Search - Paul Whiteman :: If I Had a Talking Picture of You, Vol. 1

Music great, remastering too heavy

JJA Kiefte | Tegelen, Nederland | 04/09/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ever since I heard my first Whiteman record, "Mutiny in the Nursery" from 1938, I tried to get my hands on as many reissues from the later Paul Whiteman (of which there are desperately few) and I neglected the twenties' Whiteman. This very accesible cd has changed that. The majority of titles was waxed between 1925 and 1930 (with only four items after that period) and I must say I was most agreeably surprised about the quality of the music, the arrangements and the execution. Of course, Whiteman was not the King of Jazz, but there can be little doubt that he was the King of popular music in those days, bringing to bear on his competitors a formidable array of talent who could satisfy Whiteman's demands for perfection to a T. Since this collection does not include any of the more ambitious semi-classical scores or the over-arranged reworkings of trite but concise material into something long winded but no less trite that have given Whiteman such a bad name among jazz historians, I can wholeheartedly recommend this disc to those who like good, nostalgic twenties music. Since Vocalion never give any composer credits, the liner notes are welcome in that they provide a short pedigree (composer but also show or flick they were premiered in) on each of the 24 titles. The only reservation I have is the remastering which is too heavy (I compared this disc's "Sitting on a Rainbow" with the same tune on Frankie Trumbauer's cd "Tram, vol II" (TOM MB108; there it sounds very much clearer) but for the rest: well done!

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