Conference cookie::notes$archive:cd_v1

1124.0. "Django Reinhardt" by AKOV11::BOYAJIAN (Be nice or be dogfood) Mon Mar 21 1988 23:17

    A few years ago, a friend happened on a bunch of old 78's and,
    as he was putting them on cassette for his own listening pleasure,
    he made up a set for me as well. Great stuff --- Benny Goodman,
    Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller. But the prize of the bunch was some
    material by the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, fronted by
    Django Rheinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. Since then, I've been
    waiting for some QotHCoF to come out of CD.
    
    I did come across two CD's, both French imports on the Vogue
    label, but they were about $25 a piece, and while I have paid
    that on occasion, I always opted for other CD's at a lesser price.
    And it's a good thing, because the other week, I came across the
    best bang-per-buck bargain on CD that I've ever encountered.
    
    DJANGOLOGIE/USA is the title of two separate double-CD's, with
    (judging by the numbers) each double-CD being a combination of
    three LP's. Each of the four discs has between 70 and 75 minutes
    worth of music on it (the total is something like 288 minutes),
    and each double-CD cost the unbelievable price of $18.00. I
    calculated that this yields about three times the minutes-per-
    dollar that the average pop CD yields.
    
    These were recordings made in the late 30's, most likely made on
    wax cylinders, wire recorders, or lacquer discs. Needless to say,
    they aren't the cleanest recordings you'll ever hear, and the
    dynamic range is minimal, but this is primo material. The two
    double-CD's contain a wealth of Django material: alone, with
    Grappelli, with the Quintet, with Benny Carter, and a host of
    other jazz greats. These should be in any basic collection of
    jazz on CD.
    
    The only place I've seen them (and where I got my copies) was at
    Briggs & Briggs in Harvard Square. I'm not even sure if they had
    more copies. If you can't find them and want to try special-
    ordering them, here's the necessary data:
    
    DJANGOLOGIE/USA (1)	Disques Swing	CDSW 8421/2 & CDSW 8322/3
    DJANGOLOGIE/USA (2)	Disques Swing	CDSW 8424/5 & CDSW 8325/6
    
    They both look essentially the same, with the booklet for one of
    them being blue and for the other, yellow.
    
    --- jerry

    Jerry,
    
    I'm a Django Rheinhardt fan.  I Understand that the sound can't
    be great, but I've discovered that there seems to be 3 levels of
    quality for these older recordings:
    
    	o  What ever is on disk, transfer to CD
    
    	o  Take out all the clicks, hiss and pops, and transfer to CD
    
    	o  Digitally remaster (like the Bluebird CDs)
    
    
    From your note it sounds like the Rheinhardt CDs are the second
    option above.  Is that true?  I'll wait for a better CD if it's
    the 1st. option.
    
    Jeff
    

    re:.1
    
    No, they are "Option 1". Some of the tracks are remarkably clean,
    but most have a definite crackle to them. Considering the amount
    of material and the price, this doesn't bother me particularly.
    I'm not sure that this would "sound right" without the noise,
    anyways. :-)
    
    --- jerry