Paul Whiteman - Greatest Hits

This is a better than decent representative collection, 22 songs (all from his first stay on the Victor label), covering the repertoire from "The Japanese Sandman" to "Rhapsody in Blue" during the years 1920-1928, when Paul Whiteman was among the most popular and progressive bandleaders in the country. The jazz elements are rather muted -- Whiteman didn't really begin to open his recordings up in that direction until the tail end of his tenure at Victor in 1927, but there are hot solos on "Hot Lips" and "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" (a song that Whiteman and his band introduced to the world on Broadway as well as on record) and some of the early numbers here, and by the time you get to "Wang Wang Blues" (co-authored by Henry Busse) -- in a previously unissued, electrically recorded version -- there's a fair amount of jazz getting through. Read More