Which Jazz box set are you grooving to right now?

[Chuck Nessa]

4 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

King Oliver on the great transfers that Archophone put out a few years ago. There's so much there.

I've been listening to this again too.

[Larry Kart]

14 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

I've been listening to this again too.

Was led back to the Oliver sides by Thomas Brothers' recent Armstrong bio "Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism" -- second volume, takes us from Oliver to the early '30s,  of what promises to be a multi-volume work. Pretty good so far, certainly better than the Teachout and Bergreen's bios. Scholarly but not off-puttingly so, it play the race cardd a bit too much for my taste. Without doubt racism played a big role in shaping Armstrong's life/career, but was contending with it at the heart of his musical greatness? I also didn't care for the putdown of the Fletcher Henderson  Orch. as a "dicty" outfit, shaped by a desire to emulate white bands. I listened to some early Henderson alongside contemporary sides by Isham Jones. and Henderson didn't sound very dicty to me. I felt that Brothers just wanted to put down the so-called "talented tenth" and the sort of music that he thought represented their approach to life. 

BTW, I've long wondered about the relationship in semi-pure musical terms, plasticity of rhythm and phrasing especially and thus sheer swing, between the great country blues singers and early jazz. Of course if you're working with just a guitar and your own voice rather than a wind instrument, you have more control over the final results, but I'd say Charlie Patton or, to skip ahead some ways, Robert Johnson arguably  were more "advanced" in those aforementioned respects, plasticity of rhythm/ohrasing,  than all but Bechet and Armstrong. Or does it make no sense to make such comparisons? Also what of the playing in those respects of the great stride pianists? No, it's not a race, but who in effect was "ahead," what fed on what, if you bring, say, James P. Johnson into the picture? Or, to switch things around, Bessie Smith? ?

[Chuck Nessa]

2 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Was led back to the Oliver sides by Thomas Brothers' recent Armstrong bio "Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism" -- second volume, takes us from Oliver to the early '30s,  of what promises to be a multi-volume work. Pretty good so far, certainly better than the Teachout and Bergreen's bios. Scholarly but not off-puttingly so, it play the race cardd a bit too much for my taste. Without doubt racism played a big role in shaping Armstrong's life/career, but was contending with it at the heart of his musical greatness? I also didn't care for the putdown of the Fletcher Henderson  Orch. as a "dicty" outfit, shaped by a desire to emulate white bands. I listened to some early Henderson alongside contemporary sides by Isham Jones. and Henderson didn't sound very dicty to me. I felt that Brothers just wanted to put down the so-called "talented tenth" and the sort of music that he thought represented their approach to life.

I've also been revisiting this 3 disc set -

 

[AllenLowe]

1 hour ago, Chuck Nessa said:

I've also been revisiting this 3 disc set -

 

great minds - I have been listening to this same CD this week for a New Orleans project I am working on.

4 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Was led back to the Oliver sides by Thomas Brothers' recent Armstrong bio "Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism" -- second volume, takes us from Oliver to the early '30s,  of what promises to be a multi-volume work. Pretty good so far, certainly better than the Teachout and Bergreen's bios. Scholarly but not off-puttingly so, it play the race cardd a bit too much for my taste. Without doubt racism played a big role in shaping Armstrong's life/career, but was contending with it at the heart of his musical greatness? I also didn't care for the putdown of the Fletcher Henderson  Orch. as a "dicty" outfit, shaped by a desire to emulate white bands. I listened to some early Henderson alongside contemporary sides by Isham Jones. and Henderson didn't sound very dicty to me. I felt that Brothers just wanted to put down the so-called "talented tenth" and the sort of music that he thought represented their approach to life. 

BTW, I've long wondered about the relationship in semi-pure musical terms, plasticity of rhythm and phrasing especially and thus sheer swing, between the great country blues singers and early jazz. Of course if you're working with just a guitar and your own voice rather than a wind instrument, you have more control over the final results, but I'd say Charlie Patton or, to skip ahead some ways, Robert Johnson arguably  were more "advanced" in those aforementioned respects, plasticity of rhythm/ohrasing,  than all but Bechet and Armstrong. Or does it make no sense to make such comparisons? Also what of the playing in those respects of the great stride pianists? No, it's not a race, but who in effect was "ahead," what fed on what, if you bring, say, James P. Johnson into the picture? Or, to switch things around, Bessie Smith? ?

the difficulty in figuring all of this out is that there are so few true early black bands that recorded - and when they did record early on they usually could not use actual drums because of the limits of early technology - on the other hand (and this is probably an unpopular suggestion) listen the the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, which did have drums, and imagine, probably correctly, that they were doing what black bands were doing - or listen to James Reese Europe, whose drummer Buddy Gilmore was swinging like mad on some of those 1913 recordings.  As for stride, yes, important, but notice how radically different James P.'s time is, compared to his playing before and after Armstrong.

As for Patton and his ilk, these guys were regularly playing for dancers, and time was everything. And I agree they really swung, if in a somewhat different way than jazz musicians.

Check this out:

 

and:

 

Edited March 16, 2023 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

2 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

great minds - I have been listening to this same CD this week for a New Orleans project I am working on.

the difficulty in figuring all of this out is that there are so few true early black bands that recorded - and when they did record early on they usually could not use actual drums because of the limits of early technology - on the other hand (and this is probably an unpopular suggestion) listen the the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, which did have drums, and imagine, probably correctly, that they were doing what black bands were doing - or listen to James Reese Europe, whose drummer Buddy Gilmore was swinging like mad on some of those 1913 recordings.  As for stride, yes, important, but notice how radically different James P.'s time is, compared to his playing before and after Armstrong.

As for Patton and his ilk, these guys were regularly playing for dancers, and time was everything. And I agree they really swung, if in a somewhat different way than jazz musicians.

Check this out:

 

and:

 

Down Home Rag  -- wow! The drive is fabulous but is it really swinging, in that it's all  breathless drive, little or no relaxation? Recommend some Reese Europe CDs, please.

[AllenLowe]

2 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Down Home Rag  -- wow! The drive is fabulous but is it really swinging, in that it's all  breathless drive, little or no relaxation? Recommend some Reese Europe CDs, please.

well, it's an early idea of swing - interviews with early New Orleans players tend to describe the early idea of jazz as speeding things up - this is the best sounding Europe CD, I think:

https://www.amazon.com/Product-Our-Souls-Europes-Orchestra/dp/B07DW38S4F/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2J9MB2PAZFTP5&keywords=james+reese+europe&qid=1679018445&s=music&sprefix=james+reese+europe%2Cpopular%2C93&sr=1-1

[JSngry]

And do get the collection of Europe's Hell fighters military band as well. 

 

[Larry Kart]

 

 

thanks Allen and Jim.

[Chuck Nessa]

Luckily, I already have both.

[JSngry]

Jeff Compton's 78 blog put up all of the Europe/Castle RCA records. 

[scooter_phx]

Tired of the big band stuff I've been listening to.  Let's try this:

Disc One.

[hopkins]

I regurlarly play random track from this Ellington box set

https://www.discogs.com/fr/release/7759958-Duke-Ellington-Anniversary-13-Volumes-Box-Set

The box set contains 13 CDs. It was compiled by Claude Carriere. Covers the 1920s-1940s

While I have all the material on other compilations (Mosaic etc), I like to listen to this set as it avoids the lesser interesting tracks or alternates included in most other collections (i would not do without them but those tracks don’t require repeated listening ).

Edited March 25, 2023 by hopkins

[Stompin at the Savoy]

[T.D.]

[T.D.]

[ghost of miles]

On 4/8/2023 at 8:29 PM, T.D. said:

 Recently binged on some of the Widow’s Taste releases that Laurie Pepper put out and thought about wanting to revisit this very set.

Right now, discs 14 and 15 of the Herbie Hancock Columbia box, which include all of the material from this album and its followup. 

A lot of stylistic breadth to this Hancock Columbia set, which encompasses everything from the Mwandishi and Headhunter bands to VSOP and Future Shock.

Edited April 11, 2023 by ghost of miles

[mikeweil]

[Stompin at the Savoy]

[Clunky]

Disc one of

Alan Skidmore — — A Supreme Love——( Confront)

Newly arrived six disc retrospective from Skid’s personal archive, mostly unreleased. Disc one has some tasty cuts his Dad, Humph, Alexis Korner, Dave Holland , Kenny Wheeler a.o. 

[sidewinder]

24 minutes ago, Clunky said:

Disc one of

Alan Skidmore — — A Supreme Love——( Confront)

Newly arrived six disc retrospective from Skid’s personal archive, mostly unreleased. Disc one has some tasty cuts his Dad, Humph, Alexis Korner, Dave Holland , Kenny Wheeler a.o. 

What’s the sound like on this set?

[Clunky]

19 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

What’s the sound like on this set?

A bit early to say, given it’s only just arrived but it seems a perfectly acceptable mix. Strikes me that only items of both interest and suitable sound quality have been accepted when this was compiled. Nothing on the earliest disc is lo-fi. I’ve skipped onto disc four and it sounds excellent ( 1980s) 

11 minutes ago, Clunky said:

Disc one of the Alan Skidmore set has mainly live recordings but a few studio numbers. The balance of instruments is always good with the general fidelity suffering just a little bit. And I mean just a little bit on the very earliest club date from 1961. I think they’ve done a great job 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Clunky

[sidewinder]

22 minutes ago, Clunky said:

A bit early to say, given it’s only just arrived but it seems a perfectly acceptable mix. Strikes me that only items of both interest and suitable sound quality have been accepted when this was compiled. Nothing on the earliest disc is lo-fi. I’ve skipped onto disc four and it sounds excellent ( 1980s) 

Disc one of the Alan Skidmore set has mainly live recordings but a few studio numbers. The balance of instruments is always good with the general fidelity suffering just a little bit. And I mean just a little bit on the very earliest club date from 1961. I think they’ve done a great job 

Thanks for that - sounds good.

[mjazzg]

3 hours ago, Clunky said:

Disc one of

Alan Skidmore — — A Supreme Love——( Confront)

Newly arrived six disc retrospective from Skid’s personal archive, mostly unreleased. Disc one has some tasty cuts his Dad, Humph, Alexis Korner, Dave Holland , Kenny Wheeler a.o. 

Mine hasn't arrived yet and I live about 2 miles from Mr.Confront. I will have to have words

2 hours ago, Clunky said:

A bit early to say, given it’s only just arrived but it seems a perfectly acceptable mix. Strikes me that only items of both interest and suitable sound quality have been accepted when this was compiled. Nothing on the earliest disc is lo-fi. I’ve skipped onto disc four and it sounds excellent ( 1980s) 

Disc one of the Alan Skidmore set has mainly live recordings but a few studio numbers. The balance of instruments is always good with the general fidelity suffering just a little bit. And I mean just a little bit on the very earliest club date from 1961. I think they’ve done a great job 

Mark at Confront knows his onions, I wouldn't expect him top put out anything subpar.  It's obviously beeen done in very close co-operation with AS also

Edited May 5, 2023 by mjazzg

[Clunky]

11 hours ago, mjazzg said:

Mine hasn't arrived yet and I live about 2 miles from Mr.Confront. I will have to have words

Mark at Confront knows his onions, I wouldn't expect him top put out anything subpar.  It's obviously beeen done in very close co-operation with AS also

Rather embarrassingly I’d not heard of Confront until an email from Jazz in Britain alerted me to this release. I now that Confront has been around for over twenty years! Some interesting stuff- mostly sold out ! .

Getting back to the Skid set I think it’s a model issue. Great selections , nice neat packaging, great sound , mostly unreleased and very good value too. 

[mjazzg]

On 5/5/2023 at 5:46 PM, Clunky said:

Disc one of

Alan Skidmore — — A Supreme Love——( Confront)

Newly arrived six disc retrospective from Skid’s personal archive, mostly unreleased. Disc one has some tasty cuts his Dad, Humph, Alexis Korner, Dave Holland , Kenny Wheeler a.o. 

CD1 of this box, it's a blast so far