Big Beat Steve

Really sad to hear ... I never got into his Oriental and world music stuff but I like his earlier work a lot. Will play one of his RCA or Coral albums tonight (or maybe his Ljubljana festival reocrdings with the Horst Jankowski trio from 1957).

Ha, what I said all along. Strange that jazz buffs should get into alliances with hip hop and house DJ's but as long as these subcultures are around and focusing on vinyl the medium is gonna hang on. Vinyl rules! Getting back to my 90% vinyl collection now to spin a black 12" one ...

To fuel this debate a little, just a hint that JD has been discussed extensively elsewhere: http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread.php?t=18394 Enjoy!

What I particularly like are his early 40s recordings with the small band co-led with J.C. Higginbotham. The way he plays circles around Lucky Millinder's "Ride Red Ride", for example (showing off in the process how much more cumbersome a trombone was compared to a trumpet by the playing standards of that time) is a gas!

My day job is editing copy written by people who think that "nuke" is the funniest verb imaginable in a joking context. This leads me into arguments over nuclear metaphors and images quite often. As you can see, I'm getting pretty good at it.

All these covers are nowhere near as bad as MANY of the typical 70s reissue covers of a lot of fine 50s music, e.g. the entire nondescript "standard" covers of the "Jazz Lab" series on German MCA that featured reissues of 50s Coral jazz albums or some of those 80s Jazzline series reissues on French RCA . Or is there anything worse fitting the contents of the album than 70s/80s cover shots of artists that look sooo old and sooo long-haired, bearded and tired and wear funny flower-power garb in the worst 1973 fashion style while the actual contents of the music are prime 50s or even late 40s stuff? Worse than any of the funky 70s covers of original releases shown above. A related question to those who may have been around and into record production in the 70s/early 80s: Whatever was it that kept record companies from reissuing 50s records with their ORIGNAL artwork covers (like the Japanese did early on) back in the 70s? What were they afraid of? Would a bearded, worn-out looking long-hair viking named Gerry Mulligan really promise that much more sales of his early quartet sides in those long-hair days than a repor of the original cover showing a crisp-looking young dude?

Ha, "already R&B-ish" is putting it nicely... :D I was thinking of that CD too when I read MG's question. Check out Ray Abrams and Sam Butera fighting it out on their "Dueling Tenors" - THE honkin' sax battle to outhonk all honkers! :D Anyway, Ray Abrams got around elsewhere too. He was part of the 1946 Don Redman big band that was the first U.S. jazz big band to come to Europe after the War when they toured Denmark and Sweden and he also recorded a few 78s for the Sittin' In With and Jax labels in 1949.

At any rate it looks like the Musidisc JA 5176 LP that Chewy inquired about (and that I also happen to have) exactly duplicates the contents of Ozone 5.

I have the French pressing of the original Warner vinyl LP of this. A great session IMO with a real all-star lineup. I don't always agree with magazine reviews but in this case I think the 4-star rating by Down Beat was well-earned. BTW. I seem to remember this record (and the Trombones, Inc. session) was discussed at length in a previous thread here.

Kenny Hagood outdated? Maybe ... these were different times so the singing styles have changed too. But at any rate he still comes across COOL and HEP - and certainly not quite as outdated as many of those sentimental, operatic, not really very swinging big band era chorus singers, including many of those with the "name bands" of the late 30s and early 40s. Pure corn in many cases!

According to Walter Bruyninckx' discography, all tracks on side 1 of this Musidisc LP (JA5176) were recorded on 29 Aug. 48. The (male!) vocalist is identified as Kenny Hagood. Tadd Walk is from 9 Oct. 48, Our Delight from 16 Oct. 48. Wahoo might be from 30 Oct. 48 (same lineup listed in the discog though this issue is not stated). And all of this comes from broadcasts at the Roost, and part of the LP duplicates the Milestone twofer reissue of Navarro/Dameron live recordings.

Thanks for this background info; I am shocked at the fact that you were not involved in the booklet design and indeed did not get a chance to proofread. I cannot see the good sense of such an approach but I realize the blame apparently lies over there, then, for a good deal of what I've mentioned. Anyway, it's a real pity because the music and the booklets just belong together to complement each other IMO. Re- the Georgie Auld recording date I assume to be correct was given like this on the Hep 27 LP and is listed accordingly in the Bruyninckx discography. Anybody out there got the more recent Hep CD27 CD reissue of Georgie Auld's 1944-46 material to check if the date was changed there? My comment on that mistitled Cliff Bruner recording was (maybe ineptly) meant to be tongue in cheek. This "New Falling Rain Blues" immediately brought to mind that late 70s "Stompin' At The Honky Tonk" compilation LP released on the String label that you probably took this track from (hence the recording date being given only as 1940, as in the liner notes of the String LP? - the Cliff Bruner box on Bear Family Records - compiled and researched by Kevin Coffey - has the exact recording date I quoted). Anyway ... very rewarding listening, those sets!

Totally agree. I would like to add the liner notes to the Prestige reissues from the late 60s/70s as well as the liner notes to the Onyx and Xanadu LP's the layout of the back covers of which closely matched those of the Prestiges. Often very informative and a prime source of information. I'd like to add certain liner notes done by Alun Morgan for various reissue projects to that. However, liner notes that are clearly aimed at the discerning collector are one thing, but liner notes intended to "sell" a brand-new release are quite something else altogether, especially if you go back into the 50s and early 60s. And maybe one should not expect too much from the sales babble on those "new" releases anyway. Some labels just provided useful info, others didn't, and in that case the scribes called in to splurt out the words just did a hack job and nothing else.

O.K., I’ll just chime in and add my 2c – though I guess this might be frowned upon (and yes, Allen, your replacement shipping arrived OK and safely once I was able to pry it out of the hands of the customs people... ) I can only comment on Vol. 3 and 4, and to sum up my overall impressions: A really fascinating selection of tunes that adds something new and welcome to the way jazz history is commonly presented. The selections prove there was a lot of jazz happening off the beaten tracks of what was considered „mainstream“ jazz at any given time. I especially like the inclusion of Western Swing samples and related but often overlooked jazzier genres here and there (long overdue in my view). The story of jazz as related in the booklets makes for quite insightful reading that should broaden the horizons of quite a few as it expands beyond what is often written about these periods (or just go the other way round, read the booklets and take the CDs as musical examples to illustrate „one man’s jazz history“ - which is just as valid IMO). All in all great value for money. Yet I must admit that as much as the selection of the tunes clearly is a labor of love, there are a few things that leave you scratching your head after having read both booklets (at least a good deal of both). Call it nitpicking if you want, but seeing how other reissues have been commented upon here and elsewhere some clarification might be in order anyhow: - What’s so special about the „Moonglow“ version by the Mississippi Mud Steppers that would warrant it being included TWICE in the box set? (Vol. 3, discs 1 and 2) - Cliff Bruner & his Texas Wanderers never were „falling DOWN“, what they recorded (on April 8, 1940, to be exact ) was the „New Falling RAIN Blues“ (Vol. 3, disc 6). - Is the recording date of Maxine Sullivan’s „Nice Work If You Can Get It“ (Vol. 3, disc 3) correct? Rust and Bruyninckx give it as Oct. 22, 1937. Could it be that the date given here is actually a repeat listing of the Charlie Christian entry that precedes it? - Interesting as the booklet texts are, what I find somewhat irritating is that the periods covered by the music in the respective box sets and by the accompanying booklet texts do not quite coincide. A good deal of the booklet text (including quoted musical examples) of Vol. 3 relates to the discs of Vol. 2, and to read up to the end of the period covered by Vol. 3 you have to go to Vol. 4 and read the first part of the booklet there. A bit strange if the liner notes are intended to illustrate the music of any given box set (or vice versa, in fact). - I realize with the amount of music of each box set it would have been difficult to include full session details, but if those are (regrettably but understandably) omitted it would have helped a lot for those who feel like cross-checking the details elsewhere if the artist credits had been given more accurately throughout. For ex. just listing Ivie Anderson doing „Oh Baby Maybe Someday“ (Vol. 3) is confusing, seeing that she did in fact record under her own name. „Duke Ellington Orch. feat. Ivie Anderson“ would have been more like it. Overly abbreviated credits like „Berigan/Waller/Dorsey“ are a bit odd too, IMHO. And in the case of more obscure recordings, artist details would indeed have been very welcome, e.g. for Lester Young’s jam session/airshot recording of „Benny’s Bugle“. - The 2nd pic showing Charlie Barnet as per the caption (Vol. 3, p. 25) looks suspiciously like Benny Carter to me, and the 2nd pic credited to Maxine Sullivan (Vol. 3, p. 67) reminds me more of a very elderly Gil Evans. - Speaking of the photographs, I wonder why Lee Konitz rates a picture entry in Vol. 3. This period (1934-45) isn’t exactly the prime period that he left his mark in. The same goes for Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman in Vol. 4 (which ends in 1951 after all). Surely there must have been a lot of jazz personalities (famous or obscure) from the periods covered by the music that would have warranted a pic instead. And speaking of the pic of June Christy (Vol. 4, p. 54), what a pity this particular one is only half the actual pic so the story that this pic tells is totally lost (see W. Gottlieb’s „Golden Age of Jazz“ book where I guess this pic came from). - The author of „The Making of Jazz“ (and others) who apparently does not meet with unanimity is called JAMES Lincoln Collier, not John ... - Valaida Snow definitely never was imprisoned by the German occupants in Sweden. This happened in Denmark, not Sweden. Sweden stayed strictly neutral throughout the entire war. I realize from a U.S. point of view this may be but a minor slipup like speaking of North Carolina when you mean South Carolina, but to Europeans the difference was considerable. Ask any Swede about it ... - By 1944 Sonny Berman, though he died young, luckily had a bit more than „less than one year“ (Vol. 4, p. 28) left to live, or else we never would have heard a good deal of his great solos in Woody’s Herd. - I also wonder about the recording date for the Georgie Auld recording of „Short Circuit“ quoted in connection with Sonny Berman on disc 9 of Vol. 3. This track sounds very much like the recording previously released on Hep LP 27. Discographies give its recording date as March 28, 1944 (this date figures in the tracklist alongside the subsequent track – Don Byas‘ „1944 Stomp“ which according to all sources was waxed on Aug. 17, 1944, however). The date of Feb. 16, 1944 given for the Auld track in the tracklist, on the other hand, seems to belong to the previous one in the list, to Coleman Hawkins‘ „Woody’n you“. Seems like the track and recording date listings got out of sync ... - Finally, I wonder how those numerous misspellings of artists‘ names throughout the booklets of both volumes came about. Surely that’s something easy to avoid... O.K., enough of this, and again, call it nitpicking of you want to, and yes – IMHO the box sets still offer great value for money, but judging by Allen Lowe’s CV in the booklets I feel sure that as a jazz historian, in particular, he will already have made a point of getting errors like this straightened out in second pressings/printings.

Great music, and one of my preferred bebop artists. Yet I agree that this amount of alternate takes can be a bit tedious; thank goodness I have this music on Wardell's Prestige twofer entitled "Central Avenue". Still the best packaging of this material, I think.

I still insist any such surveys, discussions, etc. are highly subjective or biased as nobody (not even in this disucssion thread here) has been able or even attempted to state what is to be considered jazz at all if we are to find out if the "general public" cares about jazz at all. I'll bet you a nickel there are LOTs of people out there who will gladly listen to some Satchmo or Ella tunes every now and then and would not object to music like this being played in their presence at all yet would object STRONGLY to being confronted with music by Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Peter Brötzmann or similar artists that would just be a lot of noise to them. So what would be the bottom lime? That one moment they will accept "jazz" and the next moment they won't? How puzzling ... How would you rate this in a survey checklist? Or take those to who "smooth jazz" is perfectly alright as "jazz" ("Why,it said so on the cover!?"") while others (including lots of regular forumists here, I suppose) wouldn't touch it with a 100-foot pole. In short, there is no such GENERIC thing as "jazz" anymore. You need to be more specific if you want to get ahead with your surveys. And since this will fast become much too involved for general usability, any such survey, statistics become pretty meaningless.

Yes, this one is fine, but somehow I like his BOSTON BLOW-UP LP done in 1955 even better. Also not to be overlooked is his "The Fable of Mabel" album for Storyville (the CD reissue is currently available rather cheaply via Zweitausendeins), and his CD released on the Uptown label featuring 1950 live recordings from various Boston clubs captures the period club atmosphere nicely in addition ot the Serge's blowing.

A lot of what he says would also be true for Europe (even if English isn't the mother language of most Europeans). Everybody seems to focus on lyrics all over, no matter how inane or repetitive they are, and even if they don't know or speak any decent English at all. Concentrating on or consciously listening to INSTRUMENTAL music (jazz or not) is becoming a lost art. Instrumental music seems to be relegated to background elevator music in the minds of most people. That thing about testing the substance of a song by playing it on a piano only is a nice one ... As for that deleted caption, there is some truth in this too. Stylistically speaking, jazz by now has become such a wide field that you cannot even expect the majority of jazz fans to embrace all styles of jazz alike. One man's jazz is another's ... well, I don't know what, but possibly not jazz. And calling any sort of musical utterance "jazz" if it does not fit any other category (as has been done quite often in the 70s, 80s and 90s) doesn't help either, least of all in helping those outside the jazz world understand what the "core" of jazz actually sounds like.

There would have been an EASY way out for your dilemma: Whenever you want to get records autographed, ONLY take the cover along, but NEVER EVER the vinyl! Not that I would want to discourage noble gestures such as yours but not taking the vinyl along also helps to avoid potential vinyl fxxx-ups when you have to queue up (or actually fight for the best position in the crowd) to get your records autographed after the gig.

I don't know the ones you named so I cannot tell ... All I know is that I really like this one because of its emphasis on the 40s to 60s which is also my main interest in jazz, and IMHO it very nicely presents the early years (pre-WWII), the "Machito" era (when bebop embraced latin music) as well as the subsequent eras up to the present but it is not one of those "history" books that quickly glance over the whole past in one meagre chapter, devoting three quarters of the book to current headline acts for sheer mass sales. And the pictures are quite impressive and make the music come alive.

There IS! LATIN JAZZ - The Perfect Combination/La Combinación Perfecta by Raúl Fernandez Chronicle Books San Francisco 2002 ISBN 0-8118-3608-8 Disfruten! (i.e. Enjoy! )

@md655321: Maybe (and hopefully likely) so.... BUT, if we regard this from the perspective of the music collector: What's so convenient about having to store your collected (music) data every couple of years because the platforms that will provide reading (and playing) access are about to become obsolete or because the data storage media themselves are becoming more and more likely to fail? Compared to the minimum outlay of making sure your turntable stays functional (or, if your old one is beyond repair, getting a new one - which shouldn't be that difficult to do as long as certain subculture DJ's haven't turned away from vinyl for good) and just pulling out your trusty vinyl and enjoying it even FIFTY years later without worrying about any compatibility issues, that's really not very convenient. Just imagine this, you data whiz kid - a FIFTY-year old analog data storage medium such as vinyl, or an even older HARDCOPY reference book (o.k. I am not talking about pulp printed matter turning brown and brittle after 50 years or so)! How often will you have to have saved, recopied and transferred your digital data in the same time frame (just in order to ensure even the most basic form of usability), and eventually lost maybe a couple of major files just because the storage media became unreadable before you realized this? Sorry, this may all sound terribly old-fashioned to a lot of you out there, and digital data and their storage media have a LOT of advantages in today's everyday life, but when it comes to digital media as CONVENIENT LONG-TERM storage media that can just be stored by the owner of the data and forgotten, only to be retrieved when he needs to look up or play something (as in the case of a book or vinyl platter), it is not all gold that glitters in the brave new digital world.

I admit I am not familiar with this particular reissue and this might very well be a good way of getting introduced to this material but it always is very annoying when you get incomplete and possibly unrelated sessions thrown together on one disc, therefore forcing you to end up with lots of duplicates if you want to explore ANY of these sessions further. I think with today's collectors being what they are you don't even have to be a completist to dislike this sort of programming/marketing strategy.

Brownian Motion, I realized my error earlier so I changed my post above. I had assumed it was the Continental sessions that Savoy had reissued but these are a different story again. I've been aware of the Joe Davis sessions for a VERY long time. Great stuff!

Still more Hawk on Savoy is found on the Varsity Seven sessions of Dec. 14, 1939 and Jan. 14., 1940 taken over from the Varsity label and issued partly on Savoy 78s before being reissued on various Savoy LP's later on as well as on Storyville SLP 703.