Book on Jimmie Lunceford

[brownie]

'Rhythm Is Our Business', a new book by Eddy Determeyer has been published recently by the University of Michigan Press.

http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=152644

Anybody read it yet? One to get?

[ghost of miles]

No, but thanks for the heads-up--I'll seek it out. I wish that Lunceford Decca Mosaic had come to fruition...

[brownie]

No, but thanks for the heads-up--I'll seek it out. I wish that Lunceford Decca Mosaic had come to fruition...

I am happy with the Masters of Jazz series. They did justice to the Lunceford recordings!

[ghost of miles]

So I've heard--but are they still available?

I have a couple of the GRP/Decca CDs that came out stateside.

[brownie]

Those Masters are OOP by now! Unfortunately!

Pretty hard to get these days

[J.A.W.]

I have a couple of the GRP/Decca CDs that came out stateside.

Those are heavily no-noised and sound dead as a dodo. The Masters of Jazz CDs, on the other hand, are very alive. I recently managed to get five of them.

[brownie]

was their a seventh?

c

Oui..., then there was volume 8!

[brownie]

ah... crap! was there a Wardell Gray 5? that's about when things started to die here, & i remember checking FNAC and Alapage but then forgetting to followup on... it's a shame as all the Masters of Jazz titles were very common here-- i stupidly sold the Charlie Christian for some reason & also ditched Anita O'Day, otherwise I hung on to everything. (just put Louis Armstrong Vol. 4 on for breakfast coffee.) (Oh wait, I ditched Bix bc I picked up the even better-- if more exhaustive w/section work-- Origin Jazz Library sets.)

Brownie or anyone, did ya'll ever see this set

Duke 100 Anniversary Box

I recommend it to all Ducalists (Ducalions?), hearing things arranged thematically, even when you have good handle on EKE chronologically is pretty wild. I don't see the set in stores anymore but if these used sellers are legit... it's a steal.

Ducalicious!

c

I saw that Duke Anniversary box but abstained. Was waiting for the volume 13 of the Duke series which was canned when Masters sunk

As for the Wardell Grays, the series went up to vol. 7 which was one of the very last Masters to come out. A very good one with some unissued tracks...

When Masters of Jazz ceased production, a large number of their releases showed up in bargain stores here. They were priced at something like 4 or 5 euros! Got many of those to fill the ones I had not bought earlier. Also got several of those CDs for several O. posters!

They're gone by now!

[brownie]

I have a couple of the GRP/Decca CDs that came out stateside.

Those are heavily no-noised and sound dead as a dodo. The Masters of Jazz CDs, on the other hand, are very alive. I recently managed to get five of them.

John R.T. Davies did the transfers on those Lunceford from volume 4 to 8.

Lionel Risler did the transfers for the first three volumes.

Edited January 6, 2007 by brownie

[AllenLowe]

Lunceford reissues are also a good source of some very brilliant Eddie Durham arrangements - Eddie is to me one ofthe unsung pioneers of swing band writing -

Edited January 6, 2007 by AllenLowe

[bichos]

hello,

here is a list of all masters of jazz cd´s. (but not complete. missing the last one´s till the end)

http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Labels/moj.htm

a shame that this great project didn´t exist anymore!

keep boppin´

marcel

[Big Beat Steve]

hello,

here is a list of all masters of jazz cd´s. (but not complete. missing the last one´s till the end)

http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Labels/moj.htm

a shame that this great project didn´t exist anymore!

keep boppin´

marcel

Are you really surprised? Just remember how much of this series duplicated the material in the "CLASSICS" CD series.

Somehow I envy the lovers of really old ("classic") pre-war blues. They sure got a fine thing going with all those reissues on the Wolf, Document and similar labels that tried to get really everything in that field of music back into reissue yet try to avoid duplication wherever possible and are quite prepared to put out records that clearly are compiled accordingly.

[king ubu]

But if you ever had a "Chronogical Classics" and an MoJ and compared them - both content-wise (MoJ had alternates and rarities, unreleased live material etc), documentation-wise (MoJ has photos, good liner notes, and a real discography for the disc, even listing soloists on each tune), one would wonder why the chronos continue to exist and the good ones went belly-up!

[Big Beat Steve]

But if you ever had a "Chronogical Classics" and an MoJ and compared them - both content-wise (MoJ had alternates and rarities, unreleased live material etc), documentation-wise (MoJ has photos, good liner notes, and a real discography for the disc, even listing soloists on each tune), one would wonder why the chronos continue to exist and the good ones went belly-up!

We're severely OT now but I will try to answer anyhow:

I guess this is a question you would have to ask those who bought any of those CD series at the time.

Completists who searched out the studio recordings being more numerous maybe ...

Not everybody caring that much for alternates if he is intent on getting the master take of every studio recording first...

And money is limited so hardly anybody can afford everything ...

Who knows ...

At any rate, I remember seeing both series in CD stalls at the time (though the Classics series always was stocked to a greater extent than the MoJ series of which the shops that I happened to visit always carried only a certain cross-section) and often was appalled by the fact that I hardly ever would have managed to get more than maybe half the contents of a CD that was new to my collection (which includes a fairly decent selection on vinyl).

Some may have been glad to dump all their vinyl and go for CD's only but even they probably found themselves drowning in a flood of disorganized and often overlapping reissues with numerous companies jumping on the bandwagon and not enough buyers remaining for all the discs pushed onto this comparatively small market ... A pity in every respect ...

By the way, the Classics series seems to be very close to being belly up as well so nothing much is won for the collector ...

This is why I somehow envy the blues people and the reissue policy of some of their collector labels where you did indeed find reissues where the labels were NOT ashamed of putting out discs that basically said "This record is intended to fill gaps in the blues fans collections and therefore explicity avoids duplicating tracks with this and that currently or recently available record..."

I find it hard to believe that the pre-war blues market is that much bigger than that of 20s to 50s jazz or are pre-war blues fans that much more discerning?

Edited January 8, 2007 by Big Beat Steve

[king ubu]

You know, I too remember seeing mainly MoJs at one store here in Zurich, but that was before I got interested in anything pre-Bird/Dizzy/Bud, alas, and once I became aware of the great series, it was too late and they were all gone!

The Classics have never had good distribution here.

And the duplication thing is bothersome, BUT, in my opinion: for a MoJ disc, which has thorough annotation, good sound, and complete sessions (there are not as many alternates with everyone as with Bird, be honest, usually it's not such a big annoyance to have a second take with different solos, no?), even if half of it is just duplicates of tracks I already have. But a Classics disc I would not buy in such a case, since possibly masterings are bad or at least spotty, sessions are not containing alternates, playing time is only ca. 60 minutes (if it's an archival project, why not include a date more per disc?)...

I am willing to buy a quality product if I have half of its contents on lesser editions, but I'm not willing to get another lesser edition... (I know, Classics does a great job in documenting the music, but they're definitely not as good, quality-wise, as MoJ or Hep or some other labels).

The blues reissue policy sounds like a great idea and would indeed make sense with jazz reissues, too! Sad it isn't so! I guess each company is just milking their Miles and Trane and Brubeck etc. and not looking any further. Power to the small companies! If Freshsound continues in the direction they're taking now, I hope for many good reissues from them, for instance! Fegh Sony if only because of Duke & Basie, fegh em! At least they do Miles near-perfect, but that's probably because they sell it better...

[ghost of miles]

Saw this book tonight in the downtown Borders-in-a-bank up in Indy... no $$ to buy it right now, but I literally added it to the birthday/Christmas list. My wife & I were watching one of the Astaire-Rogers DVDs recently, and one of the extras was a Lunceford video with a "hellish" theme.

[Kalo]

Lunceford reissues are also a good source of some very brilliant Eddie Durham arrangements - Eddie is to me one ofthe unsung pioneers of swing band writing -

Love Durham myself. Great arranger it's true, but also an electric guitar pioneer and a swell trombonist.

I managed to scour up the first four Lunceford Masters of Jazz discs between Newbury Comics and Amazon, and they are indeed magnificent.

The Lunceford short that ghost mentions as an extra on the Astaire/Rogers disc is almost worth the price of admission in itself.