Music Review: 'The "Ragtime Band" Sessions' (1995)

Clipped, punchy, and vibrant, Spanier's dark, King Oliver-influenced horn leads an eight-piece band through the 1939 sides that helped launch the New Orleans revival. This is good-time jazz, occasionally elevated (as on the classic ''Relaxin' at the Touro'') to a kind of poetry. But the CD would have been more listenable if RCA hadn't programmed the alternate takes back-to-back. B+