Big Beat Steve

Yes, those sections with the mostly orange-colored horizontal bars (such as at 2:00 and 3:00) are like those I remember seeing in that other online source.

That is very likely the case. I remember seeing facsimile excerpts of Graettinger's scores somewhere in an online discussion (may have been here in this forum), and they did look like this (on music paper, though), though not quite as colorful IIRC. Reminded me vaguely of certain medieval music notations that I saw on the walls in the home of some of my parents' friends.

Understandable and I agree ... I found an original 10" copy of "This Modern World" some 40 years ago (i.e. in my rather younger days ) at a fleamarket, and a couple years ago I scored (at a giveaway price) an original of the somewhat later 12" release that combines "City of Glass" and "This Modern World". But its cover continues the "This Modern World" theme. The thumbnails on the "Nine Classic Albums V.2" CD set on Real Gone Jazz also uses a more recent cover on its photo. So unless I come across a dirt cheap copy of the 10" City of Glass with the original cover the above will (have to) do. Anything else would be overkill.

Actually I meant "up to and including the Mellophonium band". I haven't nearly listened to all the Kenton recordings from that period, but the "Uncollected Vol. 6" on Hindsight, for example, is quite palatable to my ears.

So am I (at least for the period up to the Mellophonium orchestra) - but no real completist. I didn't know about this particular CD but have several other compilations that cover this period. So I am not quite sure how to judge this one in particular - in preference to others. But like I said, anyone who would like to explore this period should be served well with this compilation. In general I'd recommend having a look at the live recordings (from the Hollywood Palladium and Birdland) of that period too.

If it is smaller collector labels (that cater to niche segments within the niche market of jazz ) that are meant here, then I'd mention Sonorama and Be!Jazz as well.

What made you pick out this one, of all Kenton albums? Opinions? According to Discogs and the description on YT this is a sort of "Best Of" of the 1950-52 band. There are quite a few compilations of that time period around, so if you fancy that period of his bands this one should be as fine as any.

I understand your needs and agree that "Both Sides Now" doesn't meet these needs. And yes, there are many cobbled-up pseudo-discographies on the 'web these days. Yet I find your statement inappropriate for sites such as Both Sides Now. This site, in particular, does fill a need and a gap, despite the gaps it still has and those label listings that seem to remain unfinished. I am glad this site still is up. OTOH just look at certain among the typical discographies in the stricter sense of the word (both online and in print). How many of them give truly comprehensive listings of the EPs (or other 45s) that were released alongside the LPs, and how many give at least the ALBUM TITLES (and ALL of them) that were compiled from the sessions so the discographically interested collector isn't forced in each and every case to jump between the discographies and reference works such as the Goldmine Jazz Album price guide (or Discogs, for that matter) to identify the respective album by its title? Jazzdisco.org is a commendable exception but other "typical" discographies fall short (if not to say "fall flat on their faces") in that respect. Just to give an example of the gaps that Both Sides Now fills, in early 2025 I took out the "King labels" and "Aladdin/Imperial labels" discographies by Ruppli from our regional State libray and ran almost the entire books through my photocopier at home. And then I printed out the respective Both Sides Now listings of "King/Federal/Deluxe/Queen" as well as the Aladdin and Imperial Album listings and filed them in the respective binders alongside the Ruppli discographies. A combination that is as perfectly complementary for reference as it could possibly be!

I take it, then, that "boutique label" means COLLECTOR label, right?

I suppose the Capitol Records discography accessible on the Both Sides Now site is not detailed enough for you? https://www.bsnpubs.com/discoga-c.html

I do see your points - which goes to show that approaches and expectations are different. That Vol. 1 does have its merits and like I said, I usually find his thoughts interesting and useful "food for thought" when listening to the music. Beyond this, however, my point just is that - to put it bluntly - "if you name facts, get the facts right." Not caring enough about factual accuracy is not the way to do it IMHO because some readers may just take incorrect facts as the real thing and then these errors risk getting carved in stone through repetition elsewhere (and become doubly hard to straighten out from then on). Happens all the time, alas ... Better not to mention facts than to mention wrong ones or go out on a limb with assumptions or speculations that don't hold water because it has long been shown that things are not that way. And of course the requirement of factual accuracy applies to the "Listening to Prestige" label history too (in fact to any such book). I didn't take it to be one, either. Maybe the sales blurb for the book and certain endorsements did the purpose of the book a disservice in unduly stressing the "virtually every tune from every session" angle and the resulting "reference book" claim. As for the individual session chapters as stimulants for revisiting the recordings - see my statements above.

So do I. It just is a regrettable case of "missed opportunities" when subjects like these that are interesting and do fill a gap are marred by largely avoidable flaws. As was the case with his "Jazz With a Beat" book that I also feel covers new ground and tackles the subject from a long-overdue angle IMO. Which made me regret its unncecessarily weak spots even more. Yet I did not regret buying this as well as Vol. 1 (1949-53) of the four session books.

Thanks for your feedbacks, everyone. But I am very far from knowing everything about every Prestige session. It just is so that these "early" Prestige Sessions are particularly well represented in my collection and I have owned a fair share of these recordings for a very, very long time. So you may be able to imagine my surprise at seeing some statements fall back behind what seemed like long-established "state of the the research art" knowledge to me. @Mikeweil: I am afraid you missed a little detail: From what I have learnt from personal remarks about his background, Tad Richards is of a generation BEFORE yours and mine. Which made it doubly difficult for me to understand and to find the right words, because as you say I would have expected a heavy reliance on online sources from a (much) younger generation. As for Michel Ruppli's label discography, I do own it and did it consult it repeatedly (as well as "The Prestige Book" from the (Japanese) Jazz Critique series (No. 3, 1996) while reading the Listening to Prestige books. And they were useful for checking a number of facts before posting too. However, the Ruppli discography needs a bit of careful use too. My copy (another of those occasional finds in the music book corner our our local shop) is the first edition of 1972 and I have a hunch there were later updated revisions. The 1972 edition, for example, understandably does not list the non-Prestige 1949 Serge Chaloff session (that I had singled out in my "review") in its "reissues from other labels" section. But OTOH it did list the 1944/45 Joe Davis sessions reissued in the 7500 series much later (PR7584). Not plausible either ... A great compilation of sessions but the links to Prestige are tenuous at best.

I am very sorry for spoiling the fun a little, but for all the sound concept of this book series and with all due respect, after reading Vol. 1 (1949-53) of this series of four I find it a bit hard to enthuse quite as much, unfortunately. The idea of a session-by-session guide with personal impressions and background information is a very interesting one. There are a lot of points raised by the author that are rewarding to absorb and will widen the listener’s horizons when he spins the record in question while taking in the book chapter dealing with the respective session. Regardless of whether the reader agrees with all of the author’s personal assessments and judgments or not. But OTOH, to start with, there are several aspects of the basic concept that I find irritating (not to use another term …): 1—The author often states that he has been unable to find this or that track on the internet and was therefore only able to listen to selected tracks from a session. Why?? In most of these cases there are easily accessible reissues on vinyl and CD out there and have been so for decades. There are numerous cases like this throughout the book that left me puzzled how these reissues could ever have been bypassed … So I’d guess for someone who professes to a passion for “listening to Prestige” it should seem natural to either want to own these records outright or solicit a network of fellow collectors who no doubt would be able to make these available for “aural examination”. Not to mention that it is debatable IMHO if a session can really be assessed adequately by listening to only 1 or 2 out of (typically) 4 tunes. Particularly in a book that is supposed to „cover virtually every tune in every recording session for Prestige“. 2—It quickly becomes evident that this book originated from a series of entries on the author’s blog. Nothing wrong with that, but it is irritating to read over and over again throughout the actual BOOK about “doing this blog” and references to “that other entry on the blog”, and the like. Would it really have been such a daunting task to revise the text from the blogs in a suitable way for publication as a BOOK? Surely it cannot have been a case of just moving the blog text into a manuscript to be printed and leave it at that? Blogs (more open to random jottings) and books (that by nature have a more definitive character) don’t work quite the same way, after all. 3—There also are countless instances throughout the book where the author wonders and speculates about who wrote or arranged what tune or who was present on what session. In most cases, here too, these speculations and uncertainties have been settled a long time ago, and reading the liner notes to the respective reissues (or consulting certain biographies) could have clarified these queries and, in passing, would have solidified the purported status as a “reference book” stated on the back cover and in certain promotional statements for the book. This “reference” status leaves to be desired, however, if the reader is ever so often confronted with the vagueness resulting from such unnecessary speculations, though he remembers himself having seen the questions settled in a number of source texts by creditable authors. If doubts remain (nobody is infallible and some more recent research may contradict earlier findings) then at least pointing out awareness of these liner notes or source texts and the conclusions drawn from, maybe, conflicting statements by others would have lent credibility to what the author still wonders about (and why). Beyond this, there also are a number of factual inaccuracies, omissions and confusions throughout the book : 4-- Some sessions are not really Prestige sessions but were leased from other labels (Metronome, Esquire, Vogue). (Much in the same way, for example, that genuine Prestige recordings were pressed and released by Esquire for the UK market and Metronome for parts of continental Europe throughout the 50s and sometimes beyond – which does not make them actual Metronome or Esquire recordings, however). Often the author fails to point this out (making them look like Prestige recordings to the unaware reader). And if he does mention the origins, therefore considering them part of the Prestige recording heritage by virtue of them having been issued or reissued later on a Prestige record, then this means that the selection of recordings covered in the book becomes arbitrary as there are numerous omissions. (There were way more Swedish Metronome lease deals issued on those Prestige 10-inchers than the book shows.) 5—Some sessions were no Prestige recordings at all and were not even linked “tangentially” to Prestige through leasing agreements with Prestige yet are coved here. E.g. Serge Chaloff (p. 14) and part of the Swiss/French sessions by James Moody (p. 26). Including them just because they appeared decades later on some reissue in the 7500 series of the late 60s/early 70s seems a bit thin to justify their “Prestige label” status, or else there would have been a lot more “outside” sessions to cover if – again – you wanted to give a relatively comprehensive picture of THAT category of latter-day reissue appearances on Prestige. This, to me anyway, results in a bit of a mixup in the chronology and lack of stringency in the overall conception, particularly since on the other hand there are other GENUINE Prestige sessions that are conspicuously absent: These include one of the Sonny Stitt sessions (p. 93) where the Sonny Stitt quartet is mentioned in the headline but further details are nowhere to be found in the session details or the main text. And then there is a gap for an entire bunch of 1953 sessions by Charlie Mariano, Al Vega, Zoot Sims and Sam Most (p. 238). The author’s claims that these are “unlocatable” do not sound convincing all the way, though: The “unlocatable” Charlie Mariano session has been available on an OJC reissue since 1990 (i.e. long before this Vol. 1 appeared in print), and the admittedly never physically reissued Al Vega trio session has been accessible in its entirety (!) on Youtube (talk about online sources ) for more than 10 years now, so may well have been accessible too at the time this book was published. And that obscure Zoot Sims session with a backing group including organist Chester Slater was actually reissued on one Prestige LP in the 60s and has been out on a Zoot Sims CD on Blue Moon (yes, them!) since 1995 (30 years now!). Finally, that Sam Most EP on Prestige has more recently been reissued (at long last) by Fresh Sound (yes, them again! ) on a CD of his early recordings. In short, all four “unlocatable” sessions are available today, and three out of these four must have been accessible at the time the book was published (as was the overlooked Sonny Stitt session). Which IMHO again raises the question of whether relying only on Spotify and similar online platforms to do a book intended to give the sort of comprehensive coverage claimed for this book really is the appropriate approach. Then there are a number of rash assertions and factual errors: By all indicators, that Eckstinesque ballad singer Junior Parker (p. 53 ff.) certainly is not someone who metamorphosed into the blues man of the same name so it won’t get the reader anywhere to even entertain the likelihood of this being the same person. The Discogs entry is very clear about this being two different persons, and Colin Escott’s Sun Records book “Good Rockin’ Tonight” gives a rundown of the early career of Little Junior Parker that does not read like it leaves any room for a quick trip up north to do a session in a totally different style. Neither has the privately recorded Charlie Parker session involving Don Lanphere (p. 254/255) remained unreleased. This must be what has been known for decades as the “Apartment Sessions” released on Spotlite and elsewhere. And then, referring to Tadd Dameron and Clifford Bown (p. 263) and the session of bebop standards including “Night in Tunisia” and “Donna Lee” reissued on the CBS album “Clifford Brown: The Beginning and the End”, there is another mixup: What the author says reads like these tunes were recorded at about the time of the first Clifford Brown recordings with Chris Powell in 1952. Yet the CBS album cover text clearly indicates that this jam session was the “End” of Brown’s recording career and was claimed to have been recorded on June 25, 1956! However, this date has been disputed by several experts and conclusive evidence in various discussions (including online sources such as an older thread here on Organissimo ) indicate that this session actually was recorded about one year earlier, on May 31, 1955. So it is not the “end” or final one. But even less is it anything like near the “first” recordings by Clifford Brown. How the author comes up with this claim is beyond me, above all because the album he refers to clearly indicates the 1956 date. So, regardless of which currently existing online sources that establish the 1955 date were accessible online in 2015 when this book was compiled, any claim for a date near 1952 has been incorrect all along. Talking about rash assertions, there is page 115 covering a (UK) Kenny Graham session (no Prestige session, as it might appear from the text, but a recording leased from Esquire): The author (jokingly or not??) is surprised at the existence of British bebop and suggests that to him Brit jazz from that era was „strictly neo-trad – Johnny Dankworth, Humphrey Lyttleton, Chris Barber“ (sic!!). WHAT?? With all due respect to „the Humph“ and Chris Barber as two of the musically more rewarding exponents of British Trad jazz – but lumping in Johnny Dankworth with Trad jazz?? Now really … No doubt all of you who read this will agree this is way off base. And so on … In short, hiccups like the above IMHO undermine the status of this book as a “one-of-a-kind reference book” claimed in the endorsement by Dave Grusin on the back cover. It can indeed become unsettling for the attentive reader if a feeling of being unable to rely on the accuracy of the contents all the way through creeps up inside him. Which, for that matter, had had me at least wondering a bit about what I’ve so far read in the recent “Listening to Prestige” label history book too. My impressions so far are very positive about this book, yet what is one to make of the fact that a) the Serge Chaloff session is again presented as a Prestige session (p. 13), and that the author claims that “Weinstock also recorded a considerable number of Swedish musicians” (sic - p. 17)? I.e. the slipups of Vol. 1 repeated … The Chaloff session was recorded for Mercer Records, and the only period connection with Prestige seems to have been that (according to a period trade paper note) Prestige for a time distributed Mercer Records; and all recordings from Sweden released on Prestige were leased from Metronome, nothing more. Ho hum … I realize that this “review” may not endear me to some around here because, yes, I did criticize the work of a fellow forum member. But to you all – please pardon my outspokenness (which was primarily meant to set a few details straight), and if you judge my statements, please do so on the basis of the facts and according to the criteria of factual accuracy desirable for a true reference work.

15 records that yield a total of 30 to 60 tunes (i.e. 2 to 4 per disc), that makes sense indeed. So 40 to 60 tunes would make "about 2.5 on average" to 4 per disc. A possible total too.

Wasn't 16" the typical diameter of transcription discs for radio use?

SIXTY tunes on ONE disc? That cannot have been the actual discs. I am no expert on these at all but AFAIK most often the V-Discs had 4 tunes per record (sometimes only 2, sometimes 3). That's what the discographies say, and that's what is on the handful of original V-Discs that I have. They all play at 78 rpm.

Thanks a lot, Romualdo! Somehow I had missed this note on Discogs, though I did look there, of course. I'll now correct the inlay sheet of CD4 on the basis of this info. Too bad that it would be way over the top to try to buy a copy of "Soho Bop" just for these two tracks.

It's certainly an enjoyable record (I found my copy - a 70s reissue on French RCA - in one of those Special Offer bins and at 2.50 euros you can take chances) but it probably will be of less interest to those who are specifically into the original Andy Kirk band and will appeal more to those who are into Al Cohn and his 50s acolytes. (So you should be safe anyhow according to your interests.) Here is the Down Beat review from 1957: The approach of trade listeners in 1957 may not be exactly the same as that of today's collector listeners, so YMMV, as the say. And this excerpt from the liner notes of the 70s reissue on French RCA may also be of interest to put things a bit into perspective:

I had to think a little but now remember: It was the "Blues Box 2" 4-LP set on MCA that I bought in 1977 when I was 17. As this was Vol. 2 I wondered about Vol. 1 but this was nowhere to be found at our local shops. Then a school buddy's father (a collector himself) stepped in and inquired with the right people at the local record shop where I had bought the first one (a shop that sometimes carried interesting stuff you did not see elsewhere but was kind of pricey). And soon afterwards the "Blues Box Vol. 1" was there for me to pick up. I still have both and whenever I see a secondhand copy memories of my school days come up. https://www.discogs.com/master/955304-Various-Blues-Box-2 https://www.discogs.com/release/5371665-Various-Blues-Box-1 Re- the Count Basie Roulette box sets on Mosaic: I never had had my eyes on the studio box set as I had accumulated all the Basie LPs on Roulette over time (except 1 or 2 vocalist LPs that I wasn't too hot about anyway). But the Roulette "Live" box set I recently scored was too good an opportunity to pass up, particularly since most of the contents really is new in any form. So I am looking forward to explore it.

Maybe not only one CD a year but one every 1 or 2 months, but basically that's a good idea. But (at least for me) only for those box sets where it would be too overwhelming (or way too much of a good thing) to absorb all the CDs/records one after another right after the purchase. Sometimes I can't wait to hear it all (but admittedly that's been the case for only a minority). Let's see how things work out for my most recent purchase (at a very good price) - the Count Basie Live Roulette 8-CD box set by Mosaic.

There would be a lot to say ... In brief, I find them convenient for exploring an artist or a musical area in a comprehensive manner (provided the box sets are compiled thoughtfully), and those that come with just as comprehensive liner notes (often not just booklets but BOOKS) are not just an audible but also a visual treat. Though the investments sometimes are heavy ... if bought new. When found secondhand, anything is possible, either they soar in price or they can be found dirt cheap (such as about a year ago when I came across the 4-CD box set of "Sidney Bechet in Switzerland" in mint condition for a measly 10 Euros at our local record shop - but in the music BOOKS section because they clearly had taken it to be a BOOK ). And FWIW, I still like or even love my VINYL box sets too. There were some nice ones there too. But of course you cannot reshuffle their contents the way you do with yours. OTOH, sometimes these box sets even turn out to be the most economical way of purchasing a chunk of music (and I am not at all talking about Public Domain label multi-CD compilations, though some of these "XX classic albums by YY" are convenient too). Way more affordable than buying the individual CDs or LPs that made up the box set. Both new or secondhand. So sometimes it pays if you did not (or were unable to) snap up certain items right after they were released but quite a while later when they had progressed from several individual records to all in one box set.

I had recently started reading the earlier Listening to Prestige Vol. 1 (1949-54) session-by-session book (well, it's not that comprehensive session-by-session wise and otherwise a somewhat mixed bag too), but before additionally getting started seriously on the new "Listening to Prestige" label history book by Tad Richards as well I went back to this one (below) that I had gifted to myself for Christmas (based on recommendations by fellow forumists): Well-written, a fluent and informative read - about the music, the band and the man as an orchestra leader, anyway (as some other reivewer said, there are other books for other aspects of Stan Kenton the man ). I am now a bit more than halfway through the book (up to the Mellophonium years) and can say it really gives today's reader a good look into the "Kenton era" in all its facets. I've seen reviews of this book by, on the face of it, renowned reviewers who faulted Michael Sparke's book for a lack of "critical musical analysis" of Kenton's music. I don't know what they'd have expected this to be - how would anyone do a readable (!!) in-depth analysis of the Bob Graettinger scores or even those of Johnny Richards that remains readable to anyone OUTSIDE the confrerie of advanced musicologists in their ivory towers? I.e. readable to the average layman reader and listener and collector of the Stan Kenton music. For this target group of readers, however, I find the author has found the right balance of presenting, describing and characterizing the music in a way that makes you reach for certain records in the Kenton corner of your record shelves to give them a spin again or to revisit other records where the less than ethusiastic description by the author makes you wonder whether you did right in buying that platter in the first place. So, no, the author is no Kenton fanboy all the way through but does cover the weak spots too. Another bone of contention by some reivewers was the alleged excessive reliance on quotations from former band members and "subjective opinions". It may be only me but I find it is exactly these statements from those who worked with the man that brings the music and the life and working conditions of the Kenton band really into life and makes it all more understandable to present-day readers. This is another point where I wonder how things would have to be done to please these professional reviewers and what, if proceeding by the same yardstick, they would they have had to fault other authors for in THEIR biographies (and there are plenty out there where the weak spots stand out glaringly even to the non-expert reader). In fact, as I had come into posession of the below Kenton biography by William Lee last summer I decided on a two-fold approach and for large stretches of the Sparke biography I read the Lee biography in parallel for additional info - and testimonials (quotations ) from band members. On its own, the Lee biography can be a wearisome read for anyone but unconditional Kentonites who gladly absorb every snippet of everything ever written about Stan Kenton ... The quotations from former band members are even more numerous and even lengthier there, the capsule biographies given in the chronology for most new band members can distract and wear the reader out in the long run, and the reprints of contemporary press coverage of Kenton and his band activities often are redundant and colored by period copywriter blurb anyway (and not totally easy to quickly absorb for the reader due to a clumsy page layout). But if taken piecemeal and in moderate and well-targeted doses, those quotations and period press articles can be interesting and helpful in better understanding the reception of the Kenton band in its times. Even though those testimonials by former band members may be a bit colored by the fact that many seem to have been collected soon after the death of Stan Kenton (so a tone of "de mortuis nil nisi bene" may well have reigned here and there). All in all, when used in a targeted manner as a "source book" the Lee biography complements the one by Michael Sparke in a very useful way. In short, even without having access to the Lee biography, I'd recommend the Sparke bio any time to those who are not yet familiar with any Kenton biography - and thanks again to you forum members who pointed me towards this one.

Digging up this thread again now, another 12 years later: Among the records very recently bought from the estate of a deceased collector I also took home another copy of the Esquire 4-CD box set (ESQ100-4), but alas it also has only 22 tracks on CD 4. So this slipup seems to have been a fairly widespread problem. Since Sidewinder was not totally sure in 2013 which tunes exactly had been omitted (see his post of Dec. 1, 2013 above), I am wondering now: Did anyone ever do a closer comparison of the contents of this CD with other releases of each of the tunes supposed to be on this CD to find out which tunes EXACTLY were omitted and which is which now among the Tito Burns and Norman Burns tracks on the 22-track version? At any rate, its still a great set and a backup copy can do no harm.

After a quick comparison this is the enlarged 1944 version of the dictionary again. Makes sense as this must be the most comprehensive one. And a nice opener photo of that legendary 1939 party photo session intended for a LIFE magazine story (that never ran, unfortunately). In addition to the musicians named in the caption, Hot Lips Page, Max Kaminsky, bassist Clyde Newcomb, J.C. Higginbotham, Chu Berry, Cozy Cole, Eddie Condon, Rex Stewart and Johnny Hodges are in the pic. (And there were more at that party, including Juan Tizol, Billie Holiday, Bud Freeman, Dave Tough, Cootie Williams, pianist Dave Bowman and Brad Gowans). Who wouldn't have liked to listen in to THAT?