Big Beat Steve

There seems to have been a mixup in several ways. I don't own the LP (Columbia CL592) but 1 or 2 years ago I picked up a CD reissue (PWR 27275 , which more than doubles the LP contents with bonus tracks from the 1945-47 period) at a local clearout sale for the affordable sum of 1 EUR. It seems like the CD reissue reviewed under your link is a different and more recent one (on Columbia Legacy, which according to Discogs only includes the original 12 tracks). So I cannot be definite about what that booklet actually says. At any rate, the booklet of mine includes a bio of Woody Herman by Arthur Morton, the original DB 5-star review by Nat Hentoff and the actual liner notes by Woody Herman ( I trust they are complete and unabridged). Below is a scan of the paragraph dealing with "Early Autumn". But Woody Herman refers to this tune only as by his "current band" (which might just as much mean "approximately 1954"). The "Early Autumn" version included on the CD as indicated as coming from the Columbia LP features a lengthy vocal (which sounds like Woody Herman's) so it clearly is not the 1948 original. Besides, the original was on Capitol. Would Columbia have used Capitol recordings for such an LP? Checking the discographies, both Jepsen and Bruyninckx confirm that a version of "Early Autumn" recorded on 13 to 15 July 1954 was released on Columbia CL592. According to these discographies, the tracks recorded that day and and released later (partially on Clef/Verve but also on collector label Swing World SWS-4) come from a broadcast from Omaha, Nebraska. The track on the CD does not sound like a live recording but that may be deceptive. However, I also happen to have that Swing World SWS-4 LP. Fidelity, announcer comments and (moderate) crowd noise clearly make this a live recording. And this LP features "Early Autumn" as well, but it is all-instrumental. What is also puzzling is that the session details of my CD contents claim that "Early Autumn" was recorded in New York on 30 May 1952. This date coresponds to a session for the Mars label and the band lineup included Bill Perkins on that day too. But according to both discographies no "Early Autumn" was waxed that day. So where (and why) did they get that date? The LP on Swing World did not exist yet at the time Jepsen's discography was published, but Bruyninckx apparently did miss that two different Early Autumns seem to exist under that date. He indicates "Early Autmn" as being present both on Columbia CL592 and on Swing World. But according to my CD these clearly are not the same recordings. So ... which is which, really? What does the Tom Lord discography say? Recopied the Bruyninckx slipup or new enlightenments?

Yes, thanks - they opened fine. And I agree that this way of consulting specific chapters for specific purposes (to accompany listening, for example) may well come in handy. From the Amazon listings I did notice that the book is a collection of previously published articles. Which left me wondering about how much I might already have on my bookshelves or to what extent Cerra did update/correct/comment on those period articles that may sometimes be outdated or in fact incorrect (on the basis of more recent research). But I guess everyone will have to find out about this for himself on reading the book.

Worth a separate thread (similair to "In with The In Crowd"). I read the book very recently and sincerely applaud (and agree with) the intentions and purpose of that book to put the record of post-WWII jazz straight in some respects. But I have somewhat mixed feelings about how this is put into practice in this book - and about the factual accuracy of part of its contents too. (A long story ...) I am now also re-reading "Soul Jazz" by Bob Porter who essentially argues along the same lines. I need to let this sink a bit first while reading "Jazz With A Feeling" again (I guess the first time around I was distracted a bit by the errors I noticed and may have missed some finer points of the author's reasoning). Thanks for your reply. I'd be interested anyway to read your opinions of Vol. 1 as soon as you have a more thorough impression of its contents. (Even though I may have ordered the books in the meantime anyway ... )

Further to my above post and question(s), I just checked the web and found this: https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2024/09/jazz-west-coast-reader-volume-1.html This does give me a somewhat better initial impression of the contents (Vol. 2 is in the sidebar to the right). Apparently an anthology of (for the most part) previously published stories/features on WCJ. Admittedly this mitigates my excitement a bit, though I'll very likely spring for them anyway. Just to have all that material in one place. Looks like the "newness" factor of interest largely depends on how easily or widely "accessible" the original sources for the contents of each chapter are, as this would indicate what REALLY would be new to "advanced readers". I do own "Modern Jazz" by Alun Morgan and Raymond Horricks (a 1956 book), so we'll have to wait and see to what extent the respective chapters are strict copyings (without updates, etc.). And just for correctness (and fairness) sake, the credits to Chapter 37 of Vol. 1 ("JazzLife") visibly are all wrong. This chapter apparently comes from the "Jazz Life" book first published in Germany (and German) in the early 60s. But no way the author was William Claxton! Not by the longest of long shots. He contributed the photographs to that book. A major accomplishment, but the entire text was by Joachim Ernst Berendt, for decades the #1 "grey eminence of German jazz journalism". Unfairly relegated to the small print in the fairly recent updated trilingual "reissue" by Taschen. So this chapter is a (well-done) translation of the original text written by Berendt. Something that ought to have been clear and known to the author/compiler/collator of this book. Honor to whom honr is due, therefore ... Opinions and impressions of the contents in their entirety are welcome anyway ...

That's these, then? https://www.amazon.com/JAZZ-WEST-COAST-READER-1/dp/B0DHH5XCBH/ref=sr_1_1?crid=32VZIFEF5FCFZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.4tZq_hyHXMwuhd7k_QBtwX0nNP2yIIUqx5pWbdfOyhvVauPjAMofHOqrEUf3Q3N1.Pp33glJKKFeeUb4eVHf9z5B5P8dm2Ilrcpn4agxFNlg&dib_tag=se&keywords=jazz+west+coast+a+reader+vol.+1&qid=1730457553&sprefix=jazz+west+coast+a+reader+vol.+1%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.de/Jazz-West-Coast-Reader-2/dp/B0DL5KLL88/ref=sr_1_2?__mk_de_DE=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&crid=34OY611GEG4LX&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.sOQu3lttK2O3sJHOpUMyQDVYCMmIoAcgQ9rW6O-sMLF3-stERqELi5c9u50hTN-70b1uBL_tqof6pNvMkIt8E6dXSOrc2lTXY8rVG-YWIum2B3L1D3RtNLt6VSHjK85KJMCoyqtP0PgjaSGg8NgkRARuCaOG_Hk_OvrKCSe551JtXVNBUyPvhKlON5wTbsikMBLfkgCEwc5cF15XMa8rNFhbslkm6fwkBXD3Cy0XqIk.q0-cU5wYtpauLXk-DWH3LuIAjuxPDJqqaPWIImwwmwY&dib_tag=se&keywords=Jazz+West+Coast+A+Reader&qid=1730456930&sprefix=jazz+west+coast+a+reader%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-2 So what are your impressions of Vol. 1? A "review" would be appreciated very much. I'm very tempted. To keep the JWC history books by Gioia, Gordon and Tercinet company on my bookshelf. But I wonder in which way these complement and expand the above books. Or do their contents tend towards the anecdotical approach of "The Melody Lingers On" by Jules and Jo Brooks Fox (which isn't bad but I find it a bit fuzzy and unfocused within the overall framework of WCJ). So any feedback on the above two books should be interesting.

Certainly not to the extent of many others, I'll admit that. "Belittled" was not an appropriate term either. And he certainly was acknolwedged in jazz circles in Europe. But OTOH what baffled me was that I recently read a statement somewhere to the effect that with the "Genius + Soul = Jazz" album he established his jazz credentials at last. Which sounded odd to me for two reasons: Did this mean that his credentials in jazz circles somehow were different (short of "true jazz"?) before that LP? And were his collaborations with Milt Jackson prior to that LP not enough, then?

Well, I still do (from time to time). And I am happy to see that many (others who browse the stores) apparently still stick with "THE NARRATIVE" - which not all that rarely leaves nicely priced goodies off the beaten tracks of the usual suspects for me. Which confirms the point made by Rabshakeh that "99.9% are not".

Things CAN be looked at it that way but (though I realize that I am biased here) I tend to disagree. R&B and Jump Blues were given short shrift (or outright denigrated) in the post-1945 Modern Jazz era in a way that was not all that different from the way that "popular" artists (Ramsey Lewis, Ahmad Jamal, Ray Charles, etc. etc., everyone in their own way) were belittled later on by many jazz scribes. And this also seemed to apply to many Soul Jazz artists (see period reviews of certain Gene Ammons records, for example). Bob Porter describes this continuum nicely in his "Soul Jazz" book (of which at least a third covers the 1945-55 era and the key acts in that field as some of those who laid out the pathway that ultmately led to Soul Jazz. I've just started re-reading that book to let its contents sink (again) alongside "Jazz With A Beat" by Tad Richards (that covers much of the same ground yet does differ in how it makes the case - worth a separate thread in due course ...).

I understand what you are saying, but - at least in the case of Gene Ammons - you may have walked on the "wrong" pathways. It is hard for me to recap where Gene Ammons figured (or not) in generally accessible pre-internet jazz source material but to the best of my recollection he DID figure enough to be taken note of. Admittedly among those names that you ahd to dig a bit deeper for. My introduction to Gene Ammons, for example, came through his links to some of the more R&B-ish 50s jazzmen (documented on EmArcy, Chess and the early Ammons-Stitt team on Prestige). And in the end his "typical" Soul Jazz albums on Prestige were a natural extension and continuity of all this. In a way he is one of the "classic" cases to prove those wrong who indulged into too much (written and printed) pigeonholing. In short, stop bothering with "critical acclaim" as a criterion of what would be "worthy" for YOU as soon as you have even the FAINTEST notion that a given artist would fit your tastes and stylistic interests or preferences. Just go out on your own. It is unlikely that you would round up that many duds in your music purchases that way. 😄

Yes, this is an important aspect. And this is why the recent books that focus on this aspect are important. Because they make the case that there is no overruling, everlasting single way of deciding (or should I say "decreeing"?) "what is important and what has currency". And part of understanding this is to try to find out why those value assessments came into being in the first place. But isn't it so that in the end the value assessments and the decisions of what constitutes the "canon" are made on a fairly PERSONAL level by everyone of "us" (on this forum) or in general among jazz (or blues or rock, etc.) fans? Even within the realm of what undisputedly is part of "acknowledged" Modern Jazz I could rattle off a dozen leader names of whom I have more (sometimes many more) records on my shelves than by John Coltrane or Charles Mingus. (And no doubt many of these would be considered "lesser" artists by some or even many.) And this was only partially dictated by the undisputable fact that - if I decided to dig much deeper into Coltrane or Mingus, for example - the records would be accessible out there in SOME packaging at any time. Would I need to defend these choices? (Would anyone make excuses for his individual choices and preferences?) Of course not. This does not keep me from acknowledging the objective greatness of Coltrane or Mingus but in the end it is above all a matter of personal tastes and preferences. Like with everyone else.

I fully agree with you (and Rabshakeh's impressions), yet it keeps baffling me that so many seem to feel that it is sooo difficult to explore (and, often, appreciate - yes, DIG) artists from past decades of jazz who are not among the oft-repeated big names ("usual suspects") who were granted the eternal headlines in jazz history. Admittedly I feel better qualified to speak for the Jump Blues era of jazz (1945-55) and not (yet) so much for e.g. the Soul Jazz (et al.) period, but the basic problem of artists being denigrated and put down by those who wrote (or should I say "recycled"? 😄 ) jazz history is largely the same. I wasn't there either when the music was current (far from it, and on top of it I was and am removed geographically too) but I really cannot see that it was insurmountable to get into these artists who were bypassed or given short shrift by the jazz scribes. And I sincerely don't believe my own approach (call it "curiosity", if you want to) was such a "one-of-a-kind" experience. And with the info available TODAY all these explorations of the "great unknowns" are made even easier. Re-Ahmad Jamal, my first exposure to him on radio over here (in the second half of the 70s) was on AFN FM radio where (for hours and hours each day) they at the time played music that you might kindly describe as "retro MOR" background oldies (which was what must have made me curious enough to listen in) but which actually was more a case of "sophisticated elevator sounds". Now if you are served Ahmad Jamal in a program that places him in the middle of a string of tracks by the likes of Mantovani, Hugo Winterhalter, Percy Faith, etc., (believe me, I am NOT kidding!!) then this does not exactly make his jazz credentials skyrocket. Though in the midst of all these 50s/60s style retro sounds Jamal was among the more palatable offerings to my ears. And yet ...

These clips underline the point I tried to make in my reply to Rabshakeh. Lynn Hope was graced with two reissue LPs in the mid-80s (Saxophonograph BP-508 and Aladdin/Pathé-Marconi 1546661), and I bought them not long after they had hit the record stalls. Not familiar with the name at all but knowing more or less what to expect (somewhere between Earl Bostic, Maxwell Davis and more energetic sax men). So I figured they'd fit well in among what I already had in that "category". No desert island discs but worth having, and being able to make a "discovery" was enough incentive. So Lynn Hope became a household name for me some 35+ years ago. As the annual "First Pressings" volumes revealed, he figured regularly in Billboard from 1951 to 1954 (less frequently in 1955 to 1958) so he clearly had some status on the scene for a while even after his 1950 hit with "Tenderly". Getting back to the time frame of the "In With The in Crowd" book, I'd bet discoveries such as this wouild work just as well for anyone wanting to explore 60s jazz (soul, sax-and-organ or whatever). It just takes some willingness to dig deeper and look beyond the big names of the "usual suspects" too. Which after all is made easier today by the chanels that make the music available for rediscovery.

FWIW, as for two books with a similar approach about rebalancing the narrative of jazz history but (also) covering an earlier period, Louis Jordan is discussed in detail both in "Soul Jazz" by Bob Porter and "Jazz With a Beat" by Tad Richards. But Pete Brown is only briefly mentioned in passing in "Soul Jazz" and not at all in "Jazz With a Beat". And Floyd Horsecollar Williams (almost predictably?) is not mentioned in either of the two. So the problem may be a more wide-ranging one.

You are right with the aspects that you highlight ... And yet ... ... I understand what you are saying but at the same time I am puzzled. Is it really THAT difficult to think BEYOND the "accepted wisdom" (i.e. the usual categories) of the canon of the (canonized) scribes on jazz? Your post has made me wonder about how I found out about all this. Soul Jazz (and similar 60s jazz) came fairly late for me and still is not my #1 style of jazz that makes me most easily take chances when buying records. But I have come to like it a lot, and after all this problem of what was (and is) considered worthy of "unconditional" JAZZ status did exist earlier too, i.e. with post-1945 (or post-Petrillo ban) horn-led "race music", Rhythm & Blues, Jump Blues (whatever ...). As highlighted in the "Soul Jazz" book by Bob Porter (which gives fairly broad coverage to 1945-55 R&B - as a path leading up to Soul Jazz - as well) and more recently in "Jazz With A Beat" by Tad Richards. Trying to think of how I explored that music way back, it may have helped that in addition to Swing and Bebop I had always been just as much interested in (real) Rock'n'Roll (not the way this is being defined in the U.S., mind you 😄) as well as the meatier styles of Blues (which invariably leads you towards R&B and Jump Blues). So anything that struck a chord (style-wise) in more than one way - as a sort of "cross-over" - caught my fancy. And almost from Day One I was curious enough to search out almost anything in that vein that I was able to get my hands on (and afford finance-wise ) in those late 70s, figuring there must be "more discoveries" out there. I remember that in the beginning I was a bit uneasy about where to file the very first records I bought by Louis Jordan - his Mercury stuff - and Buddy Johnson (I think I still was in high school then), but this was soon overcome and I gradually worked my way further in. What did I use for guidance or source material? Honestly, I don't remember ... A couple of books by Arnold Shaw helped. And I also remember I always tried to find PERIOD printed matter (books/mags) that talked about the music at the time it was current and did not want to rely exclusively on sources that were published much later (and were of course colored by whatever narrative hads come to dictate the way the story of jazz was "supposed" to be seen then). But access to such primary source material for reference was TOUGH in those pre-internet days. In many cases I did not manage to catch up until much later. I cannot even tell you what triggered me not to take the usual documentary sources as the "gospel" of what to appreciate as a "true" jazz fan. But I remember i always felt the urge to discover more in order to "flesh out" the bare-bones skeleton of the BIG names in jazz of any period and styles and look BEYOND that towards those who (at least to my tastes) were much more than "also-rans". Which, for example, is why I much prefer the "Jazz Masters of the 40s" book by Ira Gitler (who looks beyond the biggest names of the "usual suspects" and mentions tons of others for any given instrument), as opposed to the "Jazz Masters of the 50s" book that tries to cover 50s jazz by focusing on only a dozen (or so) of real big names but stops (and fails) there. In short, this exploratory route happened with me for jazz of the 1940-45 to 1955 period much in the same way it can happen with others for the late 50s to late 60s period covered by the book discussed here. At any rate, the music IS out there, and no doubt it today is much, much easier to access than it was back in the 70s or early 80s. It just takes a good dose of curiosity and an attitude of taking the long-established narratives with a grain of salt, particularly if they reek of trying over and over again to "make a lady out of jazz" (even decades after Paul Whiteman) because they stuff jazz into a strict "art music" or "the classical music of the USA" corner. And ABOVE ALL not to forget that one purpose of jazz at ALL times was to entertain (including as a music for dancing).

So true ... Just as in the case of that "other" book mentioned earlier ...

O.K., then ... "Stand by (and watch this space) for further announcements"! (I am not even one third through the book ... but considering it has barely 140 pages it won't be exceedingly long ...)

I am about to spring for "In with the In Crowd" and have it presented to me for Christmas by my better half. 😄 In the meantime, I did pull the trigger on "Jazz With A Beat" and received it today. Worth closer reading and examination as the author does seem to cover this from an angle that had all too often been dismissed or ignored (and does not look like it duplicates that of "Honkers and Shouters" by Arnold Shaw but might complement it well). But ... under the "get your facts right and REALLY do your research homework" angle it looks like a mixed bag to me (at very first sight, admittedly). Any interest here in starting a separate thread on THAT book?

Hoping for you this will be a good investment over time. Because the price difference compared to the "standard" edition is sorta "steep" IMO.

Regardless of what you stood corrected for , you raised some valid (IMHO) points. I know I am nitpicking quite a bit here, but even after having checked the track list AND the list of artists/bands they deliberately omitted, I still felt puzzled a bit. Some of those acts on the list of excluded (our should I say discarded?) artists that they may have felt to be of "slight" or limited jazz content IMO can (almost) only be judged that way (to the extent that I have heard these acts on other records) by the fact that the compilers' idea of "jazz content" is a fairly conservative one. And this seems to favor traditional jazz and hesitates much more often about what was popular on the "swing" (or swing-infused) end of jazzish popular music in the 40s. That end of the spectrum in fact included quite a few artists that had a solid following in their day but fell by the wayside of the historians' way of writing about jazz of that era in later decades. And therefore passed into oblivion with the "general" jazz public. (And I am not even thinking of Louis Jordan there ... whose omission I personally can live with because his V-Discs have been around in easily accessible form on the reissue market before.) Adding this to the fact that building such a box set to a greater extent on such relative obscurities instead of mostly firm "name" favorites (of whom there remain many in the field of traditional jazz) might have hampered sales potential, you just end up with the artist selections they preferred. Understandable yet a pity in some cases.

Yes - really great. I made it a Christmas gift to myself when it came out. Recommended!

I.e. the one with the 500,000 guitars??

Good to know. 😄 But at least the reader seems to be getting his money's worth per page. Contrary to the typeface used in certain other books.

Thanks for linking this interesting review. This does give a better idea of what the book is all about. As for the following statement ... " ... the kind of jazz that was commercially viable in the black community in the 1960s has been overlooked in jazz history writing. Author Mike Smith says that the attention that might have been given to popular performers like singer Nancy Wilson, pianists Ramsey Lewis and others has instead been focused on the avant-garde, aka “The New Thing,” as personified by Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and a few others. ... Smith’s thesis is that the need to “elevate” jazz from a popular musical form to one “equal” to European and other Western forms of music is the key factor. Early attacks on jazz he says, “led to a defensiveness and a need to seek legitimacy that continued into the 21st century.” This idea goes back to the 1920s, Paul Whiteman’s efforts to “make a lady out of jazz” perhaps being the most well-known. Smith believes this comes largely from the white community although historically, critiques of jazz have come from both races. Smith says that since media loves conflict, jazz writers’ attention has been more likely to be drawn to the drama surrounding people like Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. He writes that this music reflects a more non-conflictual perspective on black life; people just wanting to enjoy themselves, in communities that were more than just “ghettoes”; that there was not just struggle and trauma in people’s lives, but beauty as well. " ... I for one feel that the importance of this and the need to rebalance the scales accordingly in the way the history and evolution of jazz are presented and appreciated cannot be stressed enough. Trying to force jazz (in the larger sense) into a "classical music of the USA" pigeonhole (and limiting oneself to perceiving the music in this classically-trained "art music" sense) does not do the music justice at all. Just my 2c ...

A side note: Thanks for mentioning that "Jazz With A Beat" book! I had been totally unaware of this. (Cannot recall its release has been discussed here - or did I miss something?) Ordered it at once as it is right up my alley. Glad to see (according to the sales blurb on Amazon) that the author acknolwedges the small-group R&B/Jump Blues acts as part of how Swing evolved after 1945. Good to see the days seem to be over at last when the entire R&B field was dismissed as being unworthy of serious consideration as "jazz" (of the post-WWII variety). The "In With The In Crowd" book looks interesting too (like you said - as a follow-up to the "Soul Jazz" book, maybe ...). But for now I'll sit and wait to hear from others who have read it - just to get a few more impressions. BTW, one aspect I wonder whether it will be covered in the "In Crowd" book (or in "Jazz With a Beat"?) are those "Mainstream" jazzmen who did retain a following well into the 60s at least on a local/regional level, such as Buddy Tate and his Celebrity Club orchestra who according to various period sources had a long-running club residency. Style-wise (considering the usual stylistic categories that jazz scribes tended to think in) I'd guess he fell into the "No man's land of jazz" between R&B and Soul Jazz.

Yes - this is how this session looks in the "Bird Lore" discography: And this is what the booklet of the "Unheard Bird" 2-CD set says about that session. (I had totally forgotten I own this set. I really ought to have checked there first )