Customer Reviews

Complete Decca Trios: Plus

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These 2 discs - 50 tracks, well over 2 hours of music - is the first material recorded by the legendary Les Paul, dating from 1936-47. And for being 50-plus years old, it sounds fresh indeed!

Even as a youngster, Les shows amazing versatility, recording solo as "Rhubarb Red" (guitar, vocals, and a harmonica on a bracket), playing jazz standards, "Hawaiian" style, even "cowboy" music. He is joined on most of these tracks by his trio (piano, guitar, bass, later drums), and on many by the most celebrated vocalists of the period - Helen Forest, Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters. His talent and technique never overshadow the music; most of the time he's playing tasty rhythms and nifty chords, but every so often he cuts loose with a flash of dazzling finger work. The cat can play! And this is before he got famous! (Check out the jazz standard "Caravan" on disc 2.)

When you consider that all of this material was recorded years before he developed the first Gibson solid-body guitar (1952), Les was way ahead of his time. For the most part, sound quality is excellent, considering the vintage. A craftily-restored historical document, and also a fine music program.

This product is apparently out of print. I got it from a reseller brand new and sealed.

What is particuarly nice about this disc - and I am a professional musician - is that we get to hear just how good Les really was without all the wizardry he came to be associated with (and which he invented!). This is the stripped down, real deal, honest performance Les Paul. No overdubs, double tracking or any of that. We hear him 'raw', as it were, and in fine form, performing with his own trio and with luminaries you may or may not have ever heard...Bing Crosby is here, too.

While the quality of this release is very good, surprising for the age of the actual masters, some may find it a bit, well, boring. I can understand that; if you're not really fond of early standards and quasi-bop, move along and just go buy the Les Paul & Mary Ford stuff. That material is more 'exciting', and fine examples of great pop music writing and recording (given the technology of the day).

Note to guitar players...This material is 'approachable', meaning that you can actually cop the licks because they're right out there without all the gimmickry to obscure them. Pure unadulterated clean captured Les as he makes the final adjustments to his inimitable style and approach with the guitar in popular music.

The cd contains seminal vintage guitar work from an American Master, the late great Les Paul.