BILLY ECKSTINE – 1947 | The Chronogical Classics – 1142 (2000) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

By his own admission, Frank Sinatra owed a lot to Billy Eckstine and Al Hibbler, radically stylized singers with deep, honeyed voices. While some prefer Hibbler's more eccentric approach, Eckstine was the archetypal romantic postwar crooner, widely imitated during a period when the recording industry and the record-buying public became increasingly obsessed with star vocalists. Dozens of likely suspects, most famously Perry Como, Sinatra, and Eckstine, were soon able to cash in on this trend. In the case of Eckstine, who had earlier courted bankruptcy leading an exciting band fortified with such innovative jazz musicians as Fats Navarro, Gene Ammons, and Art Blakey, the commercial undertow eventually drew him off into a fluffy netherworld of increasingly jazzless pop music. An overview of his recording activities during the spring and summer of 1947 paints a slightly grim picture of this sugary embalming process. Although the seven-piece band backing him on four selections recorded in April of that year contained Sonny Criss, Wardell Gray, and a bassist by the name of Shifty Henry, the players are there solely to provide a cushion for Eckstine's epiglottal warbling. A few of the next eight tracks, with "vocal overdubbed on studio band," still retain some measure of authentic jazz levity, particularly Eckstine's own composition, simply titled "Blues." Yet the records he began making for the MGM label in May of 1947 are all too indicative of where a sizable portion of the music business was heading. Drenched in sentimental syrup, with Sonny Burke's orchestra augmented by a string section, these are mostly dreary torch songs, even if jazz elements still peek out from under the arrangements. Eight sides cut in July and August 1947 are swamped in the pop lagoon with Hugo Winterhalter's string-burdened 24-piece orchestra. It is good that Eckstine was able to experience some measure of financial security, but it's easy to see why Slim Gaillard so enjoyed parodying this overbearing confectionary combination of Hollywood production and Eckstine's relentless vibrato. arwulf arwulf  
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EARL HINES AND HIS ORCHESTRA – 1941 | The Classics Chronological Series – 621 (1991) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

In 1975, when Bluebird brought out a double-LP reissue of vintage Earl Hines big-band recordings, the producers included a chain of beefy instrumentals from 1941. The Classics Chronological series zeroed in and fleshed out an important part of the picture by compiling all of Hines' 1941 material onto one CD 16 years later. What you get are eight terrific instrumentals interspersed with ten vocal tracks and a pair of fine piano solos. Since the vocal performances were aimed at the general record-buying public, they deviate noticeably from the powerhouse home base of big-band swing infused with intimations of the approaching bebop revolution. Eight instrumentals, then, form the backbone of this volume in the complete recordings of Earl Hines. "Up Jumped the Devil" and the attractive "Jersey Bounce" were designed for dancers, fairly bristling with hot drum breaks by Rudy Traylor and steamy solos by trumpeter George Dixon and tenor man Franz Jackson. Jackson composed, arranged, and blew his horn on "South Side," a cooker with solos by trumpeter Harry Jackson and Scoops Carey on clarinet. "Windy City Jive," composed and arranged by Buster Harding, has a tenor sax solo by the mighty Budd Johnson. Arranged by Eddie Durham, "Swingin' on C" overflows with great solos, including two trombone breaks by John "Streamline" Ewing. "Yellow Fire," a vivid, time-honored stomp for big band, finishes off with a percussion explosion by Traylor. Presiding over all of this excitement, Earl Hines distinguishes himself from time to time with piano breaks amid the other solos. "The Father Jumps," borrowing an ascending riff from Duke Ellington's "Merry Go Round," is a good hot jam with foamy drumming. "The Earl" is completely built around the pianist's presence, as he executes flashy tricks and wiggly runs between big-band blasts. This track showcases some of Hines' finest keyboard calisthenics. On the two unaccompanied piano solos, Hines demonstrates what could be called "Chicago stride," experimenting more than a bit with the structure of "Melancholy Baby." As for the vocalists, Billy Eckstine turns in half a dozen calorie-laden performances, the best of which is the slightly outrageous "Jitney Man," wherein he approaches the joyous theatricality of Al Hibbler. Madeline Green had a sweet little voice, but listeners are almost never able to appreciate it without the sugary backing of a vocal group calling itself the Three Varieties -- a takeoff on the Heinz condiment company's much-touted slogan, "57 Varieties." These singers try for the confectionary sound that many white big bands were hopelessly addicted to at the time. They pour syrup all over the place, and as a result some of the pop-oriented material feels at times a bit sticky. But that's what you get in a complete chronological survey of everything this bandleader did in order to stay in business over the space of eight months in 1941. arwulf arwulf  
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