0370 Nat Gonella [You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby] FLAC 22(1.07.09)

Nat Gonella - trumpet, vocal
(Other personnel could not be established)

01 You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby (Warren) (3:00)
02 Tiger Rag (Edwards, Costa, Ragas, Shields, LaRocca, Sbarbaro) (2:46)
03 The Japanese Sandman (Egan, Whiting) (3:12)
04 Blue Turning Grey Over You (Razaf, Waller) (3:11)
05 The Toy Trumpet (Scott) (3:08)
06 Shoo-Fly Pie And Apple Pan Dowdy (Wood, Gallop) (3:09)
07 Ma-Ma (3:06)
08 Flat Foot Foogie (Green, Stewart, Slim Gaillard) (3:10)
09 Someone Stole Gabriel's Horn (Hayes, Mills, Washington) (2:43)
10 Wabash Blues (Ringle, Meinken) (3:06)
11 One Meat Ball (Zaret, Singer) (3:18)
12 In The Mood (Miller) (2:42)
13 Thanks For The Boogie Ride (Ram, Mitchell) (2:47)
14 Tuxedo Junction (Feyne, Hawkins, Dash, Johnson) (3:14)
15 When You're Smiling (Goodwin, Shay, Fisher) (2:58)
16 E Flat Blues (3:08)
17 Mahogany Hall Blues Stomp (2:51)
18 Jeepers Creepers (Warren, Mercer) (2:56)
19 I Can't Dance (I Got Ants In My Pants) (Williams) (3:01)
20 At The Woodchoppers' Ball (Herman) (3:04)
21 Georgia On My Mind (Carmichael, Gorrell) (3:32)
22 Bye Bye Blues (Hamm, Bennett, Lown, Gray) (3:06)

Contributed by Dave_Bruce, who writes:-
First off, the CD is wrongly labelled - the recordings presented are not by The New Georgians but mainly by an earlier and much better group, the Georgians (see below). The Georgians lasted from 1935 until the band got stranded on tour in Holland on the outbreak of war.
Though the group had started off as one of those bands-within-a-band, in this case Lew Stone's justly famous Monseigneur Band, Gonella left Stone in 1935 to lead it as an independent unit. It consisted of Nat Gonella, trumpet, vocals; Pat Smuts, tenor; Harold 'Babe' Hood, piano; Jimmy Messini, guitar, vocals; Charlie Winter, bass; Bob Dryden, drums. The repertoire was always a mix of jazz and variety and the personnel was stable except that substitutes were sometimes used for recordings, of which they made dozens. It seems that band members played a great deal better than they behaved.
Different sources list different personnel but the above list is taken from Ron Brown's imaginatively titled (and seemingly written by committee) biography, "Nat Gonella, A Life in Jazz". For anyone with any interest in the swing music of the period, it's informative, funny and well worth tracking down.
The review below makes fair comment and adds useful detail but it's better by far to have these recordings than nothing by the greatly talented Nat Gonella.

++++
Amazon Review - 3 out of 5 stars
A GOOD COMPILATION, BUT LACKING IN DETAIL, 30 Oct 2007
By Barry McCanna (Normandy, France)
Yet another Pegasus reissue spoilt by inadequate information (and what little has been supplied is inaccurate). Here are 22 tracks labelled as by Nat Gonella & the New Georgians which designation Nat did not adopt until 1940 whereas the bulk of these recordings predate that change, when his group was known as his Georgians.
And two of the tracks (1. You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby and 18. Jeepers Creepers) were recorded in New York in January 1939 with John Kirby's Orchestra!
That said, this is a good compilation and worth considering for purchase if the selection appeals but there are other compilations available which to my mind represent better value for money.