The Swing Era 1938-1939 (Time-Life)

Yet another perfect transfer of music to CD. The TIME/LIFE series of SWING ERA albums are very good reproductions in modern stereo of the the BIG BANDS of 1938-1939

OMG !!!! these are little more than Muzak versions of Swingtime classics!!! YIPES!!!!!

Excellent product and service.

The fine points have been outlined above; and yes those are monster players w/ impeccable credentials. But..Like a fine old antique who's patina has been buffed away, these recordings seem too polished, they sound very much like other modern big band recordings, and come off as a bit stiff and lacking the intensity of the originals. I did not hear the original bands in the famous rooms, I grew up with remasters of the original recordings, and transcripions of "air checks" Perhaps the bands did sound like this live..older recording/playback methods have a limited dynamic range and are comparatively noisy, this would have not been present in a live setting. Still I prefer the original recordings as the interpretations and arrangements here seems to be subtly updated and simply don't swing like the originals. If you enjoy the modern big bands like Doc, and the various military groups, then give this a spin, if you are more of a old school listener you may find it interesting, but either way I would look for a good price, many sellers are asking top dollar for these CD's when with a little patience they can be had for much less.

The important thing about this set of recordings is that they are recorded either in 1960's or 1970's era Hollywood studios (actually all should be in Capitol Records legendary studios). The exception is for some live audio from a Benny Goodman tour, which was carefully recorded. The players are almost all veterans of the major Big Bands from the 1930's 40's and 50's. These musicians performed for many years with those original groups, but also did much work in film and TV here in Los Angeles. Some of the recordings are actually modern stereo updates of Nat Cole recordings from the late 1940's or 1950's. In the 1960's both Cole, and Glen Grey undertood a large scale re-recording, in improved stereo audio, of carefully transcribed arrangements of earlier famous recorded Swing music. Later (1971), Billy May transcribed hundreds of other earlier recorded tunes, and then this 350+ tune set was prepared and issued originally on vinyl stereo records. Now it has been reissued on CD, but is not in current printing releases (sometimes a few become available, or attempts to re-release are made).The important thing about these recordings is the audio quality and perfomance quality are both very high, yet the material is from the 1936 to 1959 period in Big Band Swing. You simply cannot get a bigger, better set like this.Examples of the performers: Joe Graves - trumpet; Pete Candoli - trumpet; Ray Sherman - piano; Dick Nash - trombone; Lloyd Ulyate - trombone; Marshall Royal - Alto Sax; Abe Most - clarinet; Gus Bivona - clarinet and Alto; Plas Johnson - tenor sax; Justin Gordon - tenor sax, Roland Bundock - bass; Nick Fatool - drums. Many other really fabulous musicians played on these recreations, and the overall effect is marvelous.

This series was produced and recorded under the supervision of Glenn Gray of Glenn Gray and The Casa Loma Orchestra in the late 60s and early 70s. They were all new recordings done by many of the original band members and the best hollywood side men Gray could get. Time-Life spared no expense in the production and the sound is magnificent. Two LPs in each box with a comprehensive booklet of the history of each band and music on each record. The booklet also included information on the makeup of each session members and date of each recording. The track arrangement is entirely different from the CD and cassette 80s re-issues. The series was originally issued only on vinyl. We had these at home in the 70s. I learned to love big band music from these. If you want to hear Big Band the way it sounded Live, get these if you can.

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