Customer Reviews

Key Sessions 1931-1937

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

 

 

This disc is an excellent survey encompassing Bunny's work prior to fronting his own big band.

Before I comment on the content, I have to comment on the restoration. John R.T. Davies has outdone himself. I've heard many incarnations of these sides on 78, LP and CD, and nothing compares to the totally natural sound Mr. Davies has achieved on this set.

The content spans numerous studio recordings with Bunny in the sideman role featuring various artists including Bing Crosby, and the Boswell Sisters just to name a couple. There is also small group jazz with Berigan in the leader or session player role. The small group "I Can't Get Started" is here. It sounds very very good. There are even early studio sessions with Glenn Miller trying his hand at leading before he hit it big. Using those early Miller sides as a comparison I can simply stated that the JSP restoration far outshines the sound on the Columbia/Sony Best of the Big Bands release. You can pick up the nuances of Miller's arrangements in a way never before possible.

Even though I have some of this material elsewhere, none of it sounds this good. I can't wait for JSP's next release of Big Band Era material.

AND if you're a Berigan fan, you can't miss this one.

When the Mosiac boxes go out of print, what do you do? Buy this!

Triple-excellent!

There are no less than 124 titles on this most generous of Berigan compilations. Some strange choices and a few lamentable omissions however make me detract one star. The five discs span the years 1931-1937 (up to his first session as a regular bandleader for Bluebird, whose recordings are covered on a number of Classics discs, now probably hard to come by). Not included are any of his sides with Hal Kemp, Frank Trumbauer or Gene Gifford, whereas all four Glenn Miller sides, all the Red Norvo octet sides and a number of perhaps less interesting Chick Bullock sides are (all of which are readily available elsewhere).
We do get a plethora of other artists however, the Dorsey Brothers and the Boswell Sisters taking pride of place. We also find Bunny's complete pre-Bluebird recordings under his own name, as well as a number of titles which Bunny recorded with Adrian Rollini, Red McKenzie, Bud Freeman, Mildred Bailey and fellow hard-drinker Dick McDonough (the latter's titles in much better sound quality than the McDonough CDs on Bill Hebden's label). There is a wealth of great music here in excellently remastered sound quality (said to be by JRT Davies, but I couldn't find confirmation of this in the booklets or on the discs themselves). Recording dates and personnel are listed, but no record labels (just matrix numbers) or composer credits. The liner notes are not particularly well written or informative, but the music speaks for itself.
The prices that are currently being asked for this set are absolutely rediculous; I waited for more than a year before one offer of £ 35 came along, which I snapped up immediately. It was certainly worth it.

This box set is a rip-off of the Mosaic 7 disc set which can be found at www.mosaicrecords.com. JSP and other labels like Proper, take the hard work our engineers do (JRT Davies, Doug Pomeroy, Vince Caro) and without giving them a dime, burn their own CDs of Mosaic issues and this is one of them. The tune selections are the same as the Mosaic box which are the Vocalion, Brunswick and Parlophone sessions of Berigan. The Mosaic set is the size of a LP set with lavash pictures and massage discographical entries not given on the cheapo rip-off labels.