What vinyl are you spinning right now??

[mjazzg]

Kokoroko - s/t [Brownswood Recordings]

[felser]

2 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

Same impressions here in Austria during that time. And they had some records from a to me quite obscure label "Trip Records". I purchased Dolphy´s "Jitterbug Waltz" I think on such a label, with quite a cheap and ugly cover and almost no infos. And they had bad quality....

Yes. Trip Records was a strange and mysterious reissue label, ugly grotesque album covers, horrible vinyl and should quality, but some really interesting music by some of my favorite artists that I otherwise had never seen or heard of before.

5 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

I never thought others might have this . I bought it 1979 at a Jazz Festival (Velden) and they had a bus transformed in a kind of "record shop" with the strangest and most obscure records I ever saw. I think the label was a totally obscure one. Never heard of it. The whole thing looked like some bootleg. But the music was great, especially Beaver Harris was one of the greatest, but underrated drummers. I think, this was a kind of transition period for Shepp: Years before he would not play a swing rhythm like he does here I think on "Blues for Donald Duck". But 2 or 3 years later he became even more conservative and played standards just with a regular quartet.

I totally agree with your analysis of Shepp during this period, and with your esteem for Beaver Harris.  I saw that group live at the Foxhole on Penn's campus, and they blew me away, especially Harris.  I also saw him a couple years later with George Adams/Hannibal Peterson at the Ethical Center, same reaction.  This, to me, was Shepp's prime period, good as his earlier work was.

[mjazzg]

 

Hal Russell & Mars Williams - Eftsoons [Nessa]

first listen after taking my time to track down a copy

[Big Beat Steve]

23 minutes ago, felser said:

Yes. Trip Records was a strange and mysterious reissue label, ugly grotesque album covers, horrible vinyl and should quality, but some really interesting music by some of my favorite artists that I otherwise had never seen or heard of before.

 

Don't know about which period or part of the Trip reissue program you two are talking exactly, but I remember them primarily as a reissue label of Mercury/EmArcy material from the 50s (and still have those I bought at the time). Instantly recognizable by their scaled-down (mostly) B/W versions of the original covers on the front. Some 78 rpm-era reissues on Trip were more nondescript but otherwise while they really were no eyecatcher there were sooo many ugly and REALLY boring and out-of-tune album covers in the 70s and 80s that from a certian point you just shrugged it off. Artwork of German MCA reissues of 50 US Decca and Coral material was extremely nondescript, the French RCA "Jazzline" or "Masters" series were nothing to write home about either, etc. etc. Not to speak of many, many other European reissue series. As if they all had had hoards of second or third-rate album cover "artists" to feed.

Soundwise I'd say they are just what many of them were at the time, not outstanding, not unbearable. And at any rate they made a lot of music available that at that time you'd only have been able to get if you'd be lucky enough to find orignals or be able to shell out for those Japanese reissues that existed at all (exceedingly thin on the ground here, a fact that seems to be forgotten by many US collectors around at that time).

[JSngry]

Trip existed before and after their Emarcy program. There was also the Tootie Heath record, a live Randy Weston thing, that trumpet night at the Coronet (or whatever it was), as well as some Vee-Jay reissues and other stuff that was sorta pulled from the ether. Fred Norsworhty was maybe in the picture (but in the shadows), maybe.

Trip was a division of Springboard, and Springboard was a REALLY questionable outfit.

[Dan Gould]

59 minutes ago, JSngry said:

 

Trip was a division of Springboard, and Springboard was a REALLY questionable outfit.

OK so I had to check Discogs for what Springboard put out ... and check out this cassette.  I actually just bought this recording as an LP but they didn't keep this delightful cover. Its Farmer with McPherson in the front line and I couldn't recognize a legit recording with those two so I grabbed it, very cheap. Wish they had kept the cover they used on the cassette.  

[JSngry]

whoa....

[soulpope]

3 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

OK so I had to check Discogs for what Springboard put out ... and check out this cassette.  I actually just bought this recording as an LP but they didn't keep this delightful cover. Its Farmer with McPherson in the front line and I couldn't recognize a legit recording with those two so I grabbed it, very cheap. Wish they had kept the cover they used on the cassette.  

😎👍 ....

[Dan Gould]

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

whoa....

Is that whoa for the artwork or whoa for Farmer and McPherson together?

[JSngry]

both!

[paul secor]

[JSngry]

what I mostly remember Springboard for (correctly, I hope) is putting out LPs by then hit artists that consisted of demos and/or earlier recordings on off labels.

I was particularly "amazed" at this one:

Note Side B #2 - whoevrthat is (recitation only, no music) is not Sly, and sounds a whole lot like Wink Martindale.

Yeah, Springboard was a Shady Grady, for sure.

 

[clifford_thornton]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Trip existed before and after their Emarcy program. There was also the Tootie Heath record, a live Randy Weston thing, that trumpet night at the Coronet (or whatever it was), as well as some Vee-Jay reissues and other stuff that was sorta pulled from the ether. Fred Norsworhty was maybe in the picture (but in the shadows), maybe.

Trip was a division of Springboard, and Springboard was a REALLY questionable outfit.

Yeah, pretty shady licensing.

The Tootie Heath record came out on O'Be, which was Orville O'Brien's brief shot at a label. I believe that was distributed by Springboard, and in Japan it was manufactured by Mercury. Very strange pedigree on that one. Excellent record, though!

[JSngry]

14 minutes ago, clifford_thornton said:

Yeah, pretty shady licensing.

The Tootie Heath record came out on O'Be, which was Orville O'Brien's brief shot at a label. I believe that was distributed by Springboard, and in Japan it was manufactured by Mercury. Very strange pedigree on that one. Excellent record, though!

per: https://www.discogs.com/Randy-Weston-Blues/release/3304377

Courtesy of O'Be Records

[clifford_thornton]

Yeah, engineered by Mr. O'Be himself but as far as I know it never came out prior. Very odd, possibly shady!

[corto maltese]

Sometimes Discogs really is a treasure trove of disocgraphic information:

"Trip Jazz" was a series of the Trip label started in 1974. They mainly reissued albums that were originally released by the EmArcy, Limelight and Mercury labels. The records mentioned by Big Beat Steve (with miniaturized b/w versions of the original covers) were part of the "Trip Jazz - Special Collectors Series".

The Trip label itself was a subsidiary of Springboard International Records, Inc. Some other sublabels of Springboard were UpFront and also Catalyst.

The "Kawaida" album was originally (1970) released on the O'Be label and reissued in 1974 on Trip Jazz. Like Clifford said, in Japan it was issued on Mercury (licensed by Springboard).

For Europe, the album was licensed to the DJM label and marketed as a Herbie Hancock-Don Cherry title:

 

During the CD era, the album was reissued several times under Hancock's name. Some of the more "creative" packaging ideas were:

 

[mjazzg]

Hal Russell - NRG Ensemble [Nessa]

another first listen. Chuck Burdelik's a new name to me

[clifford_thornton]

great one.

I don't have Eftsoons but look forward to an eventual CD reissue when Chuck is able to do it.

[paul secor]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

what I mostly remember Springboard for (correctly, I hope) is putting out LPs by then hit artists that consisted of demos and/or earlier recordings on off labels.

I was particularly "amazed" at this one:

Note Side B #2 - whoevrthat is (recitation only, no music) is not Sly, and sounds a whole lot like Wink Martindale.

Yeah, Springboard was a Shady Grady, for sure.

 

I bought a couple of Clifford Brown - Max Roach Trip issues in order to hear the music, but replaced them soon afterwards. Trip reissues were not only shady, they were garbage.

[Clunky]

9 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

Hal Russell - NRG Ensemble [Nessa]

another first listen. Chuck Burdelik's a new name to me

I like this one a lot 

[Chuck Nessa]

1 hour ago, clifford_thornton said:

great one.

I don't have Eftsoons but look forward to an eventual CD reissue when Chuck is able to do it.

Eftsoons is still available in vinyl. Mars and I haven't decided what we might add to a cd.

[clifford_thornton]

Ah! Good to know, I'll pick one up from you shortly.

[sidewinder]

I’ve always avoided those Trip reissues like the plague. For a period, they were ubiquitous.

 

4 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

OK so I had to check Discogs for what Springboard put out ... and check out this cassette.  I actually just bought this recording as an LP but they didn't keep this delightful cover. Its Farmer with McPherson in the front line and I couldn't recognize a legit recording with those two so I grabbed it, very cheap. Wish they had kept the cover they used on the cassette.  

Also put out in the UK on the budget DJM label, along with ‘Kawaida’. Another odd label.

DJM also did an Eric Dolphy ‘Memorial Album’ with the Jitterbug Walz material (a copy of which I still have).

Edited March 27, 2019 by sidewinder

[Chuck Nessa]

Heartwarming to see some folks listening to my Hal Russell material. It is very special to me.

[paul secor]