I love most music, listen to Rock, Jazz, Classical, Blue Grass and Big Band. My library of Big Band is lacking is a understatement. I have searched U Tube for Big Band but fidelity is lacking from what I have heard. I am a Audiophile and very picky a bout sound quality. If my train room stereo was brass engines I would have around 30 of them.
Mister Beasley has a video on U Tube that has The A Train To Harlem, I an fine with the quality. Any links you could post?
Cuda Ken
Hi Ken- I have a bunch of old LP’s- Basie- The Duke and Ella and the list goes on. 38 Jazz Concert. Sound quality is lacking. Try getting remastered discs as the sound is a heck of a lot better.
Flip
No free downloads, but check Amazon.com for lots of CDs that can be purchased. I download the MP3 versions of the CDs, which is cheaper than ordering the actual disk. You can use Windows Media Player to make your own CDs.
I got that one from I-tunes. There is no song that I can think of that is more appropriate to subways than this one, although I’m planning something with “MTA” by the Kingston Trio.
On I Tones MR B, can I listen before I buy a song? I know what I like from movie sound tracks but not the names. I have never been to any of the buy music sites and know nothing about them. Do I need something special on my computer to play MP3 files?
Ken
If you have RealPlayer or Windows Media Player you should have no trouble with MP3s.
Copyrights on songs now last for 75 years, so most Big Band music is still under copyright by the publishers. Right now only music from 1934 or earlier would be free from copyright.
Time-Life did a series of CD’s not too long ago that were re-recordings of big band music from the thirties to early fifties that was done in hi-fi stereo in the early sixties. The musicians used were virtually all alumni of various big bands, and some stars came in to re-do their hits like Tex Beneke singing “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” and Nat King Cole doing “Straighten Up and Fly Right”. They offered a two CD “Best of the Best” that started you out, then followed with CDs each featuring the music of a certain year. I bet you could find some of those discs on ebay etc.
Ken,I also listen to the big bands.I like several types of music from the 30s to the 70s.
Just for us big band fans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n92ATE3IgIs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYo6G8RBjAE&feature=PlayList&p=AD7DA2393178FFBF&index=0&playnext=1
iTunes lets you sample about 30 seconds of a song without buying it. They have a search feature which works most of the time. A typical song costs 99 cents.
I’ve made a few discs of downloaded tunes from the 60s, mostly one-hit-wonders and odd album cuts I happened to like. I play these in my car. I suppose I’d use an iPod if somebody gave me one, but I don’t care for wires hanging out of my head, so portable music isn’t one of my priorities.
Smoking, try this Mr B.
Keep in mind, this coming from a musician myself, that sound quality may be lacking because it was… A lot of your original big band recordings, your Goodman, Ellington, etc. were recorded in a time period that was really the beginning of recorded music. They didn’t have the technology at the time, the studio quality, microphone quality, etc. so your best bet for really good sounding (from a quality standpoint) jazz is going to be re-recorded material done in more modern times. Or, you just have to take the originals’ sound for what it is. I have a whole boxset of jazz that sounds like it was recorded with a couple of mikes in a concert hall.
Yep! And the 38 Concert at Carnigi [sp] Hall was recorded in a room across the street from the hall. Be careful of any recording of Sing Sing Sing as most of them do NOT have the ending on it . Thats the ‘Rideout’ with Benny hitting the HIGH notes.
Flip