The Jazz Age

As others have noted, Bryan Ferry may have been born a few decades too late. There is little doubt that he finds the music of the jazz age deeply inspirational. Bryan has been covering songs from the jazz era since the 1970s. Just listen to his gorgeous covers of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and "These Foolish Things". Mr. Ferry's solo offering "As Time Goes By" successfully explored much loved songs from the golden age of the big bands. I was fortunate to catch his show supporting that release at a small venue in Philadelphia the night before he played The Beacon Theater in Manhattan. I can truthfully say that show was a transcendent experience.I have been a Roxy Music fan since college and greatly enjoy much of Bryan Ferry's solo material. I was lucky to see him perform with Roxy Music and as a solo performer at Radio City Music Hall among other venues. Songs like "Slave To Love" and "Love Is The Drug", both included on "The Jazz Age", are among my all time favorites.I knew I was taking a chance when I purchased "The Jazz Age". It was obviously an experiment that took Mr. Ferry far from his usual track much as the recent release "Apres" did for Iggy Pop. Certainly the record sounds extremely authentic. It could easily have been recorded during the era that inspired it. Mr. Ferry's songs have been remade and remodeled to sound like creations right out of the Jazz Age. To that extent the experiment is an unqualified success. Unfortunately the structure of the songs change so much they are barely recognizable. That might have been OK if only he had actually sung them! Where oh where is Mr. Ferry's beautiful baritone voice? He is one of greatest rock crooners of all time. To make a CD like this without any vocals seems like a missed opportunity to me."The Jazz Age" is an intriguing experiment. Perhaps it will grow on me. I strongly suspect, however, that it will languish in my collection rarely listened to. Bryan Ferry is nothing less than a ground breaking pioneer who has made tremendous contributions to popular music. With so many home runs behind him it's OK to hit a double once in awhile. Anyway kudos to Mr. Ferry for trying something completely different.

I respectfully disagree with anyone who says the sound quality is low. It may well be on MP3, because the castration fascination of our current audio age cuts out tons of undertones, overtones, middle tones. Well, it cuts out everything but the chosen bits. I'm so far back on this that I apologize for sounding like an outtake from Star Trek: The Next Generation. However. One sonic approximation is not the "fault" of Mr. Ferry nor his co producers nor his musicians. Everyone notes it's on vintage instruments. I wish our listeners' ears were accurate to the vintage sound, but we've all been blown out by our earpieces and our compressions.The songs...well, they are superlative, as most reviewers note. Performances? First rate. This is a cool jazz record of hot jazz.We may agree to disagree. I think this is a first rate CD. But now that Mr. Bowie has tossed down the challenge with his era-defying and denying The Next Day, the next move lies upon Mr. Ferry's board.Move well. I clearly know nothing of chess, but I know a lot about music. As Olympia was great, Mr. Ferry, you'll still need to do better, sir. The Rook is no match for the Queen. Get a band. Just get a band you never thought you'd ever work with in your life. You don't need to hide behind your success, because dammit Bryan everyone loves you. Go get some rank blues guys from Chicago who don't know who you are, but will know, once they hear you, that you know.As a record review, this is an apostrophe to something else. But I think fans, at least, will get what I'm saying. It's time for Mr. Ferry to get off the horse and take a little walk with the help. Pawns are good. They win in the end.Yes or no, boys and girls?

The previous reviewer who one-starred this jewel while professing to be an audiophile has made me wonder: would a cinephile pan Woody Allen's "Manhattan" because it was filmed in black and white? I hope not. Moreover, this release is so well recorded that no true audiophile should diss it.OK, well. I love Bryan Ferry. He launched his career with Roxy Music and immediately launched a parallel solo career by reworking (mostly) other people's songs, with results ranging from mundane ("Taxi") to sublime ("Song to the Siren," "The 'In' Crowd," "Like a Hurricane," for example). "The Jazz Age" brings Ferry's career full circle, as he has reworked his own songs into 1920s hot jazz stunners.This is the first release in Ferry's 40+ year career on which he does not perform. No worries, fans: Bryan's hand is firmly on the throttle throughout, and the result is perhaps his most groundbreaking release ever.No, this is not a geriatric tribute to music long since passed. Rather, "The Jazz Age" is an unprecedented reinterpretation of 13 Ferry originals as if they had been debuted in America circa 1925. To console the audiophile who sparked this review: relax, dude. Ferry made "The Jazz Age" monaural on purpose. He recorded it on 1920s-era equipment. One channel. That is why it sounds like genuine hot jazz, not like some sterile (though reverent) exhumation of music long since passed.Tell me another artist who could have turned his/her new wave catalog into genuinely hot jazz instrumentals. Go ahead, I dare ya.I suppose that people who dislike hot jazz will not change their minds because of this album. No problem, folks: go with God. But if you can wrap your head around "The Jazz Age" by pretending that it is a parallel universe radio retransmission of a world in which Bryan Ferry was allowed to flourish forty years ahead of schedule, then click "Add to cart" and get ready to enjoy the album of this (or a much earlier) decade.

This is a very odd curio of an album. Although titled "The Bryan Ferry Orchestra", Ferry himself doesn't feature on it at all. It is a collection of Ferry's solo material and Roxy Music numbers played by Ferry's regular backing musicians from the time, in a 1920s ragtime-ish jazz style. There are no vocals on the album at all, and, what makes it a flawed album, for me, is that the music is played in a deliberately "lo-fi", muffled mono sound. This is done, presumably, to add a 1920s authenticity to it, rather like some artists have added scratches to songs to make them sound like old blues numbers. Personally, I would preferred it if they had applied contemporary, decent sound to the music. It is a nice concept, but I feel it could have been so much better.As for the music itself, most of the tracks are barely recognisable as the songs they once were. Roxy Music's "Just Like You" is one of the only ones that does sound like it used to. Others, like "Love Is The Drug" and "Don't Stop The Dance" have hints, here and there. Some, like "Do The Strand" and "This Is Tomorrow" have me struggling to find any musical link. No doubt, there are lots of musical elements in there, to a trained ear, but to my philistine ear they sound like different melodies.I dig this out and give it a play around once a year, but every time I do, it leaves me frustrated. I guess that will never change. I love the cover though.*** 2018's "Bitter-Sweet" repeats the experiment. However, this time, the sound quality is marginally improved upon and vocals are added on certain tracks.

The most sublimely beautiful re-imagining of some classic Ferry / Roxy Music tracks as if they had been written and recorded in the golden age of Jazz. It's from a parallel universe where Roxy Music happened in the 1920's and 30's, rather than the 70's and 80's. Rarely has music been so transformed so beautifully and with such integrity. There is a wonderful documentary on the making of this album which will add to your enjoyment of it immeasurably, and that documentary has been placed on YouTube. You can view it here: [...] And no you don't need to be a fan of Jazz to love this. It's incredibly accessible, being funny, dramatic and moving by turns. Give yourself a big surprise and an even bigger treat - get this album!!!

What can I say? 1970's music orchestrated in the style of the early 1920's. Growling brass bass and all.This stuff gives a visceral twist to what weren't bad tunes after all.... "Love Is The Drug" as an instrumental rather than with vocal refrain (as in The Great Gatsby OST) is good but top track has to be "Avalon" as a tango.That's Bryan Ferry's Avalon of course not the ill-fated Al Jolson song that got torpedoed by Puccini ;-)The only downer is that the attractive hard-bound book that is the container holds the CD in a paper sleeve on the inner cover -it's almost like the BOOK is the main attraction and the CD an accessory. The book is OK and interesting but a masterwork it ain't.I don't like card sleeves, the CD is at risk of abrasions - hence 4 stars

If you like early 20s Jazz you'll love this. It's great for listening but also great as background music for a 20s themed evening. It's quite difficult to work out the Roxy Music tracks, they have all been masterfully transformed into something quite different but excellent in their own right.

Couldn't really get into this. I like a bit of jazz, but this is not for me. Need to be more of an expert to appreciate perhaps. I didn't find it easy listening.