Big Beat Steve

Indeed, though Roy Hogsed predated Haggard, Owens and Bakersfield by more than just a few years (and stylistically too). Merle Travis would be a much more contemporary major name who made the trek west at the time Roy Hogsed appeared there. @MG: Very well put, especially the Bop/R&B "crossover" evolution. Many jazz fans don't realize this to this day and still draw a strict dividing line between jazz and R&B, and yet at the time the boundaries were nowhere near as sharp as latter-day jazz fans mainly concerned with (jazz) art for art's sake made them to look. Leo Parker and Gene Ammons are just 2 examples of this crossover type of jazz. (MG, I am a bit surprised, though, that your preferred jazz era has sort of moved backwards in time from your focus on Soul Jazz. Anyway, welcome to the club! )

c. 1935 to c. 1955 as the core era (swing, bop, cool), with a representative selection of "classic jazz" and hard bop thrown in as well. I agree that the 2nd half of the 30s and the 40s (up to early 50s) were incredibly fertile, and the documented transition from swing to bop (and R&B) is always fascinating, down to the most obscure surviving recordings.

Russ Freeman? Frank Patchen? Just a guess...

Will keep an eye open for this for you but can't promise anything. As it happens, I am more or less in the same situation. A long time ago I bought Vol. 2 and 3 of this set as separate LP's on Blue Star (I suppose this is the issue label you are loking for as well). Now some will say "There cannot be a Vol. 2 as the French Blue Star issue of the early 80s was a 2-LP set of Vol. 1 and 2 and then a single LP of Vol. 3". Well, mine are SPANISH pressings. They did 3 single LP's in Spain. Same cover artwork but liner notes in Spanish. So I am in sort of a fix in finding the missing Vol. 1 (the only copy of the French 2-LP set of Vol. 1 and 2 seen in recent times was priced outrageously for such a reissue, especially considering I already had half of the music) but will keep searching. I know there are CD's around but apart from the fact I still prefer vinyl I hate accumulating duplicates unnecessarily.

BTW, the WIllie Jones article posted in the starting post is available in a much more readable (better layouted) version here: http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/wiljo.html

I happen to have that CD (and quite a few others from that series) and it's nice listening, and the fact that jazz was prohibited in WARTIME Central Europe (wherever the axis powers were present) is obvious but apparently (luckily) never went to the extremes of a 100% "blackout" in any of the countries affected. So within the scope of what was possible style-wise and swing-wise in Europe (please consider that even in peacetime only a fairly small share of the music recorded in the USA was ever exported to Europe in the 30s to serve as an inspiration to aspiring local jazz musicians) it still was quite decent music and showed some keen awareness of what was happening in jazz. All I meant to say is that not even in Italy there was a total lack of jazz during the Mussolini era (which your wording might have implied to those not familiar with at least a few basic facts). But that's a side note only anway - so back to the main topic of those $$$$$$ earners to sellers who manage to sell originals of the discs of the B-V band (and others of their ilk) to the insatiable Asians. :D

Oh yeah? The RIVIERA JAZZ reissue label seems to think differently and seems to have plenty of documentary evidence to prove it. Google it up some time.

Great band, great record, MG! Well chosen and well written, your endorsement of a band that exemplified the grassroots R&B of the times ! BTW, the label can't have been that "pirate-ish". Line note author Dave Penny ain't no nobody. So Official apparently operated in that grey area of a "couldn't-care-less" reissue policy of the majors where these doings were tolerated, otherwise the label would not have been marketed THAT openly everywhere. But that's beside the point by now anyway, really.

I second the vote for the Byrd/Gryce Jazz Lab albums. And then there is his album on Signal (later Savoy) as well as "When Famer met Gryce". A particular favorite of mine (though slighted by some) is his work with Clifford Brown on those 1953 Paris sessions. Gryce always had a knack of coming up with very ear-catching arrangements.

There's one oddity in your listing: "Shelly Manne & His Men Vol. 2" (Contemporary C-2511) (New Works must be some sort of reissue tag) was actually released before "The West Coast Sound". "West Coast Sound" (C-3507) was a 12in reissue of the 10in disc C-2503 called just "Shelly Manne & His Men" but was augmented by 4 tracks from 1955. So C-2503 really ought to be considered Vol. 1. If you want to, you might consider "West Coast Sound" (on which those 4 tracks from 1955 were new) to be Vol. 3. This would fit in with the sequence because it predated Vol. 4 (Swinging Sounds, C-3516). "The Three and The Two" (the 12in reissue of 2 10in LP's) wasn't issued in this form until 1960 and the musicians on the recording dates that made up these two original 10in records (Russ Freeman on "The Two" and Jimmy Giuffre and Shorty Rogers on "The Three") are no "Men" lineup so they do not really fit in the "Men" group's discography.

Well, this discog would have been a bit brief for THE LION, wouldn't it?

Indeed ... This session is listed in the discography accessible under www.visarkiv.se (under Lars Färnlöf's name) but as it apparently was not released on record until a LONG time after the recording at the time Nicolausson compiled his discography it had not yet seen the light of day so was not listed. But though Swedish jazz is one of my particular collecting interests it is rather the jazz from earlier deaces (pre-mid-60s) so I am no expert on later developments at all - sorry ... But where are all the Swedes around here? Nobody among them interested extensively in the jazz from their own country?

Addendum: Björn Netz must have made an impression in his own country early on. In ORKESTER JOURNALEN’s annual Scandinavian jazz poll he finished third in the Tenor sax ranking in both 1962 and 1963, in both cases behind Bernt Rosengren and Bjarne Nerem but ahead of more established and basically more renowned names such as Carl-Henrik Norin, Erik Nordström, Hacke Björksten, Mikkel Flagstad, etc., Quite an achievement at this relatively early stage of his career, considering by that time his only recorded evidence had been two EP’s with Staffan Abeléens group.

If it's of any help to you, according to Nicolausson's discography he also recorded with Staffan Abeleen in 1961 + 62 (Sonet), 1965 (for RCA), 1966 (Philips) and 1974 (Odeon), but left no other discographical trace. Will see if I come across any mention of him in my ORKESTER JOURNALEN and ESTRAD mag collection (which runs up to 1963 only so it will have to be about his early days, though).

True - I've been using that solution too. Works well and shifts quite a bit of muck if the discoloration of the pad is anything to go by.

You are bound to get yourself right in the line of fire of a LOT of swing fans but IMO you are sooooo right. I have always found that clobbering on the bass drum for the basic rhythm very annoying (but probably listeners had different ears 70 years ago, at least white listeners not exposed to Jo Jones ). I think you've got a good point about Allen Reuss but the interplay of the various sections should not be overlooked either (remember the sections are for a lot of what makes the bands swing EASILY - as opposed to bands like Glenn Miller's that, while technically perfect, were and are perceived as rather mechanical by many).

Neither have I. As I am listening to my 80s reissue LP of this record on French RCA with its somewhat nondescript cover (though there have been lots worse) I'm really wondering why these companies could not have used the original artwork for their reissues to add a little respect for the original production (like the Japanese have beein doing for such a long time).

It must be really (really really really really) old then! 4 Aug. 1955! THAT old??? My, my!

I wouldn't want to argue with that either. But unfortunately it's happening everywhere. I know of lots of other long-established small enterprises that secured the income of their owners in other trades but that had to give way due to all sorts of real estate redevelopment plans. Or ask Sidewinder about the change of the Docklands in London, etc. etc. Maybe we did get sidetracked because it was easy to boil this down to another variant of the story of the death of the "brick and mortar stores". However, I really feel there are two sides of the coin. If I correctly understood the gist of what Chris said above, some changes in Harlem are certainly for the better. Now how can you improve things substantially (and improvements of this sort invariably cost money) without allowing money to overrule EVERYTHING? Not an easy one to answer once you have reached a certain level of business interests at stake.

No, Sidewinder, Honest Jons is at the upper end of Portobello Road and has been there for a very long time AFAIK. The Compendium Bookshop was more or less opposite the Camden Lock on Camden High Street (quite a bit away from Portobello Road). Always a great selection of both music books and mags. As for the possibilities of the internet vs. whatever brick and mortar collector stores could ever have offered in the way of long-OOP items, you are right that even "way back when" the really desirable items would have been reserved for a certain "in crowd" (befriend the owner/clerk to get a chance to at least get a look at those goodies ). In retrospect, this was one all too common trait of those shops that meant they ultimately dug their own grave. Who would have gone back there once he discovered other international sources via the internet where he might just chance upon somebody clearing out his/her granddad's attic via an internet auction? But it's not only a matter of vinyl but also of all sorts of printed matter connected with our hobby. Would I ever have been able to get all those books/mags after having visited ANY number of fleamarkets, garage sales, specialist shops, collector's fairs (most of them outside the country where those items were originally sold anway)? And at an overall better price? No way!

The writing must have been on the wall for a long time for those "authentic" neighborhood stores, especially those that cater to a niche market in culture. When I noticed (to my great disappointment) in the fall of the year 2000 that the Compendium Book Shop (where I had done a lot of my music book buying for years whenever I was in London) in the Camden Town district of London had closed down for good (with a very bitter sounding notice to the former clientele, blaming it on real estate developers etc., still displayed in the bare shop windows) I realized a page had been turned for good. On the other hand in that same year I had just signed with eBay and the years that followed showed that internet opened up a whole wide world of buying opportunities that no array of brick and mortar stores catering to the "collectors" segment could ever have supplied. Within a scant few years I managed to complete gaps in my collection by buying items many of which I had never ever been able to see for sale anywhere (despite mail order and visiting specialist shops and fairs wherever I went) for almost 20 years before. Not to mention geographical boundaries. One rare book I had been searching on the web for many months finally came my way from an eBay seller from South Dakota! Not likely even the keenest overseas collector would pick that area as his favorite hunting grounds during a U.S. visit ... So the internet that contributes to the demise of those specialist shops is a mixed blessing but on the bottom line it is a tradeoff of the new vs the old where not all of it is really bad. What I do regret, however, is the colorful neighborhood atmosphere that goes out the window at the same time. But often we are only to blame ourselves. The prices in those small shops are often higher than those in the huge retail outlets so the consumers' urge to save as much as they can on standard items is another step towards the demise of those small shops because they just cannot survive on the special items (that only they carry and that are the main impetus for visiting these shops).

Your loss ...

It definitely did not. I have a few of these Cool'n'Blue CD's, and the booklet to the Teddy Edwards CD which has a release date of 1994 lists the Serge Chaloff CD among the previous releases in that series (actually one of the earliest), so the date of 1992 given by Swingin' Swede could well be correct. The 2005 date therefore might be a repressing date. BTW, the entire Savoy "Pumpernickel" session (with alt. takes) is on the well-known "Brothers and Other Mothers" 2-LP set which I trust cannot be THAT rare in secondhand circles.

I just wonder where the "plays Alto(s)" etc. stuff has been taken from. This WAS reissued before, e.g. by U.S. MCA Impulse (MCA-29069) in the 80s. (And there must have been other reissues) Lots of possibilities of doing a needle drop even without having to dig out an original.

By all means get the "Boston 1950" set on Uptown (if you haven't done so already). As for the three CD's you're listing, aren't they for complete novices only? Hey, all of those tracks have been all over the place in countless other compilations so should be present in relatively advanced collections of serious collectors anyhow. Maybe you might want to check your collection to see how many duplicates you might be running up with these. The three final tracks on the Cool'n'Blue CD must be from the "Stars of Modern Jazz" concert at Carnegie Hall, Christmas 1949. The line-up includes Miles Davis, Sonny Stitt, Benny Green and Curley Russell (all names are indicated on the cover you scanned). The entire concert has been out on IAJRC 20 (LP) (and certainly elsewhere), so again nothing exclusive here. (P.S. Ha, Swingin' Swede beat me to the Xmas info while I was typing mine from the LP cover )