Search - Bernard Herrmann :: Four Faces of Jazz [MFSL Audiophile Original Master Recording]

Rather Dour Faces

Karl W. Nehring | Ostrander, OH USA | 07/11/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Jazz may indeed have four faces on this CD, but they are all rather dour. This is not jazz as you might normally think of it; rather, it is a European abstraction of jazz, or maybe I should say Euro-American, given the presence of some Gershwin, but old George was doing this arrangement of "I Got Rhythm" in the European idiom. Not exactly swinging stuff. The Europeans include Weill (Three Penny Opera), Stravinsky (Ragtime) and Milhaud (Creation of the World). This is the kind of thing I like to listen to every once in a great while--except for the Stravinsky, which is deadly dry and dull--but more out of curiosity than enjoyment.



The sound is OK, but nothing special. The image is wide, but there is no real sense of space, with the acoustic, the tonal balance, and yes, the music itself being pretty darned dry. Recording selections such as these in this kind of OK but dry sound is the market niche that Nonesuch LPs used to fill--but they were budget records. To pay $30 for a gold CD, you would have to be a pretty big fan of this kind of thing."