Customer Reviews

The Sidewalks Of New York: Tin Pan Alley

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

 

 

This is a delightful set of recordings against the effective tapestry of ambient tavern noises; applause, low lever chatter, the clinking of glasses, and importantly: laughter. All of these noises enhance this recording. There is a wide selection of music; early Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Geo. M. Cohan, Eubie Blake among other songs common to our inherited musical heritage from grandparents, or older! It is enriched with mixure of both vocal and instrumental numbers. I recommend for listeners who enjoy popular turn of the century music; those with an interest in the spirit of John Sloan and Robert Henri's Ash Can New York will find the CD engaging, warm with laughter and easy to listen to. It is artfully packaged with photographs from the period and only misses with no informative text about the history of the songs or their writers. Forgive this oversight though! It is a must for listeners who love to sing and may be wistful to hear the noises of 100 years ago.

A truly warm record. Not just a great collection of wonderful, charming songs from the beginning of Tin Pan Alley [this material goes back to the turn of the 20th century], but a conscious effort to place them in the context of nostalgia and memory. There are non-musical audio portions of the CD that place one firmly in the firmament of Manhattan, and a lot of the music is either peformed in front of a boisterous tavern audience or made to sound that way. It's a modern trick that doesn't always work - the quality of the crowd is definitely turn of the 21st century on occassion! - but it does add a rich context to the music and the listening experience. It's not jazz, but it's jazzy and great for anyone who loves good American song-writing.

This recording presents distinguished songs from 1892-1915, by a group of stellar jazz musicians. One third of the music is instrumental, with the rest sung by a variety of capable vocalists. If you enjoyed Butch Thompson's Joplin tribute, you might like this.

An enormous disappointment. The popular songs of this period are noteworthy more for their amusing and catchy lyrics than any musical distinction, and yet many of these pieces are strictly instrumental. The background sounds of chatter and dishware make it difficult to understand the lyrics in any case. The CD case is very handsome, yet contains no liner notes, only photos whose relationship to the music is unexplained. If you love the songs of this period, don't waste your money.

This is an effort to recreate the popular music of 1900-1910 just as it was sung and performed back then. The vocalists sing in a mannered style which must be meant to copy how performers sang around 1900. The musicians include Don Byron and other contemporary jazz artists but there is no contemporary jazz playing here. For what this CD is, it is no doubt successful. It reminds me of my parents' "Sing Along With Mitch" albums by Mitch Miller, in which these songs were also performed in an old time style.

Great songs and perhaps great performances, but one cannot tell beacause of the background talk and other noise that goes on constantly during the music. I suppose the producers thought this added "atmosphere" to the recordings; it spoils them. A waste of time and money on otherwise great early century tunes.

I searched Uri Caine, and could not find this C