Big Beat Steve

So what is it that you'd like to hear? If I go by the broadcast/airshot recordings (those where they did not edit out the announcer) it was indeed customary practice to have each tune introoduced by an announcer. Not only in Jazz in the stricter sense of the word. Take a look at old band pictures of Western Swing bands from the 30s/40s. Often you have not only the band members but also the radio station announcer lined up around the mike (as if he was a regular band member or at least somebody almost as important as the musicians) on those pics. Many jazz radio announcers of course tried to be hip and get some jivey talk in; some succeeded, some not and came across rather phoney (and many were edited out of the recordings you can buy today). Often those announcements give you a nice look right into that era. I have a CD with broadcasts of the Serge Chaloff band that were recorded live in a club in Boston in 1950 or so, with anouncements and all, including the announcer doing a short interview with Serge and mentioning who'd appear at the club next week, etc. etc. Quite fascinating, and it makes the music come across even livelier (like a jump back in time). Another one of those announcer characters I find quite amusing is Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman (also called "The Stomach that walks like a man") of the "Jubilee" shows. And then of course Al "Jazzbo" Collins.

So the last surviving participant of Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall concert and another link to Jazz when it was at the peak of its popularity is now gone too. R.i.P.

Amazing? Don't know ... Record collectors do die one day too, record collections tend to come up for sale here and there and every now and then, and some sellers don't let them trickle onto the market but rather get rid of them in one go. Seems to be the case both with the Jazz collection and the Garage/Psychedelic record collections that's come up here. Not a bad move on the part of the seller, by the way, to let all the records finish almost at the same time. Last-minute snipers will have a hard time sniping all that many records one after another (like they might be able to do if the auctions end at 3, 4 or 5-minute intervals, for example). So they will have to bid a bit earlier, giving others a chance to raise the bids. And let it be said once more: What this seller offers DEFINITELY is NOT an "essential Jazz collection". This is just a representative collection of hard bop-based 50s/60s Jazz records. Nice enough anyway but remember Hard Bop is just ONE of MANY facets of Jazz and certainly would not cover the entire range of styles that Jazz has to offer (even if to a lot of self-proclaimed "Jazz" fans Hard Bop is the beginning and end of it all) I for one would have been much more impressed if this particular lot had ALSO included a representative selection of "essential" records e.g. by Bob Cooper, Shorty Rogers, Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Lighthouse All Stars, etc. (not to mention the great MASTERS of Swing and Mainstream) - see? :D

Hey folks, that's globalization! What do you expect in today's world? It seems like there is a bunch of U.K. reissue labels out there who have long since abandoned donning and flying the Union Jack in what they're doing in their day-to-day business (like others in other countries too, I guess). Is Jasmine affiliated with or part of Interstate Music Ltd? The Interstate reissue labels such as Krazy Kat, Country Routes (and Harlequin) have featured the mention "Made in the Czech Republic" for quite some time now. Printing quality of the booklets and sound quality of the CD's is as good as it can possibly be when you reissue stuff from old 78s or acetates that sometimes survive in deplorable condition only and where definitely no master tapes exist anymore. So quality seems to be OK and the Czech connection is for cost cutting only.

Seeing that a distinction is made between the fidelity qualities of various pressings, here is a question from another Contemporary label fan: I have quite a few original (or at any rate VERY early) British Vogue pressings of the late 50s Contemporarys, including many DuNann-engineered sessions, of course. How would the (European?) hi-fi experts rate those compared to the U.S. pressings?

Hey, you can't be serious! Has he really been off your radar all the time? There's LOTs of life in Jazz outside all those hard-bop-funk-jazz-rock-bluenote-hornblowers! :D

Something to be expected at that age but a pity anyway. Another link to an important period of Jazz that's now gone. He will be remembered not only for his 40s recordings (including his role as the first major band that employed you know who...) but also for his more recent recordings that showed he had lost nothing...

"Lyrical" just about says it. I don't go too much for "Quiet Kenny" (a bit too subdued for my taste) but I find his albums done for the TIME label around 1960 really enjoyable (among other KD records I've heard - far from all, though).

So this the stuff that had been released on the Alamac LP QSR 2442 ... (Bruyninckx gives a different recording date but that's probably been superseded by more recent research?) Fine stuff and compared to other live Bird recordings the fidelity isn't that bad. I really like the interplay between Bird and Herman's Herd, and hearing Bird play other tunes from the Herd book such as Lemon Drop and The Goof and I is quite interesting. And hey, how can one NOT like the Herds?

Tal Farlow is GREAT! One of my all-time favorite Jazz guitarists. You started with a "mixed bag", though. "The Return of Tal Farlow" is great for his guitar work but the overall sound somehow appears odd to me. To me, the harsh, somewhat metallic sound of the piano really is out of keeping with the rest of it. I really prefer his Verve albums of the 50s as well as his early work with the Red Norvo Trio and on Blue Note. And then there are the two great LP's on Xanadu: "Fuerst Set" (Xanadu 109) and "Second Set" (Xanadu 119) - private after-hours recordings made by one Ed Fuerst in 1956 in a trio setting with Eddie Costa and Vinnie Burke where Tal really streteches out.

Strange that not much mention has been made of Oscar Pettiford. And then there are Harry Babasin's 50s "Jazzpickers" groups on Mode and EmArcy.

More recordings made at the Haig that evening of Dec. 23, 1952 (minus Warne Marsh - i.e. the rhythm section appearing as the Hampton Hawes Trio) can be found on "The Hampton Hawes Memorial Album" (Xanadu LP 161, i.e. the same label that the Warne Marsh cuts from that particular evening were released on).

GA Russell and Swinging Swede have already mentioned most of his major Capitol and concert recordings of the 40s/50s (his most important periods, I think). Just one more Capitol item (if you do not want to go for huge boy sets that include his complete works): His CUBAN FIRE album from 1956 was quite a milestone in his own right. And then there are the six Kenton LP's from the "The Uncollected" series on the Hindsight label. These radio transcriptions do not duplicate the Capitol studio recordings and often show the Kenton band in a looser and more swinging mood. Vols. I and II show his 1941 band, Vols. III to 5 cover 1943 to 1947, and Vol. 6 features his 1962 "Mellophonium band" (an instrumentation that sounds quite odd but actually the music is very swinging and "accessible").

You sure sound like you know what you're talkin' about, Tex, dontcha? :D I'd say it's neither as dry nor as hot nor as empty here as in Arizona (which may be a good thing or not, depending how you look at it ... ) Anyway, Chewy, we'll see about your trip over here in due course - OK? @brownie: So I wasn't too far off remembering these recordings from the Bird's Swedish tour had already been released legitimately in Sweden in the 50s ... Of course who'd figure this Boris Rose would take his material from legit issues, not only from tapes. By the way, could it be that there also was a Charlie Parker release (with similar cover "artwork") similar to that "Fran Staterna" release featuring Christian and Gray?

Chewy, what kind of tour is this in June/July 2007? Hard for me to make any plans that far in advance (and usually we are on holiday around that time of the year) but after all we've still got some time left. Contact me by PM if you want to.

When I have the time I will have to dig through my old (late 50s/early 60s) copies of ORKESTER JOURNALEN. I may be wrong but I seem to remember I saw a review of a live recording LP from the 1950 tour of Bird in Sweden there. May have included the tracks I bought on that Spanish pressing in 1983. I have the "Fran Staterna" (no rec. #) album with Christian and Gray. It's an odd one and from what I have been able to find out not all of it was new to vinyl. @John L: When I mentioned Benedetti, I meant to say that it clearly said in the liner notes of the pressing I mentioned that certain solos by soloists other than Parker had been edited out (and whoever wrote the liner notes even claimed some had been edited because "they were of no great interest". A pretty bold claim with that all-star lineup). So this is why I asked if this also was the case on the LP that chewy has.

Agreed with Michel. Seems like on that Sonny Rollins Saxophone Colossus auction the 5 or 6 highest bidders are all from somewhere in Asia and have all been fighting it out among themselves. You get an idea of the insanity if you see that the record went for almost twice the price that someone like "ondemand12" who used to bid high on a LOT of auctions for quite a few years would have wanted to pay. This may sound like "sour grapes" but Sidewinder is right - in the end it's the music that counts. It's nice to get hold of an original but at THAT kind of money you have to be sick in your brain to still ENJOY having an original. I even doubt that this is that much of an investment for the buyer. But maybe it's just like what's been said in one of the threads on this subject here: "Never cared too much for the CD but when I got an original I just dug it" - Is this what these collector fanatics are thinking? "It's an original so it's' JUST GOT to be good"? Do they get a kick out of knowing that that pop and click on track 3 on side 2 has already been heard by some cat in 1958 when he slapped the record on the turntable and held the sleeve in his grubby hands? Silly! Better listen a bit closer to the music in the first place! And as for those "once in a lifetime" opportunities, from all I've seen (and searched for) it's certainly not items on Blue Note or similar labels that have never shown up again after you've missed one single auction.

Are the "In Sweden" sessions those where they cut out most of the solos by the other players (the Swedish backup group)? (Sort of "Dean Benedetti syndrome" again ) They have been reissued many times over in various guises (I bought these live cuts as a SPANISH pressing on the Storyville label many years ago). And whatever this Boris Rose can be blamed/praised for, I do not think he was involved in those Swedish recordings. He may have been everywhere, but in Sweden at exactly that time? And besides, the Swedish tracks were issued pretty early on, not only in more recent years.

For additional info on this subject, check out Cary Ginell's book "Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing" (University of Illinois Press). It covers not only Milton Brown but also the careers of his brothers and also has a discography.

Yeah, Schnickelbop was cool. Always liked that one ever since I found it on a complilation LP. Don't know where I first came across this "Freddie Schnickelfritz Fisher and his Schnickelfritzers" (maybe some Ray Avery set sale lists?) but a name like this just is bound to be remembered (especially if you read about it in a Jazz context

Thanks for the listing! The Buster Bailey sides have been reissued too (on the Swedish Rarities label) but it looks like there is a lot of music that is not easily found elsehwhere. Vol. 2 should be interesting too.

Sounds interesting indeed. I think the Delta Four may be those that have been on a Decca/Brunswick reissue LP for decades but the others might indeed be fairly new on the reissue market. Would you have a tracklist? I did not find anything on the Hep site.

When exactly did Japan start to press facsimile reissues of U.S. Jazz LP's for domestic consumption at all? I don't want to sidetrack or hijack this thread, but I have Japanese pressings of the "Presenting Carl Perkins" LP on Dootone and Rusty Bryant's "America's Greatest Jazz" (the R&B date) on Dot that look very, very old - definitely older than the late 60s.

Maybe a bit like what's been written about Ernie Henry? Lots of promise that remained unfulfilled because he died prematurely and his few records showed him fumbling here and there because he apparently hadn't gotten his act together yet.

MG, if you remember the 70s you might also remember that "Quadro" fad. Stereo (to keep both ears busy) wasn't enough anymore - it had to be Quadro (as if we had four ears on our heads ) .... I remember a couple of Jazz LP's being promoted as the ultimate of all ultimates just because they offered full "Quadro" sound - and I also remember a few buddies at school went crazy about Quadro as the latest thing, and if they happened to be into Jazz they then would have had a choice of about 4 or 5 different discs. Oh well ... as long as the sound is right you apparently don't even care if the music is just run of the mill stuff. Not that I would consider any HiFi or digital-fidelity recordings to be second rate to recordings from the 78 era, but judging musical merits only from the HiFi angle is a bit ... well ... narrow-minded. Like it's been said before - nobody is forced to start getting into Bird by listening to "The Apartment Tapes" first, but among the current reissue market there should be decently sounding reissues of any 78s (even where no master tapes were available) remastered to a level to suit anybody raised on digital recording. So the fidelity argument is no longer valid.