For those not familiar with the MMPJ discs, these are commercially realeased tapes of a too-small selection of the 100s of radio shows Ms. McParland has hosted. The format of almost all of them (at least where the guest is a pianist) is conversations with the guest artist alternating with solos by the guest, duos with the guest and McPartland, and maybe a solo by McPartland. Very few of the shows are bad, but some are great and others are merely good or interesting.
I'd say this one is great or close to it. While I never doubted that Mercer Ellingnton was a talented professional, I'd always thought of him exclusively as a curator of Ellingtonia. Of course, much of the music and… Read more
These sessions offer an unsavory combination of well-executed Weavers-like harmonies and rollicking if simplistic accompanyment, intermingled with lapses into overstylized and musically tasteless excesses, especially on solo parts. Plane Wreck at Los Gatos is well done. Fans of Judy Henske may want to get this disc given how little material she's recorded over the years (although most is now in print for the first time in decades). Overall, though, a disappointment.
Maybe I'm in a minority, but this disc really left me flat. While it had its clever moments, I found the presentation to be rather stagey, almost hoakey, like Shep wrote out his bits verbatim and gave them to Mister Rogers to read. Where's the inspired downtown 1950s hip ad libbing and quirkiness? You'll see what I mean if you compare this disc to the other Shep album that's been reissued on CD "Will Failure Spoil." That's the one to get.
Jean Shepherd was a radio genius, but you won't hear that here.
