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Billie Holiday “Control Booth Series, Vol. 1, 1940-1941”     The “Control Booth Series, Vol. 1: 1940-1941” by Billie Holiday is a collection of recordings from her early career. This album includes multiple takes of several songs, offering listeners a glimpse into her recording process and the development of her performances. Here are some of the tracks featured in the album: I’m All for You: This song has two versions, one at 3:28 and another at 3:09, both performed by Billie Holiday. I Hear Music: Two versions of this Burton Lane and Frank Loesser composition are included, each lasting 2:42 minutes. It’s the Same Old Story: Four different takes of this Michael Field and Newt Oliphant song are featured, with durations ranging from 3:09 to 3:19. Practice Makes Perfect: Three versions of this Ernest Gold, Don “Red” Roberts, and Don Roberts composition are included, with times ranging from 2:35 to 2:44. St. Louis Blues: Two versions of W.C. Handy’s classic are featured, with Billie Holiday and Benny Carter performing, each lasting around 2:50 to 2:58. Loveless Love: Another W.C. Handy composition performed by Billie Holiday and Benny Carter, lasting 3:18. Let’s Do It: Three versions of Cole Porter’s song are included, with Billie Holiday and Eddie Heywood performing, each ranging from 1:11 to 2:58. Georgia on My Mind: Three versions of this Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell composition are featured, with durations ranging from 3:01 to 3:19. Romance in the Dark: Four versions of this Sam Coslow and Gertrude Neisen composition are included, with times ranging from 2:16 to 2:28. All of Me: One version of Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons’ composition is featured, performed by Billie Holiday and Eddie Heywood, lasting 3:58.

Yes, I agree this project must seem crazy to many. 😄 Though in some ways it is just an extension of certain follies of my younger days (long before the advent of the internet and pdf files) when I created my personal facsimile (photocopy) “reprints” of long-OOP books and magazines to be able to add these documents in tangible form to my archives for permanent reference. Another look at the final product: The spine was created by adapting a .jpg scan of the cover of the 1957 Jazz Reviews edition. Would I do it again? For the 1954 year, maybe? Not likely, though I have originals of 16 of the 26 1954 Down Beats. But with the mag still being newspaper-size at that time, the scans (of the missing issues) sized down further in the files on the Worldradiohistory site are even harder to extract in sufficiently high quality so this really is too much. The screenshots of the scans of those early 1955 newspaper-size issues I had to manage with were enough of a hassle. OTOH, if one day I were able to obtain good-quality photocopies or 1st generation scans of the review pages of the missing issues I might rethink it … 😉 And if I were able to borrow the 1961, 1962 and 1963 editions of the Jazz Record Reviews yearbooks from somewhere around here I’d certainly fire up my photocopier again and create my own facsimile paperbacks from cover to cover. 😉 In the end it’s the information that counts (particularly at the current asking prices of originals) …

Actually I did not find the book that “problematic”. The aim of the book of highlighting that there is a continuum between the Jump Blues combos within the larger field of R&B of the early post-war years (and the somewhat later R&B small groups that evolved from them through the 50s) and the canonized categories of what “acceptable jazz” is and of showing that popularity with the primary target audience is not necessarily a sign of “dumbing down” or “selling out” but of being in tune with the audience, regardless of what certain narrow-minded scribes would have led everyone to believe from their “high art” ivory tower vantage point, is something I fully agree with. To me this appears very much like what “In with The In Crowd” set out tp highlight for jazz of the 60s. What I found to criticize really was above all a case of regretting the errors, slipups and mixups in the book. Particularly since I still think many of them would have been relatively easy to avoid through appropriate research. Unfortunately, I feel these weaknesses do the impact of the author’s arguments a disservice.