BVHaast Rec. V.A. :1929-1934 : A Selection from the archives of Erik De Vries (US/NL/D,pub.2005)****°
When it comes to releases of recordings from before the second World War reissues are mostly just done to make quick money, are hardly focused on giving too much extra information, and are quickly recorded from vinyl, and are published in countries like Portugal where no rights need to be paid for any material older than 50 years. Such compilations are also rarely made with any vision or respect at all. This compilation is a big exception.
Erik De Vries was one of the early broadcast pioneers in Holland and Indonesia. Besides he was also a dancer, choreographer and pedagogue involved in dance theatre and he was also famous as a TV camera pioneer and director, involved in the Philips National Laboratory (NatLab) since his 18th. The years pointed out was when he collected jazz records. Great to hear is also one of his announcements before a very original pre-war Dutch song making fun with the American music and language accent. Erik’s passion was to share the music with others. He makes choices for ‘the real thing’, but this means also from our point of view a rather ‘classic’ and sometimes almost too obvious and rather safe approach. Besides, most of his choices still are THE old time classics, known by a wider public, besides there are a few other unknown recordings of the same quality.
Included is the best early American jazz, like Louis Armstrong (who signed one of his records), Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and Cab Calloway, but also famous singers like the Boswell singers or the Mills Brothers, or German great ‘classic’ singers like Zarah Leander, early Marlene Dietrich and the outstanding Lotte Lenya (Weill/Brecht), with some of their classic songs, and Dutch orchestral dance orchestra talents like The Ramblers, or English ensembles like Jack Hylton as well as a forgotten British composer, Reginald Foresythe, who combined serious music with dance music with a vision comparable to what Gershwin did in the US with classical music and jazz, or the French Maurice Chevalier who was invited in the US, with a great humoristic introduction of the “Valentine” song in English. Out of respect for the music, rare photographs and large comments are included in the booklet and the best care has been taken to restore these recordings (as best as they can) into no noise reproduction, which makes this collection rather unique. A few unique recordings are added too, like Miss Spadie Lee, a singer who had spent some time in Holland and who was able to record 6 songs sponsored by Erik De Vries himself. After that they lost track of her.
Highly recommended ! Compiled with love for music. 71 minutes of great music, sold for the not normal price of 2,50 euros now !
