Search - John Kirby :: Rehearsin for a Nervous Breakdown

Things To Come

Tom Without Pity | A Major Midwestern Metropolis | 03/20/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

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This is a review for the Laserline CD of reissues of the John Kirby Sextet

recordings for Columbia Records made in 1939-1941.



Because the CD company itself and Amazon have not seen fit to give us information

as to titles, personel and recording dates I have done my best to list

that information as follows:



The John Kirby Sextet was Charlie Shavers--trumpet, Buster Bailey-- clarinet,

Russell Procope--alto saxophone, Billy Kyle--piano , John Kirby--bass and O'Neil Spencer--drums.



1) Sweet Georgia Brown

2) Blues Petite

3) It Feels Good

4) Front And Center

3) Andioology

6) Coquette

7) Zooming At The Zombie

8) Opus 5

9) Blue Skies

10) Jumpin' In The Pump Room

11) 20th Century Closet

12) Royal Garden Blues

13) Can't We Be Friends

14) Beethoven Riffs On

15) Rehearsin' For a Nervous Breakdown

16) Undecided



The John Kirby Sextet was known as "The Bigest Little Band In The Land"

for good reason. In the era of big band swing this small group swung as hard or harder than any of their famous more populous contemporaries. And their unique harmonic voicing was a direct precurser to the sounds of bebop which was just

around the corner, ready to help put an end to the last era of jazz's

reign as a genuinely popular music.



Unfortunately, The John Kirby Sextet is not well remembered and John

Kirby's group is now thought of as a group that sounded something like Raymond Scott's studio band, which is not a completely inaccurate comparison.

But the difference is that John Kirby's Sextet had room for improvising whereas near as I can determine, Raymond Scott's outfit was relatively tightly scripted.



But the fact of the matter is, I just enjoy John Kirby's recordings as much or more than any small group from the pre-war era. I have given this Laserline CD five stars strictly for the music, the packaging is uninfomative as to recording dates, personel, etc. This release contains 16 of the 46 Kirby recordings that

were released and they are quite good but one can always quibble with the choices made by the editors who decided what to release and what to keep.

Maybe someday Laserline will release a second volume of Kirby recordings at the same reasonable price as Volume One.



In any case, this CD, "Rehearsin' For A Nervous Breakdown," is a good deal and well worth the bargain price that is usually asked. Five Stars without reservations.







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