Big Beat Steve

@Fer Urbina This record was discussed earlier in this thread: My Bright Orange 70s reissue of this LP listes the same personnel except that it ADDITIONALLY lists Alvin Stewart in the trumpet section. No recording dates given. Walter Bruyninckx' discography gives a tentative recording date of 1958/59. Sorry, that's all I can tell. S

Well, Gents, with all your enthusiasm about this Crown/Bright Orange series you got me curious! So when I stopped by our local used records shop to check out the "Jazz Special Offers" bin I took the plunge and grabbed the copies of the Woody Herman and Charlie Barnet tribute LPs from that series that seemed to have been waiting for me there: - Woody Herman on Bright Orange X-BO 707 (the one with the more familiar titles from the Herman book) - Tribute to Charlie Barnet on CROWN CST-131 (red vinyl!) At 3.75 euros for both (both in very, very decent condition) I guess I could have done a lot worse, really ... So I'll be looking forward to giving them (and the Ellington disc I already had but apprently hadn't appreciated properly ) a spin later on!

Now look ... first of all, we are not talking about wholesale marketing of illegal bootleg items that are still protected by copyrights but about an ISOLATED single favor on a personal basis for an item that apparently is OOP and that falls beyond the 50+-year limit as per the PD rule as it (still) stands in Europe at THIS time of writing. I am no legal expert but until conclusive proof to the contrary I consider the law effective at MY place of residence to be applicable to what I do here at MY place of residence OUTSIDE any forum (talking about what one MIGHT perhaps be doing, like in this case, is of no relevance, I guess ). And as it is, recordings that have passed the 50-year mark thereby are in the P.D. by the laws applicable here (for the time being). And as for being told what to do or think, I for one certainly didn't mean to tell anybody what he is supposed to think, but doesn't the door swing both ways? Couldn't it be argued just as well that "being told what to do or to think" starts when somebody starts off by saying he does not approve of certain acts that others MIGHT possibly be doing (thereby implicitly putting the (moral?) blame on those others )? And again - we've been talking about an ISOLATED case as a personal favor. So isn't it really high time to bring back things into perspective and all take it a little easier? Or should we really carry things further by asking if those who are so indignant here never ever bought ANY CDs by Definitive, Lone Hill, Fresh Sound, Proper, etc. (remember the accusations made against them, and there are many more labels operating on the P.D. principle - even some that aren't usually mentioned in the "Andorran" debate) nor ANY vinyl on any of the 70s/80s grey market collector labels? So therefore ... PEACE! BTW: I understand Jazzpizzicat has received what he has been looking for - courtesy of an obliging board member.

I also agree with Chas - including (particularly so) in view of the fact that it might very well be that European copyright laws might well change and become much more stringent from sometime next year (adopting somethg like a 95-year rule in fact) which OF COURSE was something invoked not to protect some poor session men possibly facing poverty at old age (THEIR rights were signed away long ago in most cases) but to feed the greedy "needs" of those early rock stars (Cliff Richard was instrumental in arguing for a tightening down of rules) as the 50-year cutoff rate would have meant that within the next few years all that r'n'r/60s beat stuff etc. would have gone P.D. However this evidently does NOT mean that all the material from past periods would be reissued comprehensively by those oh so "legitimate" nominal rights holders. Instead, many will sit on material that is no longer PD but not available either from "legitimate" sources, i.e. the public willl be deprived entirely of a lot of music because even collectors' reissue ventures would have a hard time making the music avilable as strictly collectors' ventures (because they can't afford the rates the "rights holders" would charge - ask the guys at HEP Records if you want proof of the situation!). Now if that isn't a law made not in the interests of the public at large but in the interest of a select few then I don't know. In line with MG's arguing, it is therefore very much open to debate if the new version of those rules would be a good law or a bad law (as it was manifestly instigated by "interested parties"). At any rate, self-righteous pseudo-morality in this respect is totall uncalled for. There are MANY more facets to this entire history so that narrowing it down to a question of morality or immorality is missing the point entirely. And besides, once it is P.D. (at least as long as the music remains P.D.past the 50-year cutoff date) there are no legal (and therefore NO moral) angles to burning a simple CD-R. After all we are NOT talking about high-volume grey-market affairs here. Now be that as it may - @Jazzpizzicat: Unfortunately I don't have the equipment (yet) to burn CD-R's from vinyl (only CD to CD) so I cannot burn you a CD-R of my copy of JWC-507 (the one with the famous cover of the frogman stepping out of the water) for the time being but I'll go on record right here saying that otherwise I'd be happy to oblige! (But note: My copy is about VG+ so there might be some pops and crackles here and there ) Yet I hope for you somebody else will oblige too (without speaking out publicly here ). P.S. A final note re- that Rule #6 invoked above: At least as far as European parties in such transactions are involved, that material on the record Jazzpizzicat asked about no longer falls under copyright rules as the 50-year limit has been passed. And as long as any more stringent European rules have not yet come into force that's the applicable law at least in Europe and Rule#6 does NOT apply and that's that.

Well, maybe I'm biased because that's not my opinion either so I may be reluctant imagining somebody else would LIKE to see them disappear. And I still cannot see anybody around here would want to see decently stocked record shops disappear that offer a chance of making that "rare find" at an OK price (in short, those shops most of us reminisce about here and on the Mole Jazz thread)! However, if it is a question of seeing those present-day shops disappear that offer less and less selection (beyond the obvious hit parade items and mass-appeal compilations) plus lousy service, couldn't-care-less behind-the-counter hacks AND outrageous prices (in short, the kind of outlet many formerly good record stores have degenerated into) then YES - I can understand the indifference or approval of their demise. But from the point of view of those who remember how many record stores used to be that amounts to beating a(n almost) dead horse so what's the difference? Gonna play me some "Record Shop Suey" by Lee Konitz now! :D

Ah, thanks for the explanation! So I wasn't that far off the mark with my assumption about the King Carter link. With no Benny Carter anywhere in sight on those 1931 King Carter recordings (reissued a.o. on Jazz Document and Collector's Must) I had discarded that option but that's that after all...

I couldn't detect anything like that in the replies to the opening post. Seems like many mourn the demise of the stores, and those who do not exactly mourn the demise don't do so because they have found other ways of doing their music shopping. But even they do not seem to think it was a GOOD thing for good (!) shops to disappear. So what exactly is it that you think was condemned here in the replies in this topic?

Not to mention Frank Rehak and Billy Byers that he also sprinkled liberally with question marks. ;)

Maybe because you haven't paid enough attention to the sidemen lists of those (bigger) bands of that time? Bernie Glow was with the Woody Herman herd of the 40s long enough to have left traces in discographies, for example. Also check out this (found through googling) if you want to read more http://www.jazzprofessional.com/profiles/Bernie%20Glow.htm

By sheer coincidence yesterday evening I browsed through my old (VERY old) issues of the Swedish jazz mag ORKESTER JOURNALEN and in an issue from 1936 I came across a feature on Benny Carter captioned "Benny "King" Carter"! This had me wondering too as I figured that maybe there was a mixup with the "King Carter" territory band (apparently an alias for one of the incarnations of the Mills Blue Rhythm Band) that had recorded in 1931. But would early Swedish jazz and dance band scribes - aware and advanced though they were by European standards - have been aware of THAT band? At any rate, that nickname must have been around for a LONG time.

Remember they had a second bin with similarly obscure items marked "Rare as rocking horse manure" downstairs in their blues department? Indeed I drooled over this bin too, especially one time when they had a couple of those Prestige 16 RPM jazz LPs. Seeing what they regularly went for on eBay I would not have done THAT badly if I had taken the plunge then and there (though they were expensive by any standards!).

Sounds like it might have been CROCOJAZZ. The description of the owner certainly fits. I had a similar experience during my very first visit there in 2001 (and somehow I still regret I didn't have more time to socialize a little as I had a VERY busy one-day shopping schedule that day )

Yeah, that was BECK'S, obviously. A good place for CDs (in 1996 or so they still had a vinyl corner with interesting Fresh Sounds and Japanese imports but that vanished fast). During my occasional trips there I DID spend fairly huge sums. Their big advantage is that they carry MANY collector's labels that otherwise are relatively badly distributed and also do/did mail order. But overall they tend to be pricey, and as they stopped publishing their monthly newsletter a couple of years ago tracking down new releases/reissues to order them directly from them has also become more complicated. I haven't been there for a while so it might well be the entire operation has been scaled down since.

Could it be that it's always elsewhere that one tends to think the grass is greener? I for one would LOVE to be caught in a time warp and do the brick-and-mortar store (or Portobello Road market stall) shopping I COULD have done when in London during my school day stays there in 1975-76-77 (if I had had the money) and then again in the mid-90s (aside from the addresses mentioned in the current Mole Jazz thread all those small shops in Camden, etc. weren't that bad either for collectors at that time). That said, I agree with what many said here about the experience of actually pulling out the unexpected disc from the bin and checking it out. Internet shopping needs a quite different approach and it is harder to come across the unexpected. And then on top of that the shippings costs you'll incur each time also add up quite heavily. OTOH I also agree since I started eBaying and checking other online sources I managed to accumulate items to my collection within a 4-5 time frame that I had searched for to no avail at all for about 15 to 20 years before that! So there IS an advantage to the "new age" of shopping too. Anyway, although the shelves taking up one entire wall in my music room to house my LP collection now really are getting close to overfilling I guess I'll have to hop on down a bit more often to that used record store remaining that constantly has bins of "Special Jazz LP Offers" going for 2.50 euros apiece! At that kind of money you CAN take chances .... ... and besides, the block where the shop is located is scheduled for redeveloping sometime in 2010!).

I saw a fair bit of the place in the early days and more occasionally in the mid/late-80s. Only really frequented it again once I was back from N. America in 1997-ish, when they had relocated and vinyl was starting to be 2nd-fiddle to CDs (by this time I had started to get interested in vinyl again after some years dominated by CDs). On my first few visits the auction lists were still up and running and I put a couple of optimistic bids in - totally unsuccessfully. Around the end of the decade though it used to be common to see 'auction quality/rarity' LPs in the 'Collectors' bins upstairs, including a sprinkling of decent Blue Note Liberties/NY USAs at reasonable price and the occasional Brit Jazz gem (for example I picked up Frank Ricotti's CBS album this way - an unexpected delight). Those last few years in the 2nd location were without doubt the best years for good finds - when most people were more interested in CDs. Some of the nicest finds for me were upstairs in the ancient overhead racks, where the non-modern jazz stuff was placed (and lingered for years and years collecting dust). Stashes of Herman, Basie, Ellington etc. Although the stuff was incredibly dusty (a copy of 'Jazz Wave' 2LP on Blue Note had me sneezing for weeks - but, heck, it was £2 !) those items could be bought for incredibly little money. They also had a turntable with amp and speakers upstairs but eventually the needle was nackered and it was never replaced. Great times ! :rsmile: Very much my impressions of the c.1995-2000 period of my visits. That upstairs LP department took up a LOT of the time of my stay in London each time!

I guess I was one of them (maybe we did cross paths there, who knows ...). I seem to have missed the "early" Mole days as I did not become aware of Mole's until 1986 or so and did buy one or two items from them via mail order. But from 1993 until 2000 I made numerous visits to Mole's as I made a point of including a 1-2 day stopover on the way back to the Ramsgate ferry or the Eurotunnel each time on my trip back from those 40s/50s music weekenders I attended over there. In a pinch aven a half-day (afternoon) halt in London would suffice to make the rounds at Mole's (combing through ALL bins), Ray's AND possibly the Compendium bookstore before beating it towards the Dartford flyover before the evening rushhour traffic out of London set in. It wasn't rare for me to leave the shop with some 50 LPs or so, so a good deal of my collection came from Mole too, and I can confirm what MG said about the plastic bags (I also must have some of them somewhere). As for their selection deterioration, I cannot realy confirm that. The first time I was there in 1993 they still were in what must have been the original shop (and the prices did look a bit steep to me even for ordinary 70s reissues), but the next time I made it to London they had moved a few blocks on, and though you clearly could see what was "ex-auction" (which was sometimes priced a bit steeply), their vinyl bins always held lots of fairly priced or downright cheap goodies in clean condition for me (but I was and am more into swing and West Coast than Blue Note and Impulse first pressings anyway). To me at least it seemed like their prices had gone down overall vs. my first visit. It must have been in 1995 when I really hit the big time there. Mole Jazz had opened a second shop across the street because (as the staff told me) they had gotten such a huge amount of secondhand records in stock that their shop simply could not hold them (must have been the time when many seasoned collectors went the CD route wholesale). At any rate, they had that shop only for a time and the day I was there they had started downmarking EVERYTHING in the store. While I combed through all the bins from A to Z I was starting to get afraid I'd overtake the staff busy with reducing the prices but he told me smilingly not to worry as he'd mark everything else down at checkout and that I'd sure had come in the right place at the right time. That day I definitely felt like in vinyl heaven! Too bad I didn't have enough time to check through the racks and racks of 78s too. Though in retrospect (and seeing what was/is possible on eBay) I have to admit I sometimes bid far too steeply on their auction lists I found shopping at Mole Jazz always very enjoable right up to the last time I was there in 2000. Too bad the page is now turned; Mole Jazz looked like a worthy successor to DOBELL's shop to me (which I was lucky enough to check out in 1975/76/77 but with a school student's budget you could only afford a few select items each time ). And there were other legendary places as well. I remember marveling at the astonishing selection of music books at the BLOOMSBURY BOOK SHOP around 1976/77 as well, and of course at that time I was totally unaware of the fact that John Chilton was a seminal figure in British jazz. In fact I did buy from them through mail order later on but with limited funds missed out on a few now rare items. I recall inquiring about the newly published "To Bird With Love" book and receiving a handwritten card from Theresa Chilton saying verbatim "We can order it for you but the price is 56 pounds - UGH!!" By the time I next got to London in 1993 both shops were long gone and now Mole and the Compendium Book Shop (IMO a decent successor to the Bloomsbury Book Shop) are long gone too. Amazon makes up for a lot of that loss these days but it still is a pity.

Too bad about Ray's. I haven't been to London in recent years (the last time I was there Ray's still were over on Shaftesbury Avenue and Mole still existed) but if even Ray's now is on its way out that will probably have been it as far as real store shopping is concerned. Too bad for a world metropole like this. Can't complain about brick-and-mortar store shopping in Paris, though. At least not as far as CDs are concerned. Joseph Gibert is chaotic in the huge secondhand department but worth combing through, Paris Jazz Corner (which still has quite a bit of vinyl) and Crocojazz are still holding out (and there are a few other specialist shops too), and even the jazz and blues departments at some of the FNAC store chain are worth a visit. For the time being, I'll keep scouring the special Jazz offer bins at the one large secondhand record store remaining in town but I wonder what will happen with this one when the building block where this one is located comes up for urban redevelopment sometime in 2010.

Was about to post this (one of my all-time Xmas musical musts) but refrained from it because the thread starter "didn't want no blowin' "

Then there is the "White Christmas" version by the RAVENS which makes a nice change compared to the usual suspects' warblings And of course those Cool Yule/Hipsters Holiday compilations and the "Mr Santa's Boogie" LP on Savoy. And finally, I admit I haven't head Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby" in a while either so it is not played out THAT much anymore for me.

Bessie or BASIE (which was what Shrdlu had asked about) ?

But this HAS been done, at least on LP. Cf. those six 2-LP sets in the CBS "Jazzotheque" series (produced by Henri Renaud) released in the 80s. My pressings are all by CBS Holland (bought some new here locally but Vol. 5 in France and Vol. 6 in the UK so it must have been distributed widely). And there there also were two 10-LP box sets that alos included alternate takes of the same material. Has all this been totally unavailable in the USA?

Ha, might well be mine comes from the same source. It has a cutout at the upper spine edge and I bought it secondhand at Mole Jazz in the early 90s.

That music must have clocked a bit of mileage on reissue vinyl too. 6 of the 8 tracks are on the "The Beginning and End of Bop" Blue Note LP B-6503 released as early as 1969 (coupled with George Wallington tracks). And wasn't it in the Japanese King Records "BN 10 Inch LP Collection" 12in facsimile reissue series of the 80s too?

@zanonesdelpueblo: I see you picked up that "exuberance" vs. "aggression"/"anger" comparison I made earlier in that discussion (and in my latest statement again). To get this straight: Of course I am not equalling Hard Bop with aggression but a certain kind of its output just might be perceived easier that way than a lot of swing-style jazz will ever be. And there is a limit of how much anger or aggression or whatever on that level you can take. I know there are a lot of people out there who'd never dig R&B sax men or Illinois Jacquet's JATP sax antics the way I do (when I feel like it) because they find it just monotonous honking. Technically speaking it probably is but to me it conveys sheer excitement and exuberance and you can picture yourself in a crowd that just goes wild to the music and you ... just let yourself go. On the other hand, while I do enjoy listening to a lot of Hard Bop horn men too there is a kind of Hard Bop where from a certain moment you just ask yourself "How much more of your anger or aggression (or whatever) do you want to belt out?" No doubt to the musicians it was a sincere way of expressing their feelings at that moment, but as a listener (especially as a listener TODAY) you can and want to take only so much of it and you feel it's all been said so it becomes formulair and repetitive to your ears too. See what I mean? (BTW - @all, and because I can sense that question coming up, please don't ask me to name specific examples. I can tell when I hear it - but most of the Miles Davis Quintet's music from the 50s Prestige era, for example, does NOT fall into that category, simply for Miles' playing).

"Recordings" in this context seems to mean albums, i.e. collections of songs on lp or cd, because you are talking about the sequence of songs in a collection. It seems like you are saying that hard bop albums were formulaic. What about swing? Well, swing was not recorded on albums in its heyday. Songs came out as singles mostly. So no, not formulaic in the same sense. Not formulaic in the same sense - no, but formulaic insofar as a certain (completist?) species of collectors has been complaining ever so often about those 78 rpm-era recordings being rather repetitive when listened to today (remember that recent Slim & Slam discussion in another subforum here? Same for many early 20s or 30s blues recordings). Technically speaking and on superficial listening this may be so, but after all those recordings were NOT meant to b elistened to in a chronological run over 2 or 3 entire CDs. They were issued two (fromt and flip) sides at a time over a more or less longish span of time. That makes the listening experience quite different. Not so with albums. This can be rather formulaic in its own way right from the outset if you stick to the same type of programming such as described above. But again - could it be that the "feel" or the "message" of the music also is a key factor in making you tire of it or not? Some hard bop just is more demanding to lisen to than swing, and if on top of this the "angry young men of jazz" overtones (that I feel exist in some - though certainly not all - hard bop recordings) are perceived exactly as such by some listeners then you can only take so much of that. But will you tire just as easily of swing-era (or post-swing era mainstream jazz) recordings that certainly never tried to express such anger but rather more joyful vibes? Just wondering ... BTW, getting back to the 78 rpm era recordings again, what I said above is why I sometimes do feel slightly underwhelmed by those completist reissues and don't always find strictly chronological programming of the reissues such a great idea. It just might make you tire of that music more rapidly too. In fact there are LP reissues of some 78-rpm era artists or orchestras that I feel to be rather more rewarding to listen to than many of those strictly chronological A and B-side completist reissues because those LPs are only in very rough chronological order and apparently were compiled with more emphasis on coming up with a sequence of tracks that is interesting to listen to.