20 Best of Jazz

Best of Jazz Greats	Best Smooth Jazz Ever	20 Best of Jazz	20 Best of Glenn Miller Orchestra	Use Your Illusion I Part one of Guns N' Roses' ambitious second album is arguably the better of the two. It certainly rocks harder, though this seems to be more coincidence than anything else; which songs went on which CD looks to have been a random selection. Use Your Illusion I stays closer to the...

Decent for a Madacy release...
...but not for any other release. I was surprised when I listened to the music samplers. The sound quality is actually superb on several of the songs here. For example, 'Anything Goes,' which features a young Tony Bennett singing with the Count Basie Orchestra, sounds like it was recorded yesterday. The same goes for 'I Ain't Mad At You' and 'Moment's Notice,' which capture Chick Corea performing with Lionel Hampton's band. Among the other ones with decent sound are a Jean-Luc Ponty playing on 'Lady Be Good!,' 'Fantastique' by the best vibes player of all-time, Lionel Hampton, and 'Desafinado' by Dizzy Gillespie. The sound quality on all of those are superb. However, I can't really recommend this disc. The sound quality on songs like 'A-Tisket, A-Tasket' by Ella Fitzgerald is awful. Yes, this was recorded in 1938, but Verve has since remastered it, and so it sounds great. Same goes for Charlie Barnet's 'I Can't Remember To Forget.' It's horrid. It sounds as though he went into a portapotty to record it. And that's a shame, because Barnet is one of the most underrated figures in jazz, in my view. So, if you're buying this disc expecting classics that are remastered to sound great for the sound system, car, iPod, etc., look elsewhere for a 'Best of Jazz.' I can't really recommend this because of the sound quality on some of the tracks, but I can say this is very good as far as Madacy's releases go. They didn't completely rip you off here, which is nice.