Customer Reviews

Great Original Performances: 1924-1930

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I used to wonder why Bix Beiderbecke was so highly rated. Robert Parker's remastering of these sides makes Beiderbecke's beautiful melodic thinking evident and even resurrects his celebrated bell-like tone. This is the most vivid Bix I've heard.
Along with the small band recordings (cornet, trombone, clarinet, bass clarinet, piano & drums) built around Bix, this selection includes performances by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra (with some crooners including Bing Crosby)and Frankie Trumbauer's band (the c-melody sax player Lester Young based his style on). These may be considered "novelty numbers" by many but they tell us a lot about the musical background against which the great jazz music of the era developed.

Wow! If you are to going own just one Bix Beiderbecke CD, this IS the one. On listening to it, I felt transported back in time to the studio where Bix and bands made the recordings. The sound quality is unmatched in any recording that I have heard made in the last 40 years. (NOTE: these are Bix classics from 70+ years ago!) This CD is a true combination of music art from Bix Beiderbecke plus amazing stereo & acoustical magic from Robert Parker! What more can I say?

Why, oh why, aren't more early recordings restored with this much skill and love?

If you're trying to chose a Bix recording, well, here you go. This one will spoil you for sure. I also bought the CD "Singin' the Blues" and wish I hadn't wasted the money on it. Bix is represented musically much better here and the restoration is superb.

I prefer the purely instrumental tracks to those with vocals. On this CD there are a four or five vocal tracks, but they're brief (and a couple of them are oddly sung--in my opinion).

This is a great Bix collection which Robert Parker has done an incredible job of cleaning and restoring the sound. Some of these records are pretty early in what the late Don Brown called the "dixie cup" microphone era. An added bonus is the great early Duke Ellington growling trumpter Bubber Miley plays with Bix on "Rockin Chair." I first heard a Bubber Miley record in 1969 and I've been a fan ever since. See also my review of Richard Sudhalter's Lost Chords. This CD features the musicans that Sudhalter writes about.