British budget reissue label Prism Leisure takes advantage of the 50-year European copyright limit to assemble its own versions of vintage recordings drawn from transfers of old records. This collection, released in 1998 and therefore able to use recordings made up to 1947, collects some of
Billy Eckstine's earliest recordings from the mid-1940s for DeLuxe and especially National Records. This was a period when
Eckstine was leading an innovative big band, though his recordings do not, for the most part, reflect its innovations. Still, some of his star sidemen do turn up. For example, on the R&B hit recording of "I Stay in the Mood for You," trumpeter
Dizzy Gillespie makes a strong impression as part of what was known on record as the DeLuxe All Star Band.
Miles Davis is featured on the National Records version of
Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady" that was recorded in 1946 and became a pop chart entry in 1948. Still, jazz content is not what these tracks are really about. They are pop standards on which
Eckstine exercises his bass-baritone effectively, with his band getting to make instrumental statements in the margins around him here and there. The tracks have clearly been transferred from old 78's, as surface noise is sometimes audible, and the overall sound quality is only mediocre to good. Of course, there are no annotations to allow the listener to figure out the sources of the tracks. But the price is quite low, and there are more than 70 minutes of music on the disc.