The Classic Previn

Avid Jazz here presents four classic Andre Previn albums including original LP liner notes on a finely re-mastered and low priced double CD.
“West Side Story”… A 1959 recording of the classic Leonard Bernstein score featuring Andre Previn on piano accompanied by Red Mitchell on bass and Shelly Manne on drums. Take a listen and consider Bernstein’s thoughts from his book “The Joy Of Music” … ”A popular song doesn’t become jazz until it is improvised on, and there you have the real core of jazz improvisation”. “Collaboration”… Andre is joined by Shorty Rogers in an unusual collaboration where each arranger takes turns to lead off with three standard arrangements while the other follows with three original tunes based on the standards chords…

In 2006, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth plus the 30th anniversary of Anne-Sophie Mutter's public debut, Deutsche Grammophon released new recordings of the German violinist in all the Austrian composer's major works featuring her instrument. To celebrate Mutter's undeniable beauty, each body of works was released with a different photograph of Mutter on the cover: the set of concertos had Mutter poured into a stunning bottle green mermaid gown, the set of sonatas had Mutter wrapped in a shimmering golden yellow strapless gown, and this set of the piano trios has Mutter's wonderfully made-up face and marvelously coifed hair in close-up.

Ella Fitzgerald, who in the late '50s recorded the very extensive George and Ira Gershwin Songbook, revisits their music on this duet outing with pianist André Previn. Her voice was past her prime by this point, but she was able to bring out a lot of the beauty in the ten songs, giving the classic melodies and lyrics tasteful and lightly swinging treatment. Nice Work If You Can Get It is not an essential CD but is a reasonably enjoyable outing.

In the late 1940s, the pioneering Decca recording engineers perfected a new set of microphone techniques that allowed the full range of frequencies to be fully heard by listeners for the first time, and the term ‘full frequency range recording’ was launched. It was a major revolution in sound quality, and the beginnings of high fidelity.