The second volume of
Bix Restored,
Sunbeam's massive effort to gather together every note that the legendary
Bix Beiderbecke ever blew on record, takes up where
Vol. 1 left off, right in the middle of the prime
Beiderbecke sessions with
Frankie Trumbauer. The first disc of the three-CD set shuttles between the remaining
Trumbauer sides of 1927, famously buoyant sessions by
Beiderbecke and his gang, and an interlude with the
Willard Robison group,
Tram, and a period vocal quintet. The vast bulk of the remaining two discs is taken up by
Beiderbecke's records with the
Paul Whiteman Orchestra, with a few side trips under
Trumbauer's name. That's quite a prolific stretch of recording over a five-month period by the standards of any era. Yet true to the legend, each and every solo by
Beiderbecke, be it a single chorus, an intro, or taking turns in bursts with his colleagues, is an exquisitely turned, perfectly poised etching in sound, absolutely a part of its time and also speaking to the future. His solos on the
Whiteman recordings often come as crisp, cocky bursts of sass; at other times, he is just part of the trumpet section playing straight off the page. This box set will also serve as a detailed sampling as to how far afield the huge
Whiteman orchestra would go to gather an audience, ranging from genuinely hot
jazz to perky/sentimental period pops and some of the most eccentric
classical/
pop hybrids -- dig the
Wagner! -- ever put on wax. The transfers by
John R.T. Davies and
Michael Kieffer are remarkably honest, leaving in the innate surface noise and distortion caused by needle wear yet reproducing a satisfying musical image of the original 78s. Those with access to original pressings will notice a small lack of presence, but in comparison to the heavily processed, compressed transfers of the first seven tracks by
Columbia on
Singin' the Blues, the
Sunbeam set is way is better by far. ~ Richard S. Ginell