Customer Reviews

Ferrante & Teicher - All-Time Greatest Hits

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"Ferrante & Teicher's All Time Greatest Hits" presents a pleasant set of familiar show tunes for listening pleasure. The paired pianos of Ferrante & Teicher are supplemented by instrumental accompaniment. Bouncy enough to attract your attention but subdued enough to serve as background music, this disc provides a most entertaining collection of hits from this talented duet.

I don't know about these being their "all-time greatest hits." After all, they had 17 of them and, in an 11-track release, someone is going to argue the point when examining the six NOT included. Adding to the argument is the inclusion of four that only scored on the Adult Contemporary (AC) - or Easy Listening - charts which were first introduced in 1961. And while it can be argued that "a hit is a hit is a hit" until your blue in the face, the fact remains that anything registering on the Billboard Pop Hot 100 was a much more significant hit than those making only the AC.

So, for the record, the Hot 100 hits left out were: Love Theme From One-Eyed Jacks which reached # 37 in April 1961; Theme From "Goodbye Again" which, with its melody based upon Brahm's Symphony No. 3 - Third Movement, settled at # 85 in June 1961 (both were before the introduction of the AC charts); Lisa, the title song from the film, which only made it to # 98 in June 1962; The Theme From Lawrence Of Arabia, a # 84 in early 1963; and Antony And Cleopatra Theme, which made it to # 83 in July 1963.

In addition to the foregoing, they also omit these two that only made the AC charts: Pieces Of Dreams, the title song from the film, which reached # 28 in October 1970; and The Music Lovers (Main Title), also from a film of the same name, which went to # 39 in March 1971.

Even so, the 11 included here are nicely representative of Arthur Ferrante and Louis Teicher, who met while child students at Juilliard, and who actually began their recording career at Columbia in 1953. But it wasn't until 1960, and a contract with United Artists, that they had their first hit single, Theme From The Apartment, a # 10 Hot 100 AND # 24 R&B late that summer. Before the year was out they were back with another movie theme, this time Exodus, which AGAIN made both charts, peaking at # 2 Hot 100 and # 6 R&B.

Although they would have no further R&B cross-overs, they continued the pattern of movie themes in 1961 with the two mentioned above as well as Tonight (From West Side Story) which became their second-best hit at # 8 Hot 100 in November. In addition to Lisa mentioned above, 1962 also produced Smile (# 18 AC/# 94 Hot 100) from the Chaplin film Modern Times, while in 1963 hey had the two hits discussed above.

They were then off the charts completely during the peak of the British Invasion in 1964/65, but returned in 1966 with Khartoum, again from a film of the same name, taking it to # 21 AC in August, and in December saw A Man And A Woman ("Un Homme Et Une Femme"), from the Anouk Aimee film, rise to # 24 AC. Between that and late 1969 they had just one hit, when Live For Life (Vivre Pour Vivre), from the Candice Bergen movie, made it to # 27 AC.

Another solid hit from a movie then followed in late 1969 when Midnight Cowboy, featuring the guitar of Vincent Bell, went all the way to # 2 AC and also a solid # 10 Hot 100. They then broke from the movie pattern in the spring of 1970 when their cover of the Dylan hit, Lay Lady Lay, Reached # 16 AC/# 99 Hot 100. That was followed by Pieces Of Dreams and The Music Lovers, as detailed above, and in the spring of 1972 they had their final hit when Love Theme From "The Godfather" yopped out at # 28 AC.

So, not a bad little compilation of "some of their greatest with excellent sound quality. What you don't get in these Capitol-EMI "10 Best" cheapos are liner notes.

Wonderful music. Takes me back to the sixties...too bad Ferrante & Teicher are not still performing. I saw them perform twice and both times was a "standing ovation" performance.

Wonderful. Used to own all of the vinyl recordings from Ferrante & Teicher. Didn't realize they were still being produced. Will buy others in the future. Enjoyed the music. They don't make music like that anymore.

As always, it's hard to tell which one of these CD's could be considered the greatest hits, as they are all wonderful!

The music is wonderful and the pianos are amazing. I could listen to them all day. Thank you for having the CD.

We purchased this as a gift to another great pianist, Josh Singletary, member of Tribute Quartet. It's still sealed, but experience tells us that, like our previous purchases, it will be fine!

These are the F&T I remember...wonderful performers of unforgettable music. If the sound quality was the one of EMI-CAPITOL "Film Classics" it would be really perfect.
Ciao,
Franco

The shipping was great! The price was great! The CD is great! All in all, it was great!