Trumpets' Greatest Hits

Don't be fooled by the title. Trumpets' Greatest Hits is not an album of Bobby Hackett's greatest hits, it is an album of newly recorded Bobby Hackett performances of songs that were hits in versions that featured the trumpet prominently, such as "I Can't Get Started" as performed by Bunny Berigan and "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" in the Perez Prado recording with Billy Regis on trumpet. As the album cover says, Hackett is heard "in a setting of wall-to-wall strings," with new arrangements by George Williams. There is no real attempt made to re-create the sound of the hit recordings, either in those arrangements or in Hackett's trumpet playing, except for the occasional sly quote. Instead, this is soft, smooth music; even Al Hirt's "Java" has been slowed and calmed, and "Ciribiribin" sounds nothing like it did in the hands of Harry James. As is true of most of Hackett's Epic Records recordings of the early and mid-'60s, there isn't much jazz content here, except for the individual sound of Hackett's trumpet cutting through the strings. Rather, this is really easy listening music, and for that it's fine.