Customer Reviews

Essential Collection

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This CD represents the summation of the Hollywood Musical genre, encapsulated in the person of its greatest star, Fred Astaire. It is a superb compilation and provides a wealth of standards, played by some of the best orchestras of the day, including that of Ray Noble, as well as three early recordings accompanied by George Gershwin at the piano. Sister Adele also features on three, and included on the second CD are duets with Crosby, Judy Garland, Jane Powell, and Nanette Fabray & Jack Buchanan.

I recently started to get into the Astaire 30's musicals with Ginger Rogers and was looking for one song "Never Gonna Dance", so I got this collection. As a starter set its very nice, it's also very addictive to listen to! I will comment though that not all is as rosy as the ending of an Astaire-Rogers 30's musical. The recordings sound like they were lifted from the motion pictures themselves and not from released music (and not the remastered movie versions). The remastering sounds weak at best also, so if you can get by those points you will be happy with this set. It's weak points have made me want to get more though so I'll be buying other sets released in America and see what happens (this is an import). I love the songs with his sister Adele! 5 of 5 for the material but 3 of 5 for the remastering and yes I understand some of this is from the 1920's to 1930's, if you listen you will think it could have been presented better.