The Very Best of Benny Goodman

The Benny Goodman library hasn't been well treated by RCA-BMG, especially in the area of mid-priced compilations — there were too many reissues done in the late '80s and early '90s, before the advent of 20-bit and 24-bit mastering and other high-resolution digital formats, that really make a difference on those old analog masters. The result is a lot of Goodman out there on CD (from Sony Music as well as BMG, the former label hardly being guiltless in this matter, either) that sounds tinny and thin. That is most decidedly not a problem with this 20-song CD, which offers the kind of sound that CDs originally promised (but generally didn't deliver) on music of this vintage, all dating between 1935 and 1938 — Goodman's solo on "St. Louis Blues" does, indeed, sound as though the clarinetist is suddenly in the room with you, and the entire rhythm section right down to the guitar comes through just as clearly as the featured soloists. What's more, you even get the experience of room ambience on these nearly 70-year-old masters. It's worth buying just to hear the studio rendition of "One O'Clock Jump," a piece better known from its concert incarnation at the legendary Carnegie Hall performance — most of what's here is instrumental, though the producers have included the Martha Tilton-sung "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" (in two-parts), "And the Angels Sing," "Goodie Goodie" with Helen Ward's vocals, and, most important, "Exactly Like You," featuring the Goodman Quartet with Lionel Hampton singing — Hampton's vibraphone is so much in the fore that it sounds as fresh as if it had been recorded yesterday, on "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Moonglow." Loren Schoenberg's annotation is as good as the remastering, and the disc is a bargain by any measure, as well as a pleasure.