Search - Artie Shaw :: Complete Thesaurus Transcriptions 1949 (Jewl)

Odd inclusions, variable source material, questionable inclu

Brian H. Williams | Manteca, CA United States | 02/01/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Fisrt off, I must say that I am a HUGE Arite Shaw fan and collect virutally everything that he has recorded. Having said this, I have some of the tracks included here on previous issues. Some from the same company Hep. Hep has issued some outstanding jazz cd's in the past. They always have outstanding liner notes, good remastering and a detailed discography. So when I bought this, I thought this would perfect since it has all of Shaw's 1949 transcription recordings for Thesaurus. So imagine my surprise that some of the recordings issued here sound better on other issues. For example, the 5 Gramercy Five recordings, "The Pied Piper", "Cross Your Heart", "Summit Ridge Drive", "Grabtown Grapple", and the superior remake of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", sound MUCH better on Hep's issue "The Artistry of Artie Shaw." Makes you wonder why they didn't just use the same transfers. The ones on this cd have more surface noise and slightly less dynamic range, and have less presence, resulting in an older sound. Also, the track listings show the song "You Do Something To Me" as being on this cd. It's not, so the numberings on the first cd is off by one track. The track is missing and should have been included since this was recorded at Thesaurus. This is clearly stated in the Vladimir Simosko discography of Shaw's entire career. So now, we're missing one track thereby rendering this set as incomplete. This really upset me, since I wanted to have everything! Why call complete if it's not?? I wonder if they producers even now that this cut is missing? Other Shaw collectors like me are going to be just as upset. The 1949 songs that were issued on the Music Masters cd in 1990 and on the Self Portrait box set sound inferior here. Far more surface noise. No where near the excellent remastering quality given in the 2001 Self Portrait box set. The sound is acceptable, but not nearly as good. So if you don't have that 2001 box set, you won't notice what you are missing. Then the real puzzling thing about this issue is that Hep decided to include four cuts of the same songs Shaw cut for Thesaurus that he did in the studio for Decca! Why include this since these four songs are NOT Thesaurus recordings. AND they sound completely inferior to the lp reissues from Decca in the late 70's. Those recordings have a wonderful modern, high fidelity sound. Undoubtedly the most high fidelity sound that Shaw was ever given. Here, they sound like they were taken from poor lp transfers. Where they hell did they get the source material? Extremely disappointing. Despite this, Shaw collectors, like me, will buy this because the majority of this stuff you can't get any where else. The liner notes and are excellent, along with the discography. There are a bunch of rare photos as well. So I have to give this 3 stars instead of 5 because of the questionable source material and the omission of the a required song."