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The Best Of Chris Barber

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Traditional Jazz
by: Chris Barber

February 26, 2008
20 toe-tapping tracks for only £2.98! You can't go wrong and will enjoy the best it can get!!
All the great jazz classics are on here including THE haunting "Petite Fleur" with Monty Sunshine, along with some cracking live tracks AND 6 numbers featuring the fabulous voice of Ottilie Patterson.
If "April Showers" alone doesn't get your feet a jiggin' then you must be a piece of wood........man!
There's not one bad track on this album, which all come from the mid to late 1950's and it finishes with a rousing last track of a live version of "You Rascal You"; so buy it NOW Daddio and get in the groove!

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Greatest Hits

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Traditional Jazz
by: Kenny Ball

February 26, 2008
Some of the tunes on this are nearly fifty years old and they are still swinging. Wow, he may not be considered the coolest artist on the planet...but Kenny's got Balls!!!!!

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The Essential Collection - Original Dixieland Jazz Band

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Traditional Jazz
by: Original Dixieland Jazz Band

April 17, 2006
I've often wondered just what it must have sounded like the day the ODJB was first heard in England.Imagine the genteel drawing room with its Victrola for playing the new fangled 78s of ballad singers like John McCormack,Peter Dawson or Dame Clara Butt.Suddenly on goes a 78 by a new American band who the audience think is going to be some brass band playing a March.
The needle hits the record and the Sound of Hell opens up!!!
Yes it was Livery Stable Blues complete with farmyard impressions and what to the audience sounded like hideously discordant music or maybe the phonograph had broken down!

Shortly after the ODJB appeared in England to support a comedian called George Robey who is alleged to have said "either they ... Read More:

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The Essential Chris Barber

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Traditional Jazz
by: Chris Barber

April 22, 2000
I've often wondered just what it must have sounded like the day the ODJB was first heard in England.Imagine the genteel drawing room with its Victrola for playing the new fangled 78s of ballad singers like John McCormack,Peter Dawson or Dame Clara Butt.Suddenly on goes a 78 by a new American band who the audience think is going to be some brass band playing a March.
The needle hits the record and the Sound of Hell opens up!!!
Yes it was Livery Stable Blues complete with farmyard impressions and what to the audience sounded like hideously discordant music or maybe the phonograph had broken down!

Shortly after the ODJB appeared in England to support a comedian called George Robey who is alleged to have said "either they ... Read More:

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Ottilie Patterson With Chris Barber

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Traditional Jazz
by: Ottilie Patterson

July 03, 2000
Oh what joy to have discovered again the very special talent of Ottilie! As a teenager I went to listen to her in London with The Chris Barber Band - at the time I realised what an amazing voice and talent I was listening to but only later did I realise just how good. High up there with the greats of jazz singers, and certainly with a strong hint of Bessie Smith. ENJOY!

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Goodtime George

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Traditional Jazz
by: George Melly

May 21, 2001
Since George Melly died earler this year, I have tried to buy up some of the recordings that made him famous and brought back memories of the two occasions when I was lucky enough to see him perform live. Of all the available albums, this one may not have the most recognisable standards (though Frankie and Johnny are present and correct) but it perhaps sums 'Goodtime George' up best - the title really does say it all.

Even the more bluesy numbers feel quite swinging and up-tempo (check out Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair) and fun numbers like Mississippi Mud and Abdul Abulbul Amir - not one you could get away with singing these days, I should think! - transport you to a night at Ronnie Scott's just before Christmas, the booze flowing ... Read More:

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Rutter - Mass of the Children; Wedding Canticle; Shadows

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Traditional Jazz
by: James McVinnie, Cambridge Clare College Chamber Ensemble, Stewart French

April 03, 2006
I bought this CD after being impressed by the Naxos disc of `John Rutter's Requiem. That was something of a revelation, and probably the strongest recording of that work available. This disc is far less impressive.

The Mass of the Children is a fine work. As when recording the Requiem, this Naxos version uses the chamber ensemble version of the work rather than the full orchestral version. As with the Requiem the performance is top notch, both musicians and voices. No one should expect a piece called `Mass of the Children' to be as deep or searching as a Requiem and this is indeed a lighter work. John Rutter was inspired by his experience of singing in Benjamin Britten's War requiem in 1963, but it is a lighter side of Britten's choral ... Read More:

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Just About As Good As It Gets

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Traditional Jazz
by: Chris Barber

October 22, 2007
I bought this CD after being impressed by the Naxos disc of `John Rutter's Requiem. That was something of a revelation, and probably the strongest recording of that work available. This disc is far less impressive.

The Mass of the Children is a fine work. As when recording the Requiem, this Naxos version uses the chamber ensemble version of the work rather than the full orchestral version. As with the Requiem the performance is top notch, both musicians and voices. No one should expect a piece called `Mass of the Children' to be as deep or searching as a Requiem and this is indeed a lighter work. John Rutter was inspired by his experience of singing in Benjamin Britten's War requiem in 1963, but it is a lighter side of Britten's choral ... Read More:

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Anything Goes

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Traditional Jazz
by: George Melly

February 26, 2008
Melly croons his way through over a dozen well-known and lesser known songs with his jazz chums on this very fine record. His version of 'September Song' starts off bizarrely and then settles down while 'Anything Goes' and all the others are beautifully performed. He sings well, the musicians are all excellent and the production outstanding. This is real swinging stuff.

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The Skiffle Sessions: Live in Belfast

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Traditional Jazz
by: Van Morrison, Lonnie Donegan, Chris Barber

January 17, 2000
I bought this CD on the strength of all the good reviews I'd dead here. I'm so glad I did. It's every bit as good as they said it was.