Hoagy Carmichael

The recordings on this Flyright disc were not made for public consumption; rather, they are taken from private lacquers cut at the home of a friend of Carmichael's who was an executive in a company that manufactured radio equipment. The sound quality of these selections is way above average for home recordings cut direct to disc, although some titles are noisier than others. A relaxed Carmichael plays through a wide variety of his own material — some of it off the beaten path — sometimes singing, humming, or whistling. About two or three of the pieces are piano solos, rarely to be found among his commercially recorded work. Although a blanket date for this session has been given as 1939-1951, these were most likely not made before 1944. Carmichael takes a lot of liberties with this material in such a casual setting, and the version of "How Little We Know" here is radically different from any other recording of the song. "Stardust" here is a real prize, as Carmichael plays the song slowly, reflectively, taking it out into areas that standard versions could only hint at. Truly, even 20 years after it was written, "Stardust" was a piece that for its composer still had potential for further development. His pianism is not as sharp and focused as that of a jazz player who made a full-time pursuit of soloing. And yet Carmichael's overall approach to the piano as a jazz instrument is a little in advance of its time, favorably comparable to that of his younger contemporary, Clarence Profit, or of Dave Brubeck in ballad settings such as "In Your Own Sweet Way." While the very nature of this disc places it more into the range of specialist tastes, this compilation of home recordings is an indispensable item for those interested in an intimate peek into the private music-making habits of Hoagy Carmichael, one of America's greatest composers of popular song.