Pickett

"This is pure sizzle and great fun from beginning to end. The massive collection of French court dances that Michael Praetorius collected and arranged for his volume entitled Terpsichore in 1612 was just one in the extraordinary series of publications he issued within only 15 years…Rackets, shawms, Rauschpfeifen, many kinds of stringed instruments and much else are all chronicled here. And the music in Terpsichore is tailor-made for an imaginative and rich display showing the varied sounds of one of music's most colourful eras. In presenting this selection with a daunting array of different instruments and ensembles, Philip Pickett follows a tradition inherited from the German Collegium Terpsicore via David Munrow and many others. But this may be the first such record devoted entirely to the Terpsichore collection…
In all, there is a massive cast of nearly 40 musicians taking part, among them some of the most admired early-instrument names in London. There is any number of absolutely delicious sounds; and the groups are juxtaposed with quick-silver elegance. The performances include some imaginative departures from the sketchy details of Praetorius's harmonizations, though it is odd that so little embellishment was used. Perhaps that is a function of the functional 1980s, which here seems to avoid the kind of individual showing-off that made some of the earlier Terpsichore recordings so exciting. Here the excitement is in the vitality and cleanness of the ensemble sound…"

David Fallows, The Gramaphone

This eight-CD set should be a part of any collection that presumes to take American music - not just rock & roll or rhythm & blues - seriously. Atlantic Records was one of dozens of independent labels started up after the war by neophyte executives and producers, but it was different from most of the others in that the guys who ran it were honest and genuinely loved music. Coupled with a lot of luck and some good judgment, the results trace a good chunk of the history of American music and popular culture. Disc one opens with cuts which slot in somewhere midway between jazz, bop, and "race" music (as the term was used then). Disc two is pure, distilled R&B, the stuff filling the airwaves of black radio and the jukeboxes in the "wrong" parts of town in 1952-54….

This is the CD first press issue of this boxset. These were sold individually as Vols 1-8 and they were also sold together as a boxset. The contents of the boxset are all 8 Vols individually packaged into a LP sized case plus the boxset comes with a 36 page LP sized booklet.

This is a boxset of re-recordings and live performances and will be of interest to those interested in hearing alternate recordings of classic soul tracks. Some of these tracks are quite good. Others don't compare to the original in my opinion. Some of the songs are by well known performers that are not the same performer that had the hit originally. All in all this makes an interesting set.