Customer Reviews

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band: The Complete Set

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Before this release, we were stuck with the Milestone reissue on CD, which is left over from the early days of digital remastering. The noise is gone, but so is half of the music. Not good. Luckily, this collection came out a few years later. Certainly better than the Milestones, but still not a satisfying collection. This 2 disc set of all of the Oliver sides (including the extremely rare Autograph sessions with Jelly Roll Morton AND the one-of-a-kind "Zulus Ball" on Gennett) is a very exciting collection to own if you are interested in "having" them all. For listening pleasure, however, the set is rather inconsistent in its sound quality and in some cases difficult to listen to. I am a fan of the work of Mr. Davies (the mastering engineer) but in this case I think he missed the boat. The EQ is overly boosted in the bottom end, causing lots of unnatural resonances. Meanwhile, the high midrange (where the cornets are) is also overly boosted and sounds tinny, especially in my car. I've heard a few of these originals coming straight off of 78 RPM, and they sound nothing like this set. In the attempt to emphasize various sections of the band, I think overall clarity has been sacrificed. Volume from song to song also varies.

The whole project is put together rather sloppily as well. The track listing doesn't allow for the fact that this is a 2 CD set; Disc 2 starts with "track 21.." ??Even the discographical information is hard to comprehend; to find personnel on any given song, you have to go back to the first session and add and subtract members through each subsequent session.

My favorite reissue (if you can find it) is still the 1974 Herwin LP with all of the Gennett sides "untouched". An A-B comparison between the Herwin and Retrieval versions of the Gennett sides shows an instant and remarkable difference.

I hope one day someone will put out a complete set of the Creole Jazz Band sides with natural sounding transfers. I'd welcome a little noise if it would allow the glory of these recordings to be heard more fully.

UPDATE!! Since I posted this review, such a set has been released! King Oliver Off The Record: The Complete 1923 Jazz Band Recordings (Archeophone/Off The Record)is a tremendous improvement. It doesn't include the Morton Autographs; but I'm not sure they belong with the CJB sides anyway. Now I'm happy!

This reissue of the classic recordings of King Oliver's group sounds great compared to other versions that have come out over the years. John R. T. Davies has restored many classic recordings over the years, but I believe that his work with these famous Oliver records is his crowning achievement. There is another excellent reissue to consider: Robert Parker's double-CD issue which Amazon lists as "1923 - 1930 Great Original Performances". The audio restoration on Parker's reissue is also outstanding, but it only includes a handful (nine?) of the classic 1922 sessions with Armstrong. In contrast, the Davies collection includes the complete 1923 sessions over 2 CD's. I happen to think that when music is this great, you'll want to hear all of it - a sampling just won't suffice. The limitations of these performances have been noted over the years (e.g., the trombonist's playing is rather rough-hewn). But these performers, always playing with great poise and restraint, achieved a tremendous sense of dignity in their ensemble playing. And the cornet solos (by Oliver and Louis Armstrong) and especially the interplay between these two horn players make for some of the best listening in all of recorded music. Not all of the tracks rise to the level of great songs like Mabel's Dream and Dippermouth Blues, but everything on these discs is well worth hearing, and treasuring. Along with the newly-reissed Complete Set of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, this King Oliver issue is the only truly essential jazz prior to 1925.

This 2-CD set is a revelation. This is the best release I have heard of King Oliver's first recordings. It documents the beginning of King Oliver's and Louis Armstrongs recording careers. Covering the years 1923-1924, comes just 6 years after the very first jazz recordings ever made---you are travelling here to the very roots of Jazz. The sound on these CDs is remarkably vibrant and clear---the best treatment I have heard of any acoustically recorded music. Comparison with the other CD releases of the same King Oliver recordings reveals its superiority (although RealAudio compression muffles and distorts the sound, differences can be distinguished). The stunning thing in these recordings is the emotional and rhythmic intensity achieved by King Oliver's band. Canal Street Blues and Dippermouth Blues have a cathartic energy that I don't hear in other bands again until the advent of the Beatles and the Grateful Dead---it's King Oliver's on-the-edge soulfulness, something that is more than just the individual arrangements, musicians, and style of the time. And, man, King Oliver gets down! This music is funk. It's a far cry from the comic style that people associate with Dixieland. His later electric recordings show his funky vibe even more (the great sounding "Sugar Foot Stomp: King Oliver and His Dixie Syncopators" [Decca Jazz #616] is regrettably out of print).

This superlative set allows us the pleasure of actually hearing Jazz take its early steps;while not to fault Louis Armstrong's own greatness That came later on not in 1923;King Oliver has been one of the most criminally neglected artists in jazz history,and this marvelous release will no doubt force the jazz writers to reconsider,-whether 'Zulu's Ball' or 'High Society Rag',Oliver's capacity for collective improvisation drove these wonderful records.And now with the wonder of CD Technology,we can preserve Oliver's artistry in the new millenium,...so let us not make the mistake of ignoring Oliver like we did last century! Oliver is HERE so deal with it,skeptics and jazz lovers - REJOICE!

This used to be my favorite restoration of this music - but reviewer Ted Ison is correct: it has been definitively surpassed by the Archeophone/Off the Record set for both instrumental clarity and a more "live" sound.

This will always be tough music to 'hear' at first, and it's worth going to the best available transfer for help. We will never be able to join the young musicians that crowded in front of the bandstand in Chicago's Lincoln Gardens in 1923, stunned by the raw bluesy power, double cornet break precision and the then radical inventiveness of this music (check out the 3 different approaches that Joe Oliver takes on the 3 different versions of 'Mabel's Dream')as the group improvised chorus after chorus of 'High Society'. Instead of 2 powerhouse cornet players right in front of us, we will always have to try to experience them through the tinny, scratchy, distant medium of 1923 accoustic recording, and for budget labels at that, limited to short 2 to 3 minute takes. "Through a glass, darkly," indeed!

You really must compare the samples of this record with the Archeophone transfers before you buy. Judge for yourself which version is better.

Music in this double cd is the best in King Oliver's career.
He plays with young Louis Armstrong and there are some great numbers specially on disc 1. Sound on this 2Cd is great. I love real sound like this without sound reflection which appears on Great original performances.
It is essential music for all fans of early jazz .

I bought this set although Ive had Oliver for years on LP;the bare essence of the matter is that King Oliver is one of the most criminally neglected creative minds in jazz history,-while not to fault Louis Armstrong's greatness,he is given far too much credit for these recordings,when it is in fact Oliver who is the major element in the magic of this splendid ensemble.With the wonder of CD technology now Oliver's legacy can be preserved in the new millenium. Like Jelly Roll Morton Joe Oliver was a genius and this stupendous set will convince anyone who has an ear. The historians are wrong - these are Olivers finest hour, Enjoy!

My wife gave perhaps the best review of this collection. She said, "You haven't stoppped listening since you got this." She's right, and you won't stop listening either.

Question: What do King Oliver's band, Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers, and Louis Armstrong's Hot Five have in common? The answer is Johnny Dodds, who makes his case as the greatest clarinetist in jazz on the first disc of these recordings. Louis is present, too, especially on "Chimes Blues," "Dippermouth Blues," and the remarkable "Tears," on which he constructs a breath-taking solo which includes a figure he will immortalize later in his "Potato Head Blues" solo. This collection has multiple takes of "Dippermouth," "Mabel's Dream," and my unequivocal favorite, "Riverside Blues." Two very different takes of this last piece, both with the magnificent one-note breaks. This is New Orleans music, which means the emphasis is on group improvisation, but you can still hear some wonderful solos. The feeling, though, is dense: music at the same time harmonically experimental and rooted deep in the blues. And there's a bonus of King Oliver's "King Porter Stomp," accompanied only by Jelly himself, and to my ear slightly out of tune. King Oliver had an instinctive feeling for Morton's music --there are several Morton compositions here-- which was surpassed only by the composer.

I've read the reviews critical of the sound quality, and I must bow to the expertise of the people who wrote them. I just found these pieces enthralling, utterly enthralling.

This 2 set CD (King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band: The Complete Set) from Amazon brought back memories of my boyhood when having read Rex Harris' Jazz (Pelican A247 5th edition 1957) I sought out as many King Oliver 78's as I could get. Later I converted them to tapes using primitive equipment. This 2 CD set has given me these and many additional pieces without the crackles and scratches of my originals. For those who appreciate New Orleans Jazz or anyone coming to it for the first time, a real joy.

The rhythm banjo drowns out the horns during the first 28 cuts. Cuts 29 thru 41 are much better in that regard. Cuts 40 and 41 are especially good in that we are able to hear King Oliver solo. Louis Armstrong shows us that he can be an ensemble player. He also shows us that he can play a slide whistle too. This CD is a compendium of some of the classic jazz tunes of the era. If one is an arranger, this disc could serve as a foundation illustrating how these tunes sound when played straight.