he was listening to relatvie to the comments made. The material is generally good although some of the vocal work on later discs can become rather annoying (just the singing style of the time - better appreciated in 'small doses'); but for the 'price of admission' this is an invaluable collection of recordings w/ Bix & Tram (and plenty of other famous jazz performers in their early years) together!

Let me first say this... if you want to listen to Bix Beiderbecke's short stint with the Frankie Trumbauer Orchestra on CD, you have two choices: the two Columbia CD's from the early '90s and this JSP box set. The JSP set does give you more tracks, but all the essential tracks are available on the Columbia set too. A number of the tracks in the JSP set don't even have Bix on them.

So which option wins out? I own both sets, and have compared extensively. Risking the anger of the John R.T. Davies fans, i'll have to give the nod to the Columbia discs. Read on for the differences you will hear (if you want to hear them).

The JSP set. This was re-mastered from very clean 78s by one of the best musical restorers of the last 30 years. There is a nice heft to the music, with strong bass present. Dynamic range is pretty good, but a little lacking in the upper register. You can especially notice when someone takes a solo, it sounds like you have your hands slightly covering your ears, and loses some of that upper-end definition. Still, this definitely sounds better than one might think for very early electrical (microphone) recording.

The Columbia set. This was re-mastered from the original metal and glass parts from the Columbia vaults. While there is a bit less heft, and could use a hair more bass, this definitely offers the music cleaner and more transparent. You can really hear every solo very smoothly and cleanly. It's more transparent and crisp than the JSP set.

So, both sets have their ups and downs. The problem with the JSP set is that no matter how talented the late John RT Davies was, he could only do so much, as he didn't have access to the original masters. He had to use consumer-level 78's. The problem with that is two-fold. For one, they are one generation removed from the master, so there is a slight degradation in fidelity. Second, a consumer-level 78 just can not hold the same quality of musical information as the original masters did. If they did, then masters would have just been made of the same material and process as the 78's. Again, no matter how talented a re-master is, if he's working with 78's instead of the masters, he has to work with a lower-quality medium. That said, sometimes masters are badly damaged or lost, and 78's are the only way to go. But not in the case of this music. Like most Okeh recordings of this era, the masters were recorded remarkably well, and have survived in pretty good shape.

That all said, i remind you that the Columbia set is not perfect. They were remastered more than 20 years ago, and technology has improved quite a bit. If it were re-done today, from the original parts, it would absolutely sound better than either of these.

So, what it all comes down to is taste. Neither set has much surface noice/scratchiness on it, so don't worry about that. If you want to hear more of the actual music, with Bix's trumpet in a clean tone, then get the Columbia set. It's definitely closer to what would have been heard in the studio. If you want more tracks, and aren't going to be critical with your listening, you will probably be fine with the JSP set. To me, it only sounds inferior when i compare it to the Columbia set.

NOTE!!! I forgot that there was also a Mosaic Records box set of all this. It came out about 5 years ago, and is out-of-print. I don't have it, so can't compare, but usually their stuff is mastered from the originals, and is likely the best-sounding you will get of Bix-Trumbauer material. Bear in mind, you may end up paying through the nose for it.

It is crazy! 80 years after his death, Bix still gets conflated with...Racial politics? Issues about who gets to decide what becomes canonical? Something...

Wake up, people! The man was a genius!

OK, you can say that his SCENE got more play in the literature than it deserved (although now there's some backlash about this) because, at least up until recently, White (non - Crow Jim) writers had a larger part than they should have had in writing the History - look at all those comments (here, on Amazon) that claim that Lost Chords is "the best book on Jazz" Yow! But still...

It is amazing to me that there are people I know who care about Jazz History, who know all the classic Armstrong and Ellington masterpieces, who don't know (at least) Bix's 10 greatest solos.

And a few of those solos are here, in great sound, at a bargain price.

Yes, you have to hear Trumbauer do Amos and Andy a few times - that's really unfortunate.

The acolytes like to say that these musicians were virtually color - blind, that (at least for the time) they were racially enlightened. I honestly haven't found much evidence of that.

Bix only lived until the age of 28. It would've been interesting to know his thoughts about all of this.

But, in any case...

Now Playing: Rhythm King, from the 3rd disc. What an incredible poignant, sensitive sound. And/But, at the same time, what amazing FEEL the man had. He was a phenomenon. Get with it.

I love music from this period and so enjoyed this collection. The only thing is I had already purchased a Bix selection a while back and my new purchase had some repeat performances. Had I really compared the selections, I would have noticed, but so what! So now I have more of a good thing.

These cuts sound like re-recordings of 78's. I love Bix. There is no one better. To think that his recordings sounded so good with the limited technology of the time. I have Columbia 33 rpm Bix LP's from the 60's that have more clarity and less noise than these CD's. Even though I've allmost worn them out they still sound much much better than these offerings.I bought these CD's for 20 bucks at Tower records and I will never listen to them again.I give a Trillion-Billion stars to Bix's playing but this reissue's quality deserves none.But ...hey! Bix Lives!!!!!