Woody Allen: Songs That Made His Movies Great [2 CD]

 (9 customer reviews)

I love the music in Woody Allen's films! This is a great collection of the type of Jazz Woody is famous for using in soundtrack. I love listening to this while I work, write cook or eat!

This two-CD set is a lovely sampler of more than two dozen Thirties - Forties popular music, and as such is really a great buy despite a few minor demerits:

-- You'll find no classical music here. Nor blues, nor folk music. These twenty-six tracks are the kind that were popular on the radio in the late Thirties to mid-Forties; in fact, ten of them (I may have undercounted a little) came from one Woody Allen movie, RADIO DAYS (1987), which runs from 1938 to New Year's Day, 1944. But while there's a good deal of overlap, this album and the movie RADIO DAYS hold quite a few tunes of their own.

-- For the most part, (one exception being Artie Shaw's studio masterpiece "Begin the Beguine"), these are radio versions of popular tunes, probably recorded on acetate master discs during live performances over network radio. Several times we hear the audience applauding, laughing or murmuring. Additionally, the "source limitations" of the acetate masters and no stereo...Read more

Every so often I like to escape - my waspy culture, my suburban childhood and my ballroom dancing classes. Music allows one to speak a foreign language for a while, wear virtual low slung pants and rap or remember when innocent romance swept my parents away! Escape with big band, listen to simple lyrics and travel in time ... the escape is a gentle time machine!