Personnel includes: The Kay Choir (vocals).

Recorded between 1939 & 1950. Includes liner notes by Colin Escott.

All tracks have been digitally remastered.

Personnel: Don Cornell, Kaye Choir, Tony Alamo, Three Kaydets, Laura Leslie, Jimmy Brown, Kaydets, Nancy Norman, The Glee Club, Billy Williams (vocals).

Liner Note Author: Colin Escott.

Recording information: 01/20/1939-08/14/1950.

History has not been kind to the sweet bands of the swing era, enormously popular in their time, but never given any critical notice, and therefore neglected by record company reissue people ever since, even though there is still a public nostagically clamoring to hear them. A good example is the band with the unlikely moniker of Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye. It ranked behind only Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey as the most successful big band of the '40s. Nevertheless, Kaye's recordings are hard to come by. This compilation, done by a mail-order company and licensing RCA Victor (and one Columbia) recordings, partly redresses the wrong, presenting less than a third of the chart records he scored between 1939 and 1950. There were also hits in the '30s on Vocalion, and more hits in the '50s on Columbia, but the most popular songs -- among them the chart-toppers "Daddy," "Chickery Chick," "I'm a Big Girl Now," "The Old Lamp-Lighter," and "Harbor Lights" -- from the band's most popular period are here. There are even some modest annotations, and the sound has been spiffed up. For anyone else of Kaye's popularity, this would be the bare minimum; in his case, it's reason to rejoice. ~ William Ruhlmann