Essential Series for Fans of Early Broadway Musicals
Tom Sherohman | Columbia Heights, MN USA | 02/02/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"At these prices, I hope a buyer knows what he/she is getting before committing the serious bucks it costs to own all four volumes in this set. Do you love the early work of composers like Irving Berlin, Victor Herbert and Jerome Kern? How about peformers like Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Bert Williams, Nora Bayes and Fannie Brice? (to mention but a few) Can you tolerate (or even enjoy, as I do) the sound quality of acoustically recorded material from before 1920? If you answered yes to these questions, then these recordings may seem a bargain at approximately $200 for 12 CD's, comprising nearly 300 tracks. The liner notes claim that this set contains every original cast recording that is known to exist from this period. The digital remastering of the sound is excellent, but if sound quality is an issue for you, start with Volume 4 and work backwards because some of the earliest stuff (especially Volume 1) is pretty faint and scratchy. The scholarship, quality and rarity of much of this collection makes it essential for those who love this kind of material. In Volume 4, the highlights for me were the Jolson stuff from "Sinbad" and the numbers from the "Zeigfeld Follies of 1919." I had heard some of these on scattered other recordings, but hearing all of this wonderfully remastered material in one collection really gave me some idea of what broadway musicals were like before 1920. Short of time travel, this is as good as it gets!"