Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall: new reissue, still incomplete

Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall 1938 is an iconic record. It has been in print since 1950, and it offers a great snapshot of Swing at his height, not only musically but socially. However, to this day we don't have a complete issue of the music, as I explained in this previous post.

There's a new reissue just out—Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall 1938, Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., Blu-spec CD2 SICP 30223-4. This has been released in the new Blu-spec CD2 format, but it's based on the previous official CD master (C2K 65143, from 1999), and therefore it's still missing half a minute of music, although the sound seems to have gained definition.

Expert Jon Hancock, author of this book about the concert, has posted this on his Facebook page, and has kindly let me post it here:

I received a review copy of the new Japanese Blu-spec CD2, Carnegie Hall concert a few days ago and played it through a couple of times. The packaging is exactly the same as the 1999 version with the same liner notes booklet, barring some typographic corrections to the early versions. The print quality is much better than original 1999 issue.

[...] SME Japan have used the original master from the 1999 issue for this new format. The sound quality however, is different: it certainly sounds more detailed. The Japanese issues of this concert have always been good and this is no exception. There does seem to me to be a lot more to hear. The sound of the drums is realistic; you can feel the beautiful warmth of those calf skins. The cymbals too have sparkle, compared to the ‘splash’ of the earlier incarnation. The same goes for the piano, which sounds—to my ears—a lot more rounded, full and engaging. Some extra subtleties of the orchestrations start to peak through as well, this is wonderful. As always, every time I play this concert I hear something new. This Blu-spec CD2 will provide a whole new layer of little details to discover for years to come.

But there is a downside… (Isn’t there always!) Again, to my ears, this extra fidelity has brought the crackle and surface noise into even sharper focus, it is quite intrusive in places and the overall sound of this CD is still quite shrill. That is a shame; surely there is no need for this in 2013. And yes, we are still missing a fair chunk of ‘I Got Rhythm’.
I can’t write this without mentioning the amazing job that Harry Smith made of recording this concert, remotely, from his studio a few blocks away from Carnegie Hall. The original recordings cover 28 sides of acetate discs. With a maximum of about four minutes per side, Harry must have been working frantically that night to capture it all without missing anything.

All-round, this offering is probably only for purists and fanatics like me (us?), it does bring us a couple of inches closer to what it must have been like to hear that incredible 1938 band in the flesh.

Still hoping for a proper reissue of this...