Customer Reviews

Legendary Big Bands

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Compared to the many Fletcher Henderson CDs I have, I would rate this one highly.

The pluses:

The sound quality is very good; the digital remastering was done with care so their is no discernable surface noise but still plenty of "snap" to the brass and individuation of the instruments (considering the direct-to-disk recording techniques of the era). The tunes are not available on most of the collections I've seen, so its a great addition to an existing Henderson library. If you are not familiar with this marvelous pioneering band of the swing age, you could do worse than start here.

The minuses:

Half the 20 tracks contain vocals, which while brief are sometimes a distraction with the mighty Henderson machine relegated to backup duty while the vocal occurs. Some of these tracks are less adventuresome than I prefer, these were probably more commercially successful than outre stuff like "Wierd Notions". And the documentation is non-existent! In a band that featured many jazz pioneers (Coleman Hawkins, Louis Armstrong, Ben Webster, etc. ad-nauseum), no band members or soloists are mentioned. No recording dates either, so it's virtually impossible to look up the missing info.


My favorite Fletcher Henderson among the 8 I have is hidden on Amazon as a Coleman Hawkins CD Henderson Days (which could should be "Fletcher Henderson: the Hawkins Days").

You have to hear that song to believe it! A nice budget compilation of some of Hendersons bluebird recordings. Although robbed blind by Benny Goodman(who actually hired him as an arranger), these songs will show you where the music came from. And anything with Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge playing on it is worth listening to.