Rating:
Genre:
Easy Listening
Release Date: 03/02/2004
There have been countless
Ray Conniff collections over the years, with most of them covering the same familiar hits, but few of them have been as ambitious and comprehensive as
Columbia/
Legacy's double-disc 2004 release
The Essential Ray Conniff. At 36 tracks, it's much larger than most CD-era
Conniff comps, which tended to be budget-line releases like
16 Most Requested Songs, and it also covers more territory, opening with 1957's
"S'Wonderful" and ending with a previously unreleased version of
"My Way" from 1998. Between those two points, his biggest hits, including
"Somewhere, My Love (Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago)," are covered, but as his daughter
Tamara makes clear in her liner notes, unlike some
Conniff collections, the focus here isn't on the charts. Instead, she has chosen a range of songs that convey the scope of his musical achievements, so it samples his work as a classical arranger, film composer, soft-
pop arranger, and trombonist. The result is the best
Conniff collection to date, since it's not only the only compilation that attempts to tackle his entire body of work, it succeeds in doing so.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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