I Can't Get Started

Bunny Berigan & His Orchestra | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 25, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Collectables
• ASIN: B00005NVZ4
• Also Available in: Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #197,026 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. I Can't Get Started

2. Trees

3. Jelly Roll Blues

4. 'Deed I Do

5. High Society

6. Black Bottom

7. Russian Lullaby

8. The Prisoner's Song

9. Caravan

10. Swanee River

11. Never Felt Better, Never Had Less

12. (Shango, Shango, Shangoree) Rockin' Rollers Jubilee

13. Frankie and Johnny

14. 'Cause My Baby Says It's So

15. The Wearin' of the Green

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Collectables: How to Butcher Great Essential Recordings, April 15, 2005

By 

Mike DiMartino (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Can't Get Started (Audio CD)

The remastering clowns at Collectables have outdone themselves this time--this is the most attrocious remastering I've ever heard over the 46 years I've collected jazz--and let me tell you, I play the trumpet and have been listening to Bunny since my day one! Collectables could have brought Bunny's rich, fat, soulful trumpet sound to today's listeners who may not yet have heard Bunny. (From this CD, they'll never hear the Bunny Satchmo called "the blackest sounding white trumpeter I've ever heard." You can bet, coming from Pops, that has little to do with color and everything to do with FEELING.)

Instead Collectables subjected the music to a torchure ring of digital "enhancement" toys, such as limiters and gates that you can actually hear kicking in and out. Responsible, skillful and careful enhancement and restoration should be something you don't really hear being applied; all you hear is, the music just sounds great. These idots simply didn't care--all in a day's work, then go home and listen to their trash of choice.

There's so much tampering here that the frequencies have gone out of phase! Yes, the cymbals now have a psychodelic swirl, as if going through a '70s phase shifter--oh, my goodness! Then they swell only to be abrubtly squelched, sounding as though a blanket was thrown over them. Bunny's gorgeous trumpet is all but suffocated of its life and reduced to a nasal wimper.

This is a crime. Totally irresponsible, lame-eared remastering.

RULE OF THUMB: STAY AWAY FROM COLLECTABLES!!!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic; a must for anyone's collection, November 5, 2007

By 

Thomas J. Herling (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Can't Get Started (Audio CD)

Although Berrigan wasn't around for very long, he sure put out some great sides. I'd recommend this to anyone who who wants to add to the essential library of early jazz greats.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't bother, February 4, 2009

By 

Bruce W. Graham "Bruce Graham" (Norwell, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: I Can't Get Started (Audio CD)

I have always loved the title track and hoped that other Berigan songs might be equally enjoyable. They're not. Stick with the title track, available on other albums (I especially recommend "We'll Meet Again: The Love Songs of World War II", which is where I found "I Can't Get Started" originally) and save your money. The biography was interesting, and perhaps explains why Berigan might be considered a "one hit wonder".