Ragtime Band Sessions

Muggsy Spanier | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 28, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: RCA
• ASIN: B000002WSJ
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #169,351 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Big Butter And Egg Man (Take 1)

2. Big Butter And Egg Man (Take 2)

3. Someday Sweetheart (Take 1)

4. Someday Sweetheart (Take 2)

5. Eccentric (That Eccentric Rag)

6. That Da Da Strain (Take 1)

7. That Da Da Strain (Take 2)

8. At The Jazz Band Ball

9. I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate

10. Dippermouth Blues

11. Livery Stable Blues (Barnyard Blues) (Take 1)

12. Livery Stable Blues (Barnyard Blues) (Take 2)

13. Riverboat Shuffle (Take 1)

14. Riverboat Shuffle (Take 2)

15. Relaxin' At The Touro (Take 1)

16. Relaxin' At The Touro (Take 2)

17. At Sundown

18. Bluin' The Blues

19. Lonesome Road (Take 1)

20. Lonesome Road (Take 2)

See all 24 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not quite everything despite the claim, but great hot jazz, June 13, 2005

By 

Scott MacGillivray (Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ragtime Band Sessions (Audio CD)

This compilation features almost all of the recorded output of Muggsy Spanier's Ragtime Band, a short-lived "concept" group of 1939 that insisted on playing traditional jazz when everybody else was playing swing arrangements. "Ragtime" is purely an indicator of the band's deliberately anachronistic repertoire; no Joplinesque rags here, but there are some venerable dixieland standards.

Muggsy Spanier leads with some terrific trumpet; Rod Cless on clarinet and George Brunies on trombone are almost as prominent and every bit as good. Some of the cuts feature the tenor sax of Bernie Billings, whose phrasing will remind vintage-jazz fans of Bud Freeman. Almost all of the cuts are instrumentals (Brunies sings two numbers). Typical are "Livery Stable Blues," popularized by the pioneer Original Dixieland Jazz Band (Billings shines on tenor), "That Da-Da Strain," with the entire band joyously jamming, and "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate," dominated by Brunies on trombone and vocal.

The band's brief life span made these Bluebird recordings collector's items, and this CD presents almost all of them. There are generally two takes of each tune. Despite the producers' claim that this is the "complete" Ragtime Band output, it isn't: they forgot to include the alternate take of "Eccentric." That's the only reservation about the programming. Care has obviously been taken to optimize the sound fidelity, and the disc's informative liner notes put the Spanier band in its proper context. An excellent buy for jazz fans.