Customer Reviews

New Orleans Pioneer: Great Original Performances 1923-1941

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

 

 

This CD is highly recommended to both collectors as well as newbies. For the sound quality on this cd is superb, and it collects Williams' finest sessions from 1923 to 44. Williams is heard on piano, vocals, and even jug! Williams backs up Bessie Smith on the classic "Downhearted Blues," Smith has never sounded so clear. Williams also backs up Ethel Waters, and he contributes a few fun hokum vocals himself. A highlight is a rare "He Wouldn't Stop Doin' It", where Williams' jug solo comes in nice and clear, and the hot "Cany Lips." Every track is a gem and this cd belongs in very serious jazz collectors library. Highly recommended

I hate to give Clarence only 2 stars here, but this review must be for the CD as a whole. It can be summed up in 2 words: Artificial Reverb. Oh yeah, and 2 more words: Too Much. First used in the 1950s by RCA to try and make classic recordings sound more "modern", it was largely abandoned by the early 1960s because it made the recordings sound distant, muddy and indistinct. That is the problem here. Most of this stuff is very well recorded, albeit old and prone to a bit of natural noise. But if the records are cleaned up right (and the technology is certainly out there, as we have seen from Archeophone's products) we often hear the natural ambience of the recording itself, not someone else's opinion of what they think it might have sounded like in a large, empty hall. The reverby production value was abandoned for a reason: it sounds artificial. This is kind of like listening to a reissue from the 1950s; a period famous for bad reissues.