Customer Reviews

Catch the Brass Ring

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

 

 

This is the real thing,not some [poor],boring pipe organ imitation.You'll feel like you're really at the fair again when you listen to this CD!

It's a toughie reviewing this album - I don't know quite how to rate it for the everyday listener, seeing as how band organ music is definitely an acquired taste. However, that said, if you happen to be a band organ nut, you're in for a treat with this CD. It's about as good as it gets.

Kudos to Klavier records for making a recording of this wonderful Wurlitzer 165 band organ - it sounds like a dream, and has transferred relatively well to CD format. My only complaint is that the glockenspiel sounds rather abrasive, and gets really grating when recorded onto a cassette tape. Otherwise, the album is pristine.

The tunes featured are all classic band organ offerings, and the rolls used are in splendid shape. The organ's mechanism performs beautifully - whatever "prominent Midwestern collection", as the liner notes read, it comes from is taking very good care of it.

Basically, this, alongside its sister album "Catch Another Brass Ring", stands as an ideal representation of what a Wurlitzer 165 should sound like. Band organ lovers will adore it. The average Joe? Hard to say...but it's certainly worth a try.

This is the perfect antidote for the blues! It is absolutely impossible to feel down once you begin listening to this CD! I use it to give me a lift whenever I need it. I DARE you to not giggle with glee upon pressing the "play" button! If you have fond remembrances of carousel music as a child, you will get goosebumps and feel warm and fuzzy all at once when you listen to this! Why take anti-depressant drugs when you can cure the blahs quickly and naturally with this CD? An exceptionally clear recording, I bumped it down to four stars ONLY because I liked the musical selection slightly better on their follow-up album, "Catch Another Brass Ring."

One of the best band organ CDs I've found -- great selection of songs and the sound quality is just right. Close your eyes and you can picture yourself riding on your favorite carousel of your childhood!

Since several other reviewers have given very good descriptions of this CD, I won't re-hash here, but simply say I agree with what they've said. I will add my two cents on a few points not mentioned, though.

Since the Wurlitzer 165 band organ upon which these musical selections are played is in such good condition, we get a musically idealized version of what we once heard at the merry-go-round. The sonic reality often was quite a bit less, with imperfectly working instruments and the sound of the drive motor as it pumped away to turn the carousel, not to mention the noise of the crowd and the children shouting and squealing. This is no criticism of the CD, though, since it only purports to present the music; it would take a lot more than a CD to present a realistic facsimile of the total experience.

The liner notes are brief, but provide some interesting background on the origin of carousels and the words themselves. I think the writer, Tupper L. Turner, deserves credit for his/her efforts.

I was surprised to see Track #30 listed as "Waltz (Title unknown)" when opera lovers will immediately recognize it as two tunes from Verdi's opera "Il Trovatore" (The Troubadour). The first tune is the soprano/tenor duet in the Miserere scene of Act IV; the second is the baritone aria "Il balen del suo sorriso." In any case, neither is a waltz proper, for both are in 6/8, not 3/4 time.

The selection of tunes, of course, depends on availability of the paper rolls which encoded them. I liked most of the tunes, familiar and otherwise, pretty well, and with 31 tracks there's quite a bit of all kinds there, including "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down."

Overall, then, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the CD and the appropriateness of its content. There are several other CDs of this nature available, I know, but I'm not familiar enough with them to offer any comparisons. I just know that I like this one and am happy to have it in my collection. And I suspect that little children will love it!

Play this CD on a system in another room, at low volume, for that ineffable feeling that there's a tumble-down old-fashioned trolley park just over the next hill.