July 2000 Film Music CD Reviews

Film Music Editor: Ian Lace
Music Webmaster Len Mullenger

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EDITOR’s RECOMMENDATION July 2000

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Collection: Swing Legends:
Glenn Miller
NIMBUS NI 2001 [65:11]
Crotchet
 Amazon USA

Here we go again. Boulder Buff. My melancholy Baby. Star Dust. Rug Cutters Swing. Pennsylvania 6-5000. Slow Freight. Slip Horn Jive. The Boogie Woogie Piggy. Pavanne. Pagan Love Song. When Johnny comes marching home. Runnin' Wild. Tuxedo Junction. Glen Island Special. Johnson Rag. A String of Pearls. I dreamt I dwelt in Harlem. Moonlight Serenade. Farewell Blues.

Robert Parker, the Australian sound engineer responsible for refurbishing the music for the albums in this Nimbus series, has excelled himself here. Working from pristine Australian 78rpm pressings, he has created spectacular stereo sound that makes these Glenn Miller favourites sound as if they were recorded only yesterday. Listen to the fidelity of the instrumental harmonics in A String of Pearls for instance. Now we really do have the chance to fully savour the genius that was Glen Miller.

As the liner notes relate, "Glenn Miller's Orchestra in the 1940s was one of the finest big bands of the Swing Era. The popularity and reverence with which it is still regarded is unmatched - even in comparison with such outstanding contemporary bands as those of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson and Count Basie.

"Apart from Miller's superb musicianship, his was a high multi-media profile: raised by appearances in Hollywood films, radio broadcasts and on gramophone records. His untimely death on 15th December 1944 during military service, at the age of 40, undoubtedly fuelled the legend; culminating in the glossy but factually inaccurate bio-pic of 1953 starring James Stewart as an idealised Glenn Miller."

This album of 20 numbers includes many of the great hits including: Star Dust; Moonlight Serenade; Pennsylvannia 6-5000; A String of Pearls and Tuxedo Junction (but why omit Little Brown Jug?) The liner notes include a picture of the band with many of the artists inset. And the fully credited numbers include a number of distinguished names including: Billy May, and Tex Beneke who makes his tenor sax all but talk.

An album not to miss.

Reviewer

Ian Lace


Reviewer

Ian Lace


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