Search - Count Basie :: Gold Collection

Count Basie in-concert

Annie Van Auken | Planet Earth | 12/30/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The first track on GOLD COLLECTION * COUNT BASIE is a radio transcription. It opens with shrill crowd noise that briefly obscures the kickoff of "One O'Clock Jump." After a few bars, the audience is jarringly shunted to the background either by poor editing or spastic audio mixing. "Lullabye of Birdland," more radio broadcast stuff, has the fidelity of a sound check, barely. Worse, someone has apparently set up the lone microphone too close to an overused cymbal.



The rest of the tracks have much better fidelity. The performances are solid and all are in-concert; many have inaudible stage chatter after the applause dies. (The band member intros following "Nails" would have been a lot better if done on-mike, BTW.)



Criticisms aside, this GOLD COLLECTION set is a decent example of the latter-day Count Basie band in concert.



TOTAL RUNNING TIME -- 55:30"