Eddy Duchin was a pianist and hugely successful bandleader during the 1930s and early ’40s, specialising in the middle-of-the-road “sweet” music that was popular on radio, his broadcasts giving him a profile that brought him a continuous string of hit records during the decade covered by this collection.

However, he was unable to pick up the threads of his chart success when he returned to the scene after war service and died in 1951 from leukaemia at the age of 1941.

His ornate and flourishing style had its roots in classical music, and his reputation as a popular entertainer led to the famously successful 1956 biopic The Eddy Duchin Story.

This 71-track set consists entirely of recordings credited with Top 30 chart positions (the formal Billboard record sales charts were not launched until 1940), and contains just about all his career hits on the Columbia, Brunswick and Victor labels, including no less than 10 No. 1s - Did You Ever See A Dream Walking?, Let’s Fall In Love, I Won’t Dance, Lovely To Look At, You Are My Lucky Star, I’ll Sing You A Thousand Love Songs, Lights Out, Moon Over Miami, Take My Heart and It’s De-Lovely – with most of the recordings featuring one of his many male or female vocalists.

It’s a feast of evocative easy-on-the-ear orchestral music which includes early versions of many great standards from the era, and which will appeal to lovers of nostalgia as well as offering a substantial and enjoyable showcase for one of the big stars of the pre-war years.

REVIEWS

This new release from Acrobat is a perfect introduction to his music that we have been waiting a long time for and probably never expected to see. 71 tracks over three CDs represents a pretty definitive retrospective and fits neatly into Acrobat's long running and comprehensive survey of the sweet bands of the 1930s onwards. - Gerry Stonestreet (In Tune Issue 345)