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 Awww..memories.. Feb 05, 2010
One day I got on a listening jag of Neil Diamond and decided to purchase this CD, which I had not listened to in years. It did not disappoint and gave me many great hours of listening pleasure, once again.
The Jazz Singer Jun 03, 2009
WE owned this item on cassette tape which deteriated lonf ago. Getting it on C/D gives us the enjoyment of this music once again, thank you.
old favorite Apr 06, 2009
Hearing the soundtrack of The Jazz Singer was like visiting an old friend. I've been a fan of Neil Diamond for such a long time. This collection of songs reminds me why. His voice is full and rich, he is perfect with HELLO and SUMMER LOVE. Now that I have this CD, I listen to it again and again.
I'm glad I have this album Dec 14, 2008
If you're a Neil Diamond fan or willing to listen to his music, then this is indeed a must have.
Neil's music and lyrics from my understanding has never promoted profanity, drugs, crimes, vulgarity, etc. Frankly, I think that a lot of singers and songwriters can learn something from him. I admit I've never meant Neil personally, but I'm told that he's a fine man.
I've always loved this music since I was little. My parents got me into Neil Diamond, and since then I now have three albums including this one.
Therefore, I think it will be fair to say, I liked Neil Diamond right from the start.
His Name is Yussel Rabinovich Nov 22, 2008
Recently, I purchased a new copy of The Jazz Singer 1980 motion picture soundtrack. The music on this CD has been in my ears since my year of birth (the same year as the film). Being less than a year old when it came out, it was one of the first records my parents exposed me to, likely the first one by Neil Diamond.
My memory goes back to age three if not earlier, and the music from The Jazz Singer and Neil's solo follow-up, On the Way to the Sky were already engrained pretty firmly into my conscience. (Subsequently, I was exposed to Heartlight, the Love at the Greek concert album, I'm Glad You're Here with Me Tonight, and His 12 Greatest Hits I & II. What initially slipped by me for a few years was that The Jazz Singer was actually a soundtrack album. Sometime when I was probably four years old, my parents tuned into Home Box Office, and we watched part of the film. I remember going into a saloon in Lake George, NY with my family that summer and fearing that a fight would break out like the one in the nightclub scene.
It wasn't until I was ten or eleven years of age when my father rented the film for me on VHS. I watched it obsessively, which is a habit I haven't managed to break to this day. I got a real kick out of Neil's contrastic performance of "Love on the Rocks" against the Keith Lennox character. The most moving parts were the hitch-hiking montage ("Songs of Life"), the reunion scene between Jess Rabinovich and Molly Bell ("Hello Again") and the magnificent reconciliation moment between Jess and his father ("My Name is Yussel"). Being born into a Jewish family and considering many choices I've made in life, the conflicts of interest between Jess and his father hit truly close to home. (Even before I came of age, I fostered a silent fear that my own father would one day disown me the way Cantor Rabinovich disowned Jess.) And, from what I've learned about Neil's life, the Jess character could only have been better portrayed by someone like Michael Landon. His acting is hardly wooden; he barely needed to act.
As a college-educated adult, I eventually came to re-embrace Neil's music with more of an analytical mind. Aside from learning to recognize the Guild guitars he played in the film (and the Ovation guitars he used during the 70's), I also made an effort to study the keyboard rigs used by Alan Lindgren and Tom Hensley. (I've long been interested to know which instruments they used during Love at the Greek; sounds like a Steinway piano, Fender Rhodes, two organs, Mellatron and an Oberheim synthesizer to me.)
Aside from their prowess as keyboard players, I was also quick to identify Alan and Tom's prowess as orchestral arrangers, especially Alan. The orchestration for "America" falls easily in line with Leonard Bernstein's renditions of Aaron Copeland compositions like "Hoedown" and "Fanfare for the Common Man." And, his composition with Neil, "Hello Again" establishes Alan as a composer/arranger on par with contemporaries like James Newton-Howard. As much as I'd love to meet Neil Damond himself, I'd also like to meet Alan Lindgren, Tom Hensley and guitarists Richard Bennett & Doug Rhone.
Okay, I'll bite. As much as I love the film and its music, I've got one point of hindsight criticism. When The Jazz Singer was filmed, Neil Diamond was thirty-nine years of age. As far as I could tell, no effort was made to make the Jess Rabinovich character seem younger. In the real world of showbiz, a thirty-nine-year-old Jess Rabinovich would probably have been crucified for trying to become a star that late in life.
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