Search - Bud Freeman :: All Star Swing Sessions

Bud Freeman is Swinging!

Michael B. Richman | Portland, Maine USA | 12/08/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

""The Bud Freeman All-Star Swing Sessions" is another one of my Oldies/Collectables website finds. It features music from three sessions, two originally made for Swingville in the 1960s, and a third from the mid 1930s (!), all coupled on this one Prestige CD. The best material hails from the May 13, 1960 recording, released originally on LP as "The Bud Freeman All-Stars" and featuring a stellar quintet of Bud on tenor sax, Shorty Baker on trumpet, Claude Hopkins on piano, George Duvivier on bass and J.C. Heard on drums. The influence here is still swing, but the modern engineering of Rudy Van Gelder, and the small group setting make the results very contemporary sounding for its time. The remaining music is plucked from two sessions nearly thirty years apart. For my money, I would have happily had the entirety of the well-recorded (RVG again) August 23, 1962 date, over the historical document that is the disc's last four tracks from 1935. However, I can't really complain as I got Bud Freeman practically for free."