The Seventeen Number Ones

Contrary to what one might think from the coverage he gets, Tommy Dorsey enjoyed more than a dozen chart-topping hits before Frank Sinatra ever went to work for him. This mid-priced 1990 vintage CD, covering Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra's biggest hits from 1935 through 1942, remains the best overview of Dorsey's work in his prime years that one can buy, at least short of going for the Collector's Choice three-CD V-Disc Recordings set, which is a lot less organized and a lot more expensive. The Dorsey orchestra was a sweet band, no question, but they had first-rate players who were as precise and skilled as any in the business, and even on their pop sides you can hear a virtuoso ensemble — and some of these sides, including "Marie" and "The Big Apple," really swing; even the real pop numbers, like "Alone" (a cover of the big featured Brown/Freed love ballad from the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera), and dance numbers, like "The Dipsy Doodle," are worth the price of admission for '30s pop and novelty music at its best. There are just four sides featuring Sinatra, but the other vocalists are more than competent and Edythe Wright, in particular, has a lot to offer. There's no personnel information other than the singers, but that's easy enough to get hold of for anyone who really cares, and the sound is more than decent for a 1990 release, marred only by some surface noise in the sources and a bit more compression than would be ideal.