Customer Reviews

Radio Days Live: Bridgeport, Connecticut, August 16, 1944

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I am a Jack Teagarden fanatic who has listened to nearly everything he recorded. Although this CD is a skimpy 29 minutes in duration, only the most determined fan will be able to listen to it for more than a couple minutes because the sound is so disgusting. There is no identification of any musicians or the female vocalist (it's Phyllis Lane), or any other documentation. This is a junky production in all aspects.

There are such terrible pitch fluctuations that the music sounds as if it were played on a $20 tape recorder with low batteries, very l...o...w batteries. Wow and flutter distortion, frequency wobble from speed fluctuations, makes this CD painful to hear. Since the show was recorded for AFRS broadcasts, the original source was certainly without these gross faults.

Options: The Vernon Music label offered two AFRS programs on one CD from the same August 1944 period as the Radio Days CD. That CD, "Live at Trianon Ballroom," offered reasonable fidelity and has none of the pitch variations of the Radio Days CD. However, the band was not at its best in 1944 as it neared the end of its life. Moreover, featured vocalist Phyllis Lane was not among the better singers to work with the Teagarden band.

Better Options: The band played with much more energy and was captured with superb sound on "Jack Teagarden and His Orchestra Live At the Southland Restaurant (1940) and Live At Frank Daily's Meadowbrook (1939)" - the best of the early live recordings by Teagarden.