release date: Nov. 26, 2012
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,98]
producer: Bryan Ferry & Rhett Davies
label: BMG Rights Management - nationality: England, UK
14th studio album by Bryan Ferry released by The Bryan Ferry Orchestra is a collection of Ferry compositions released on various albums from the early Roxy Music days and his later solo albums, but re-organised for and re-worked into traditional jazz as played in the 1920s and 1930s with a strings and brass backing band.
Stylistically, we're talking contemporary jazz, ragtime and swing, and not only is the orchestral instrumentation according to the aforementioned time but also the recording and production sound are in the spirit of that era, insofar that it feels completely genuinely old. Although, all original compositions were with Ferry on lead vocal, this release is completely without any vocal performance, and Ferry himself is "only" credited as composer, producer and bandleader.
The original Roxy Music and Ferry tracks are sometimes truly hard to recognise but the overall impression is a solid and original release. I would, however, have loved and preferred to hear these songs in vocal arrangements as the natural follow-up to his fine album As Time Goes By (1999). Having said that it's a "solid" and "original" release, although that does not imply that I enjoy it. I find it somewhat redundant.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 stars ]
