Big Beat Steve

That title is an abomination. God, how I hate those "Has/Have ... Will" titles. Who came up with this idiocy that keeps rearing its ugly head again and again? And now in the NYT? Good grief. How about this from 1957: Have Gun, Will Travel: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050025/ Yeah, I know. And this. And ... I give up. To add a final coffin nail: How about HAVE DRUMS, WILL TRAVEL by Mickey Sheen? (on the Herald label)? Must have been released around the same time (1957). (Nice cover, though...)

You mean if they were to do pre-50s stuff (that on top of all nicely matches your wants lists) they weren't "thieves" (in your book) anymore? :D (Sorry for digressing again, MG!

Well, "Guilde du jazz" makes the (pressing) origin clear. I have seen at least one other copy before. I remember having downloaded (for archiving/documentation purposes) a cover pic of this album a couple of years ago when another copy came up for sale on eBay. Well outside my price range, of course (though not quite as expensive as this time ) ... It's the well-known "Euro-jazz syndrome" again. If it is European jazz from that time frame in decent condition and comes to the attention of bidders in certain Far East counties you as a seller will stand a good chance of getting rich quick ...

MG, aside from the fact that I wasn't thinking of you when I wrote the above (more of those who would have cried out loud if somebody had said "Hey I bought this Lone Hill / Definitive and am sooo pleased" ) I fully realize this is part of human nature. As for completist Calloway boxes, don't know of any (but somebody will certainly be able to tell you) but the CLASSICS label (again!) has/had a lot cf chronological Calloway releases from that era. Hope the Calloway stuff isn't among those that have gone OOP by now.

Strange how people react so inconsistently with regard to those "recycling" box sets (some would say "ripoff", others called them "distilled" box sets ... ). Now what to expect of a product that makes such blatant mistakes like the one above ... I've seen people complain about less elsewhere (and make it a reason for dumping the entire set ). But what strikes me in this debate is that lots and lots and forumists keep complaining about Lone Hill, Definitive and Fresh Sound and take issue with the fact that European copyright laws make the music P.D. after 50 years while on the other hand they seem to be more than happy to add other music on other cheapo box sets such as those by Quadromania or Proper. Could it be that one reason behind this is the following: Lone Hill and Fresh Sound tend to reissue more modern styles of jazz (I am talking about 50+ year recordings here; circumventing the 50-year limit in the case of much more recent recordings would be another issue). This seems to offend a LOT of people here who collect mainly modern jazz. Is this a.o. because seem to resent the fact that so much of their precious stuff bought at great expense might be devalued by the fact that it becomes available to others (who might take a more casual interest in those styles) at lower prices? Yet more or less the same modern group of jazz fanatics seems to be quite content at going for those cheapo box sets when it comes to reissues of older (swing or classic jazz) recordings - maybe because they just want a broader, more basic overview of that period so are not too keen on paying top-line prices even for this side interest of theirs? And what is more the money saved by buying those cheapo sets will allow them to save a lot of money that they can invest in more "legitimate" modern jazz reissues And all this despite the fact that a LOT of those cheapo swing reissues would also fall under this 70-year debate so hotly fought about by U.S. forumists since a LOT of those reissues are more recent than Feb, 1937. Looks kinda like double standards, doesn't it? Sorry for digressing OT, and no offense meant, but it had to be said for once since at times these double standards become quite evident. May everyone buy what he considers best to his tastes so let's just accept the fact that laws and personal priorities are not the same everywhere

I have that one too. Weird indeed ... apparently some sort of "limited ed. collector's issue" There were at least two more like this, one faturing an early SHORTY ROGERS (yeah, THE MAN! ) ) live session from the 'Coast. I haven't got the records right here to check but that Wardell Gray LP No. 101 came from the same live gig that was also featured on a Xanadu LP (I think it duplicates only one of the 4 tracks so it pays to have them both, unless you already have the contents of the Xanadu LP on that Proper box; yeah - what would Proper do if they hadn't earlier clean reissues to pick from? )

The best of them (for various styles of music) in that area was RECKLESS RECORDS located in Berwick Street but I am afraid they have closed down too at about the same time that Mole went (at least that's what they said elsewhere on the WWW). London sho' ain't what it used to be ... Another point trying nowadays that the choice narrows down is the various 2nd hand record shops of the MUSIC & VIDEO EXCHANGE, including the one at Notting Hill Gate (where you pass by anyway when you walk up towards Portobello Road). Hope that they at least are still around. Normally they would only have been second or third choice for me but I used to check them out pretty regularly anyway and when I was there last in 2000 I was surprised to find quite a huge selection of jazz vinyl at Notting Hill Gate (including an original 50s U.K. Vogue pressing of one of the Bud Shank Pacific Jazz LP's in very decent condition at a very fair price).

As for music books in London, maybe the Londoners could follow up and elaborate on the following: When I was regularly in London throughout the 90s and up to 2000, the Henry Pordes bookstore (Charing Cross Road) regularly carried a good selection of cut-price music books among other art books (usually books about to go OOP or books that had been superseded by a subsequent edition). Up in Camden Town there used to be Compendium Book Shop but they closed down in '99 or so (had to give way to unaffordable rents and building development policies, it seems) but there was another book store nearby across the road in a sort of inner court (lots of small specialist shops arranged around an inner court - might have been near Camden Lock). When I passed by there in 2000 they told me they had sort of taken over where Compendium left off, i.e. they had a pretty good selection of music books. I forget their name but maybe this description rings a bell with one of the Londoners around here so they can confirm whether these outlets are still any good.

I have a couple of 78s by Nick Esposito. Maybe some of the ones you are looking for are among them. Definitely not for sale, though, but maybe there is a way they can be copied onto CD-R.

Yeah, that post sure is quite enlightening .... But beyond all the personal quabbles that went on there the reissue and marketing policy behind those Proper boxes makes me wonder ... Somehow some of what I'm seeing released on Proper reminds me of some of the discussions on this forum re- certain other European labels. Some of the points have been mentioned on that other post, but just take this: http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/...g+1932-1937.htm And now consider the fact that in 2003 a Milton Brown box set (minus most of the Derwood Brown tracks) appeared on Proper. Coincidence? Or do I hear somebody say that this reeks a bit like that case of the Bird and Diz Town Hall 1945 concert recordings on Uptown that suddenly were all over the place on other labels? Please note that I do not have any objections to the 50-year P.D. limit that makes these projects perfectly legal (on the contrary, and even the 70-year U.S. limit would no longer apply in this particular case) yet I feel kind of sorry for the Texas Rose label (a FANTASTIC reissue label that was the first to bring MANY gems from that period back). Small print notwithstanding, I just wonder how much real NEW remastering FROM SCRATCH (literally... ) went into this U.K. box. And would they have done it if no Texas Rose box had been there in the first place? I can only hope so but it all looks funny ...

I have two of those: the French issue of it (on Vega, if I remember well) and later managed to get the original on ABC! This one seems to have been around in various guises through the years, though. I have it as a 60s (or early 70s?) U.K. reissue on the MFP label.

Thanks for the info, Brownie. Never saw this OJC CD on Joe Holiday anywhere before at all (and certainly no vinyl reissues ever ...). So the FS reissue includes his final leader date.

Joe Holiday? THE Joe Holiday that Prestige, OJC and whoever have steadfastly refused to include in any of their reissue programs through the decades although he was fairly prolific in the very early years of Prestige? May not be 100% essential listening but a nice example of that era anyway. Thanx, Fresh Sound!

Haven't read it but heard about it fairly often and the other day actually read a somewhat lukewarm review of it in a period jazz mag of 1947 or so. I wasn't aware he had still been alive. 60 years seems like a long time ago, and his peers among jazz writers are all long gone.

Funny that PJC and those two Arvanitas LP's on Pretoria should be mentioned here ... I bought repro reissue of the Arvanitas "Cocktail for Three" album in 2000, liked it (still do) and wanted to get the other one ("3 AM") as well when I found out it was available as a reissue LP too. An internet link showed that PJC had it on their online website. Only drawback - they would have charged about as much as the price of the LP on top of it just for shipping. A bit hefty for a single item. Any inquiries as to whether it would be possible to pick it up in their shop (a brief visit to Paris was imminent, and a friend would have been available to collect the item beforehand anyway) the reply was a curt "NO" - cannot move items from their internet stocks to the shop, cannot organize things between those two branches and whatnot ... Very strange ... So the matter just faded away and that was that ...

The explanation of these skyrocketing prices is easy: Almost ANY combination of "EURO-JAZZ" (especially from the 50s and 60s - and early 70s if on the right label ) AND Japanese buyers will make prices go through the roof. Copies of a similar issue (Lars Gullin/Brew Moore/Sahib Shibab on one of those 60s Danish labels) went sky-high several times on eBay around 2001/2002. And I remember how I almost fainted when I first saw the prices that that early 10" release by Iancsi Korossy on the Supraphon label (of which I had picked up a NM copy for 2 deutschmarks - about 1 euro - on a local fleamarket in the late 90s) regularly fetched on eBay.

You're talking about SWING (DRG) SW 8411? Shouldn't be THAT rare. I might have a lead for a copy (a private seller in Germany selling one for 10 euros; but airmail shipping to the States would cost you at least another 13 euros. If you think that's worth it (which I quite honestly doubt as it is a reissue from 1986, i.e. not THAT old) I can check with the seller.

Strangely enough, most of those records I've been trying to find for a VERY long time then all of a sudden were (almost) all over the place once I had located a copy at long last. I'd been looking for that very first real LP by Horst Jankowski - his 1961 "Gäste bei Horst Jankowski" LP on the Metronome label for almost 20 years and the first copy I ever came across anywhere at all was one located through eBay in NM from a German seller in 2001 or so (not cheap but halfway affordable). And not more than about a year later I ended up with another copy (this one VG+) (so now I even have a trade item...). That one came my way with a stack of records (that included one of the original Brunswick Donald Byrd in Paris LP's) bought as one lot from another eBay seller about 30 miles from where I live! And all this after having searched for this one at flea markets, garage sales, record fairs, secondhand record shops for years and years! Same story with another long-time wants list: Back in the late 70s I hesitated too long buying the sole copy of that "The Cats & The Fiddle" 2-record set on the Bluebird label that made it to a local record store. Couldn't quite figure out what THAT band was and when I finally made up my mind it was gone! No chance of finding it anywhre else at a halfway affordable price in those pre-internet days, of course. Then in the early 90s I met a local couple that had that a copy (they must have bought the very copy I had missed back then). So now at least I had a cassette dub ... Finally, after eBay had arrived I took the plunge in 2001 and jumped at the occasion when a copy came up on eBay.com (not cheap with airmail fare from the U.S., etc.). But lo and behold, about a year later a secondhand record store had another copy priced at LESS than that eBay price excluding shipping! (That one made a nice birthday gift for a friend though...) Wonder if that's going to happen again with my current MOST WANTED item (missed it several times on eBay as the final prices clearly were out of my range): Deutsches Amateur Jazz Festival 1958 LP on Metronome

Don't even ask or wonder, Kyo! This policy of reissue labels of reshuffling, rearranging and (in the process) thoroughly mixing up everything in such a manner that you end up with a HUGE amount of duplicates even if you are NOT a 100% completist is one of the most annoying things to plague the more serious collector! Sometimes it makes you wonder if it is all part of a scheme of selling even more CD's by deliberately programming reissues in the most incoherent manner possible in order to take advantage of the completists out there who must have everything. Like I've said before elsewhere: I really envy the collectors of pre-war blues recordings. They do have at least some labels that give more consideration to the collector. One of those records I gave a spin the other day actually had the following statement after the track listing on the cover: "The remaining tracks of this group are found on .... - No duplications between these!" Now imagine that on jazz CD reissues with material from the late 50s/60s/70s (especially if a somewhat better-known name is involved ...)!

I was just as intrigued as Ghost of Miles by this name of Henry Jerome when I read SWING TO BOP (one of those jazz books you enjoy reading over and over and over again from start to finish) as it was mentioned relatively frequently for such an obscure band. My initial reaction initially was something like "What - a transitional band from swing to bop I don't have in my record collection and can't find in any discographies? WTF?" At first I drew a blank too and wrote it off as one of those unrecorded post-big band era bands that blossomed very briefly after 1945. What with Tiny Kahn and Al Cohn in its lineup, I figured it might have sounded like that Gene Roland rehearsal band. However, there is at least one Henry Jerome LP on the Circle label (CLP-51), featuring Lang-Worth transcription recordings made in 1950 and 1952 (released in 1983). I found it a couple of years ago and of course grabbed it (Swing to Bop had stuck in my mind). I got it very cheaply - otherwise it would have been a BIG disappointment. It's more of a hotel-style or mickey-mouse setup in the style of Hal Kemp or the like that may have been popular with the more plush, more sedate set of U.S. society of the late 40s/early 50s. That "modern" sounds of that Henry Jerome bands mentioned in the book must have been a brief intermezzo in this man's bandleading career. BTW, if that AMG info quoted below is correct, then that connection of Henry Jerome with rockabilly and the Johnny Burnette Trio that is alluded to is a streaky one at best. If it is so that Jerome moved to Coral as late as 1959 he didn't even catch the Trio at the tail end of its involvement with Coral. The classic Trio sides had been made in 1956/57, and the classic Tiny Bradshaw cover "The Train Kept a'Rollin'" quoted below was released in October, 1956. By 1959 Burnette had moved on to Imperial and then Liberty. Or did that Decca man Jerome do producer's work for Coral on the side?

Yeah, so I figured. Just wanted to point out the comparative plethora of (re-)reissues of this material.

I guess you know Tal Farlow's Fuerst & Second Set came from two Xanadu LP issues. As for CD reissues, take your pick here for FUERST SET: CRCJ-5509 (Japan 1994) TKCB-71530 (Japan 1999) Xanadu FDC-5160 (EPM France 1988). Entitled “Tal Farlow at Ed Fuerst’s” this CD includes the material from “Fuerst Set” and “Second Set” excluding “Out of Nowhere” and “Let’s Do It.” Definitive DRCD 11263 (Blue Moon, Spain, 2003). Entitled "Tal Farlow - Complete 1956 Private Recordings", this is a 2-CD unabridged reissue of "Fuerst Set" and "Second Set." ... and this (plus the last two above) for SECOND SET: CRCJ-5510 (Japan 1994) TKCB-71531 (Japan 1999) Everything found easily through Google on the Tal Farlow website. Now go figure the rest out for yourself...

The Tubbs Proper Box set is also discussed towards the very end of this thread: http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread....9302#post269302 This might give you an impression so you can judge for yourself. Quite a bit of the Tempo material by Tubby Hayes was reissued on CD by Jasmine a couple of years ago. I only have a few of them and haven't compared everything they reissued with the Proper box but some degree of duplication definitely exists (which is a nuisance as the Jasmine CD's aren't that old or obscure). As for the sound, only those who've heard both reissues can judge. Generally, the Proper boxes are nice introduction to an artist's work for those who are "novices" in this field. And like it or not over in the States, the 50-year copyright limit laws in Europe make them perfectly legal. Point. Nobody is forced to buy them. (This point has been discussed often enough here; no use rambling on. A law is a law.) That aside, initially I was quite impressed by those Proper boxes but after having checked their offerings closer, only two things remain in their favor: 1) Their price (!!), and 2) as pointed out above, they are nice as starters into the work of an artist. But if you go further or already have a good collection you will end up with lots of overlap. The first Proper box I saw, for example, was the 4-CD set on the work of Milton Brown. Nicely done, I thought, but later I discovered that another, yet more complete box (including ALL and not only a smattering of the recordings under Derwood Brown's name) exists. Completists therefore might want to look elsewhere if the price difference isn't too steep. With compilations it sometims pays to be EXTRA careful with those Proper boxes. Some time ago (following a discussion on this forum, i think),I got the "Hitting On All Six" Proper set on early (up to mid-50s) jazz guitar. Nice to have in THIS packaging and fairly affordable. BUT: The track listing (on the cover and also on the internet) is a blatant scam! They list the tracks with the guitar SOLOIST given as the artist alongside, making it look as if those recordings were done by that particular artist as a LEADER. Not so in many cases -many of the recordings actually were made by a totally different band where that guitarist just happened to take a 16-bar solo or so. In many cases, and if you know a bit about jazz of that period this was obvious from the outset (did Floyd Smith ever record "Floyd's Guitar Blues" under his own name? No, it was the Andy Kirk recording, of course, etc.) but it is virtually impossible to check it all out beforehand without actually looking at the lineups in the booklet. In short, unless you have an encyclopedic knowledge of 40 years of jazz and have memorized your discographies for good you end up with a huge amount with duplications. I think they may have pulled the same trick with other compilations, so BUYER BEWARE (if you already have a sizable jazz collection). At any rate, this kind of artist credit on the outside of the package (that's usually sealed at the time of purchase) is as idiotic as it can be (or was it maybe intentional ).

It would help a lot if you could give a bit more info on title, label, etc. Numerous compilations on early to mid-20s Henderson have been reissued in the past 20 years, some overlap with others, some don't. So .... Anyway ... ANY jazz band from c. 1923 is likely to sound VERY different from its mid-30s version, even if it's the same leader. Not only stylistically but also due to the recording technology. Generally the switch from acoustic to electrical recording occurred around 1925 and that changed the sound of a lot of bands.

How much of that has been out on Jasmine not THAT long ago, I wonder?