The packaging on this 1998 CD is so faulty that it overwhelms the music. The eight selections on the disc (totaling less than 28 minutes) were all previously available (along with four other cuts) on a GHB CD from four years earlier. The personnel is not listed; the incompetent liner notes are full of errors and make it sound as if the music is from 1959 rather than 1950; and nowhere is it mentioned that these performances are actually by
the Basin Street Six.
Pete Fountain does indeed play clarinet, but references to his bass clarinet playing on "High Society" (he was actually playing in the lower register of the clarinet) and his vocal on "Margie" (which was taken by
George Girard) are absurd. Featuring trumpeter
George Girard, trombonist Joe Rotie and pianist
Roy Zimmerman, the music is decent Dixieland, although the recording quality is actually better on the GHB reissue. Pass this turkey by.