Customer Reviews

Pete Kelly's Blues

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

 

 

Anyone who likes Peggy Lee and/or jazz should own this remarkable CD. Not only are songs by Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald memorialized, but the soundtrack includes instrumental jazz numbers. Buy this CD, and you will be rewarded with great period music, which still thrills!

Why this combination of two separate albums is still being touted as a "soundtrack" album is beyond me. As far as I can tell, there never was a soundtrack album...that is, the actual recordings done for the soundtrack. These tracks are all "songs from the movie," but the resemblance to a soundtrack album ends there.

Some reviewers have praised Jack Webb's spoken intros to the instrumental versions of many of the songs. Some reviewers actually LIKED Jack Webb. I personally have always found him monotonous and tedious and boring. His scenes in the movie PETE KELLY'S BLUES are terrible! Having to endure that monotone delivery introducing every song by the band is excruciating.

As for the vocal numbers, which come from an entirely different album -- which also is NOT from the soundtrack -- they're good, as how could they not be with Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. But the musicians backing them aren't the ones on the soundtrack or on the second half of this CD compilation.

What this all boils down to is that someone somewhere at some time dropped the ball big time on this music. That's not to say that this album is a dud by any means. It's just not up to the caliber of music that actually WAS on the soundtrack.

Incidentally, there exists on LP but not CD the album of "music from" the TV series PETE KELLY'S BLUES. I don't think that album was ever touted as a "soundtrack" album. It has pretty much the same lineup of excellent musicians that did the movie soundtrack -- i.e., Matty Matlock, Dick Cathcart, etc. Now THERE's an album that someone should release on CD. (Anybody at RCA listening? I doubt it.)

I hate to disagree with the other reviewers, but this "soundtrack" isn't one. The numbers from the original CD "Pete Kelly's Blues", with Jack Webb's introductions, are 'right on' as I mentioned in my review of that CD, however, the Peggy Lee sides, which are extracted from another foreign import CD (Japanese) are inferior in that l) she didn't sing some of these tunes in the movie (i.e. "I Never Knew" and "O Didn't He Ramble") and 2) her arrangements aren't good quality, backed by some other band (I believe) not Matty Matlock and Pete Kelly's 7. Yes, if you're a Peggy Lee fan, it's a good CD to have, but it's not faithful to the movie.

I remembered this movie when it came out in the mid 1950s and it was among one of the movies that I enjoyed and now I can enjoy the soundtrack. Thank you for making it available. Hopefully, I will be able to enjoy it for a long time. Sincerely,A.B. Padgett