Monday, October 10, 2005

Big Banding, part 3

Here's another in my hunt for good one-disk samplers covering a selection of classic big bands from the '20s, '30s and '40s with decent sound, representative material and a reasonable price.

Claude Thornhill and his orchestra "The 1948 Transcription Performances" from the HEP label. You want it because the band is playing stellar arrangements by Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan before the former changes jazz with Miles Davis and the latter cuts his own notable swath.

Mulligan also gets some good solo time on baritone sax, as on the bop hit "Anthropology," and Lee Konitz is in this group playing alto as well. The music ranges from Latin-inflected "Adios" to a pretty abstract rendition of "Lover Man" and the recorded-for-radio sound is quite good.

Follow the links to my suggestions for disks featuring the bands of Jay McShann or Glenn Miller or Chick Webb or Benny Goodman or Fletcher Henderson or Billy Eckstine or Earl Hines or Andy Kirk.

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