The Best of Al Jolson

Customer Reviews

• Clean Decca cuts, worth adding to library  Oct 23, 2001 (24 of 24 found this helpful)

  MCA has re-released these dozen original Decca tracks in a remastered CD as part of a 20th Century Masters collection. The quality is quite good, but you should know that this is a subset of the tracks from the earlier MCA CD The Best Of The Decca Years, shown below. Still, it is a good, clean, CD, and it is good to see MCA continuing to release Jolson tracks. If only they would open those archives!

• What makes 'Joly' such a great singer?   May 12, 2006 (11 of 12 found this helpful)

  Jolson was the first great mass-media popular singing superstar.
  I grew up with his records and have had a special joy in listening to his music after many years once again intensely.
  I try to understand what precisely was and is so 'great' about him as a singer.
  It is the quality and tone of the voice. It is in the precise inflection and innuendo. The voice has great richness and mellifluousness. But it is also and perhaps above all in the tremendous energy and feeling there is in so many of the songs. 'Pep' is too small a word for it. The energy the vibrancy has a spirit of youth in it. 'California Here I come' 'Swanee' .Even when there is a 'sad song' like 'April Showers' it has a message of hope and an underlying feeling of joy. The nostalgic and as it were sentimental songs too all bear with them an underlying strong and positive joyous feeling.
  This is the music for a young nation looking towards its future with hope.
  I would only add. In comparing Jolson's version of 'Kol Nidre' to some of the greatest cantors his came out on top. He just had a tremendous power to transmit feeling through his incredible 'walk a million miles for one of her smiles' voice.

• Al Jolson  Jan 16, 2007 (5 of 6 found this helpful)

  Like the title says, "The Best Of Al Jolson"! He was & is one of the best all around singer/entertainer of the 20th century!!! This compilation is just fantastic, I love the back & forth diatribe between Al & Bing Crosby on "The Alexander Rag".

• my friend loves this cd  Mar 20, 2008 (1 of 1 found this helpful)

  This cd was bought for a friend. He's an old timer who had trouble finding older music. I was able to track down this cd for him from amazon and he loved it.

• I love Al Jolson  May 2, 2008 

  I am enjoying my Cd. I downloaded it to my I Pod and smile every time I hear him sing.