Big Beat Steve

Mike, I read your post several times but cannot quite figure out what the puzzlement could possibly be. When I wrote my post I had both LPs before me and checked the entries in the Bruyninckx (digital) discography. The key facts I listed do match what you wrote. So we should have got this settled? (Except that in my post I had rashly and incorrectly written March 1955 for the Freddie Redd session - in fact it was "not quite March yet" - it was 28 February 1955 But that's unrelated to Hampton Hawes whom we are concerned with here.)

To clear this up and to add to what Mike said, there is a similarity in titles but NOT in contents: The "East/West Controversy" LP on Xanadu 104 was a "split session" (one side per leader) of the Hampton Hawes session for Vantage (of September, 1951) combined with a 1957 session by Paul Chambers (originally released under the leader name of Mel Lewis on VeeJay). The "Piano:East/West" LP on Prestige 7067 has one half by Hampton Hawes (recorded in December, 1952, originally released on 10" LP Prestige 212) and the other side by Freddie Redd (recorded in March, 1955).

Yes, that's how I found them and ordered Vol. 1.

Those heat variations are obvious (even inside the glove compartment). Which I understand would mean that this would or could accelerate deterioration? Particularly since my car is parked outside year in, year out. Not the case here, amazingly, though. BTW, my "real" CDs (that are fodder for my car player) haven't deteriorated either. But I would not have been surprised if the already existing degradation on that CD-R had continued inside the car.

Getting back to the problem of MUSIC CDs that have become (almost) unplayable due to background noise and distortion: If I had to figure out an IMAGE of what I guess the damage to the sonic reprodcution of those "unplayable" CDs is like it would be close to the image above. Like I said earlier, the distortion is hard to describe, it is a more or less crunching distortion that does seem to be linked to the actual music. I.e. the distortion patterns follow those of the music (that you still can hear, but in a bad way). And the strange thing is that while I do have the distinct impression that the dud CD-Rs from that recent haul I made were corrupted by problems with the glued-on label that had become detached partially and caused imbalance, the distorted noise that overlays the music sounds very much like that on CD-Rs I burnt (or had received) many years ago and assumed they had failed due to age. But these CDs never had any glued-on labels that may have become detached and cause imbalance. Just to check I went outside to my car and retrieved one of these "failing" CD-Rs. I had burnt it a good 20 years ago, found it had started to show increasing distortion (on the last few tracks) about 10 years ago, bought a new "real" CD of it for my collection and relegated the CD-R (that I'd figured was on its way out) to a corner in my car glove box so I'd be able to listen to what remained listenable on it (it's goodtime music that you can enjoy while driving for as long as the sound is OK). I had not listened to it in years, though, but spun it again now and to my amazement found that the distortion still is as it was back then: degradation starts at track 23 out of 27, increases and tracks 26 and 27 are virtually unlistenable. But no further deterioration during those pas 10 years! Odd ... But what I think I've learnt from the above discussion here is that those dud CD-Rs that arbitrarily jump, splutter and skip and then resume and/or stop altogether and on next try might not start up again at all (at least not on every CD player) are likely to be afflicted by a different kind of deterioration of the data. Isn't it?

I've owned Xanadu 104 ("The East-West Controversy" that features this Vantage session) for a long, long time and like it a lot.

This one is in the pile (crate, rather ) of my "yet-to-be-listened-to" recently purchased vinyls. I'd been hipped to Hampton Hawes in the 90s after I read Ted Gioia's "West Coast Jazz" book where Hampton Hawes is given glowing reviews. The Vols. 1 to 3 and the three All Night Sessions were my first purchases and I have by now accumulated about a dozen LPs covering his 50s output as well as "Here and Now" from the 60s - and the "Bird Song" CD of previously unreleased 1956/58 recordings for Contemporary. Hampton Hawes is one of those artists where I so far have always felt I can never go wrong with my purchases.

Thanks for your suggestions. This is more or less what I was afraid the turnout would be. Though I really cannot see how the disc that plays with that significant distortions can be ripped or copied to give better results on the disc the files are copied to. In fact I had already tried to copy one of the affected CD-Rs via my CD burner but the burner refused to continue after the first reading step. The sound distortion is hard to describe but is just what it was on the occasional CD-R that had failed in the past (after a couple of years). Except that on those older CD-Rs the sound got worse towards the final tracks (indicating that data had started to fail from the outer edge towards the center) . Whereas with the CD-Rs I recently got and turned out to be bad, the sound improved towards the final tracks (without getting perfect), which to me seems to indicate that the center area where the label clearly had started to peel was affected more because the CD rotates faster when the laser reads the music data in that zone and slower as it advances towards the outer edge. On one CD-R (that I found a bit more important to salvage, though it is no desert island CD either ) I tried to remove the label manually but it was only the already detached section that came off (both round the center hole and near the edges). But that neither improved nor worsened the playback sound. So I guess I'll at least try to make "next-generation" CD-R copies of those that are still intact. In preparation of other CD-Rs that might come my way from that source and that might be historically more important to safeguard for the future. (Different story ... )

Well, I'm talking about full-size LABELS on CDs (i.e. CD-Rs). I.e. almost the same diameter as the CD itself. Price stickers (or similar) are a totally different category, and I'd guess cardboard LP sleeves (that the sticker is attached to) are MUCH less sensitive to mistreatment (with potentially dire results) than CD-R discs.

Any hints on how to remove label stickers without impairing the "rest" of the CD-R? (A question because of my problems described in my earlier post about labels that have come detached along the outer and inner circumference(s) - but not nearly enough to allow them to be peeled off yet apparently enough to upset playability of the CDs) Not that I have high hopes because the data layer may have become damaged anyway, but a try is a try ...

What (vinyl) did I buy today? Something that probably had the clerks at my favorite local birck-and-mortar store wondering once again about my eclectic tastes: - Champion Jack Dupree (1940-1950 recordings) on Wolf BoB-14 (one of those collector's labels that went out of its way not to duplicate other current or available reissues by the same artist) - Sauter-Finegan - The Return of the Doodletown Fifers (U.S. original on United Artists - "Ultra Audio" in "wall to wall stereo" ) Each was 5 EUR. Not bad.

Thanks, looks interesting enough to me and I'll be looking forward to this one too. As hinted at in an earlier post, it will certainly be interesting to compare the presentation of label histories in this one and in the forthcoming Pacific Jazz book by James Harrod.

Suits me fine, then ... I had noticed what you say from the sample pages on Amazon for Vol. 1 (49-53) but the "essay" character was not so clear for the to-be-released book.

Ouch ... I in turn wasn't aware of these 4 previous books. So now you are forcing me to consider an order , pushing my music bookshelves closer to getting overcrowded AGAIN, though I've only quite recently expanded them to free additional space. Seriously ... So that new book is a "summary" or "Best of" of these 4 earlier ones? (Hope not ... hoping it DOES offer extra info and insights even for the period coverd in these 4 earlier books) At any rate I've just placed an order for Vol. 1 (1949-53) of which I think I have most of those on my LP shelves that have ever been reissued. (And besides, it's an era that usually has been overlooked elsewhere.) Depending how I like this one (and the new book to be published in January) I'll decide about the other volumes.

Just for the record, and in connection with the apearance of TRLP-18 in the Tom Lord discography, this album has earlier been listed in Jepsen's Jazz Records Vol. 5 (published in 1963) and in the discography by Walter Bruyninckx, both in the printed edition published in the 80s and in the somewhat more recent (and updated) digital version. The entries look like any normally released album. Jepsen and the printed edition of Bruyninckx forgot "Budo" in the track listing but this was corrected in the digital version of the Bruyninckx discography. It is likely that THIS is where Lord picked up his info. So it really seems like this album was "reputed" to exist for decades and decades and for a long time nobody ever made an effort to really check and set the record straight.

Basically I've also found that some brands of CD-R blanks last almost forever, some don't. Only problem ... you only find out afterwards (after years) which ones will last long and longer ... I still have quite a few CD-Rs burnt by (or for) me in the second half of the 90s that still play OK. Whereas others have failed after some 10 years. But to add another aspect to this discussion of CD-Rs becoming unplayable: As part of my haul from the estate of a deceased collector (metioned elsewhere - e.g in the jaz book thread) I recently took home a huge bunch of (real) CDs but also about 150 CD-Rs burnt for this chap by a fellow collector in (I guess) the years between 2005 and 2010, and very professionally done, including the inlays and printed labels. (At first sight they look like one of these cheapo PD label CDs.) BUT ... the labels on the earlier CD-Rs have started to peel off and are impossible to press back on - and just as impossible to remove. And it is these CD-Rs (about the initial 50 or so) of which many make nastily distorted noises when playing, as if the data are beginning to deteriorate (and some skip and jump to and fro or stop all of a sudden). But it seems the detached labels are the culprits. Don't know if it is the out-of-balance of the detached labels or the label glue penetrating into the data layer but the damage seems to be caused there. Because those where the labels are becoming detached round the edges fail most often. Whereas those among the later ones (when he seemed to have changed to a diffferent, glossier self-printed label that adheres perfectly well) that I've listened to so far do play perfectly well. At any rate, I'm seeing myself burning backup CD-Rs of the bunch before long.

Paperback ordered! Looking forward to receiving it in January, and regretting that the preordered Pacific Jazz book by James Harrod will take some more time to arrive. It certainly wil be interesting to compare how these two major labels are covered. And I'll take the word of Allen Lowe (see below) that the Prestige book does not limit itself to the "usual suspects" of the biggest names only in covering the output of Prestige. At any rate, I'll have my copies of the Prestige discography by Michel Ruppli and of "The Prestige Book" (from the Japanese "Jazz Critique" series) within reach when digging into this new one. "When it comes to jazz, this is one of the rare books that we actually need, that does not cover the usual ground with the usual suspects. Prestige Records, for all the attention it has received from audiences, is not well known in the historical sense. Every jazz fan has these records, which is important, but few know the inside story, the complex process of the jazz independent label in the era before independent labels became as common as recording projects. And Tad Richards is the writer to do this, with a firm grasp of jazz's historical succession, the bebop era, and the musical needs of musician and audience. Read this book." — Allen Lowe,

Well, I for one would be interested in reading this - no doubt!

Now Doggett's recollections sound like some conclusive evidence, I'd say. But of course it's not as picturesque as a "chance recording" (the last one tossed off) becoming a million seller. As for Mike's statement about "no guarantee that the order of the matrix numbers represents recordings order" (no doubt that's true, though I'd guess there ARE cases where the matrix number order does represent the recording order, but how do we know?): Doesn't this upset and invalidate the much-loved practice of many collectors (often mentioned here too) to burn their own CDs with the contents of the orignal LPs reorganized in "session recording order"? Because that "session recording order" would then follow the order of numerically ascending matrix numbers (unless proof to the contrary indicating a different recording order exists). But as we have seen there is no guarantee that this order is "correct"?

What about the matrix numbers? What do they definitely indicate after all? Session discographies usually list the tunes in the matrix number order. But how did producers or session engineers (or whoever specified them for a given session) use and assign these matrix numbers and did all of them always proceed along the same lines?

Update to my post above: I am not sure anymore at all that all the Ellington V-Discs were taken from commercial recordings. I just pulled out an LP that has the reissue of V-Disc 610 (In The Shade Of The Old Apple Tree) of November 1945, and the V-Disc discography by Klaus Teubig does not indicate any commercial recordings as its source. Neither for V-Disc 505 that is referenced in the entry for VD 610. According to Bruyninckx, both VD 505 and VD 610 come from Duke Ellington Treasury Shows. And these are only 2 of the Ellington V-Discs. So is it again a matter of balking estates that they're not in that set?

Jazzbo's post of 24 November may have the answer: All Ellingtons seem to have been commercial recordings recycled for V-Disc use. So they are outside the scope of this set.

Thanks for alerting (those who didn't know yet - like me ) to this Oxford Studies in Recorded Jazz series. I am indeed tempted by the Gerry Mulligan Quartets volume. Not expensive at less than 20 EUR on Amazon, and the sample pages looked "digestible enough" even to a non-musician like me.

Actually Basie and Herman are part of the reasons why I am going to pass. I have all of these (as well as the Sam Donahues a.o.) and am quite satisfied with the sound on the vinyls. With the overall cost anounced for the European distributors the set would work out at something like 20 EUR per CD anyway, so if you already have a substantial part of the music anyway the cost per REMAINING CD just exceeds the limits of reasonability, alas.

Ted Fio Rito normally is outside the jazz field but was BIG among the sweeter big bands. Clyde Lucas - apparently one of the many jazzwise nondescript hotel bands catering to the "sedate set" and doing his patriotic duty on these V-Discs. Bill Heathcock (not even listed in Simon's book, not in Leo Walker's Big Band Almanac, so a maximum obscurity ) has some interesting names in the lineup of V-Disc 619, and "Late at Night" would be one I'd find interesting to explore. Randy Brooks was a fairly big name back then and from today's listening perspective he should not put off anyone who is into the likes of Glenn Miller or the Dorseys. Johnny Blowers admittedly IS obscure as a bandleader (his was one of those "sidemen-turned-bandleader" outfits, but apparently only briefly) but as a drummer he was present on many Swing sessions. Mal Hallett (the chapter on him in George Simon's Big Bands" book had me intrigued when I first got hold of that book more than 40 years ago) seems to have had his heyday in the pre-Swing era years and recorded fairly little during the Swing era, and reissues of his recordings are very, very thin on the ground. Tony Pastor, OTOH, recorded a lot; he had a very swinging and enjoyable band IMO, not least of all thanks to his hip (or should I say "offbeat"?) vocals which place him not too far away from Louis Prima, right down to some overlaps in their repertoire. Some of his V-Discs were reissued before on vinyl. However, I'd sure like to hear V-Disc 275 by the Tony Pastor band and his recording of a tune titled "Schickelgruber"! Pity it's not on that Mosaic set. Now THAT would be one "period piece"!