The Swing Era

Series by the Time Life Music label. This is a series, not a label. Only add this to the "Series" field, together with the actual label of the release TIME-LIFE RECORDS. This series has been reissued several times since its introduction in the early 1970s. The music on these box sets is NOT performed by the original big band artists. The music is a recreation of big band songs, performed by a studio orchestra directed by Billy May and Glen Gray (not on all Volumes) with changing personnel for Capitol Records in the 1960s and early 1970s. Boxes were issued through a subscription, with one volume being issued about every quarter. Later, Time-Life reissued all the volumes with new color covers starting in the mid-1970s. The series was manufactured by Capitol Records' Special Markets Division. Original covers were black and white with a color spine. Later, Time-Life redesigned the covers, using a color cover (with the same color as the spines were originally). Booklets inside these two issues were identical in most cases. Labels for each volume used different colors; although the same label design layout was used for each volume in the series, the individual labels were black on top with a color matching the box set cover on the bottom. In the late 1970s, the set was again reissued, but with beige covers and matching beige labels. In 1982 a complete series with various colored boxes and spine was reissued for the german market. The booklet inside was printed in german language and had printed "Deutsche Ausgabe" on the cover. Labels were in pale blue with silver printing By the mid 1980s, the set was reissued with a completely revamped design, this time with silver covers and matching silver labels.