Charlie Parker Records 30CD set

[bichos]

thanks for the info, big beat steve! it looks good to have the whole collection at one place together!

keep boppin´

marcel

[king ubu]

Sounds pretty much better than I'd dare hoping! I'm in!

Thanks Steve!

[JSngry]

Has any pitch correction been done on the stuff that needs it? (mostly the Bird live stuff, iirc)

[Big Beat Steve]

Has any pitch correction been done on the stuff that needs it? (mostly the Bird live stuff, iirc)

I've only compared a good deal of the "Bird Is Free" album and I could not rightly say I detected any there.

But then again, that recording has a lot of background noise (sometimes actually foreground noise) so I am not sure any correction would really have made itself felt in any significant way.

It's far from unlistenable, though, and I remember that a long time ago when the mood beset me one of my late-late hour habits was to put on that album, turn off the lights in the room and relax in my easy chair. Made you feel almost as if you were straight in that club, sitting at one of the tables amidst all the chatter and glass and bottle clinker and listening to the band.

Not musicologically correct, no doubt, but WTH?

Edited February 27, 2012 by Big Beat Steve

[AllenLowe]

that Cecil Payne was definitely around on LP in the '60s.

[JSngry]

I think it's the Rockland date that's at least a half-step high...some others too, but that one I'm almost 100% sure about. I've got it on Everest and it bugs the hell out of me!

[king ubu]

Steve, some pitch correction may go a long way, even if most of us wouldn't recognize the wrong pitch as such... the Miles Amsterdam concert with Barney Wilen, for instance, always on wrong pitch on any official release so far, sounds *much* better once corrected!

Not sure you get the same effect with older poorly recorded sessions, but I'd be all for it. There are some folks fixing up stuff on dime, but I think the Rockland wasn't amongst them (Are those Parkers to be considered legit or not? If it's legit, it's off dime's limits of course!)

[Big Beat Steve]

Steve, some pitch correction may go a long way, even if most of us wouldn't recognize the wrong pitch as such... the Miles Amsterdam concert with Barney Wilen, for instance, always on wrong pitch on any official release so far, sounds *much* better once corrected!

Like I said, I can't and won't vouch for it (one way or another), least of all with live recordings or airshots that may be noisy from the start. I just listened as closely as I could (hard, though, if you have to switch back and forth between your turntable and CD player) and did not detect anything really noticeable.

OTOH, as long as there have been turntables where you could "fine-tune" your playing speed in the + and - direction (and this has existed since the gramophone era after all and well into more recent turntable times), some cases really make me wonder what the fuss is all about as long as the music does not degenerate into some kind of mickey-mousish giggle.

Live recordings often ARE a mess soundwise and yet one is often glad to have them. And NO - I have not listened to those Rockland dubs yet.

BUT - this reminds me of something else about this box which I find a bit odd:

Last night I listened to the "Best Plucking In Town" album on CD9 (which is a sort of compilation and some if not all - didn't check closely yet - of the tracks are included in the individual artists' LPs too). Track no. 14 "Blues for a Stripper" (clearly from the Mundell Lowe Soundtrack on CD 3) has a very odd sound drop-out around the 2-minute mark where the volume ebbs off and then comes on again after about 25 seconds. A defect on this CD reissue - or, worse still, on my own CD set? - or a defect that was already present on the original LP? Anybody got that original LP to compare?

Anyway ... wanting to listen to that track in its true fidelity, I spun track no. 9 on CD 3 (which has the full soundtrack). Surprise - a totally different tune. Closer aural comparison (I briefly listened into the others to see if there was a track sequence mixup) seems to indicate that track 9 is THE SAME as track 1 (the title track of that Satan In High Heels soundtrack). But no trace of the track on that compilation. Whazzat? A mixup here on this reissue or an overly "faithful" duplication of a programming error on the original vinyl? Anybody got THAT LP to compare?

Odd ...

Happens with the best of us (including a box set done by one of the forumists here and promoted widely here - and rightly so - a couple of years ago) but still it makes you wonder ...

[king ubu]

Well, I'm not stating I'm an expert at speed issues at all - it's just that I've heard some fixed versions where it made a big difference, even if the sound's bad (that Miles Amsterdam set is just a case in point).

This is really something only specialists should do... in best case, musicians who know the tunes AND the players in question, who know if so-and-so was prone to using sharp pitch or playing this or that tune a half tone lower than most others would do etc. etc. It's very tricky. And that's just the beginning... the main job is then figuring out by how many "cents" a track is off the assumedly correct speed. Often if cassettes are involved, there's a constant shift, say a recording starts at correct pitch but ends half a tone sharp, so you have to figure all of that out in order to fix it. To me, it's an intriguing thing, but I could never do it myself.

[JSngry]

Unless there's some sort of intentional production gambit at play, a recording always sounds better when the instruments are heard playing the pitches they actually played. You get the natural resonance and overtones of the sounds. Most brains can sense the difference, if not consciously, then subconsciously.

A long time agoI borrowed a 2-LP set of Miles in Boston (w/Jimmy Zitano & Migliori. iirc) to dub, only to find out that the pitch was off a little less than half a step. My variable speed turntable fixed the proble, and it all fit onto a 90 minute casseteet, at the right pitch.

Then you got that Sonny stuff from Graz(?) where he sounds like he's on alto almost...that one would really be best done on computer...you may not get it exactl, becuase you never now about external factors which might have affected the subtlties of pitch, but you can surely bring a tune back to Ab from B!

[king ubu]

Yeah, that Miles in Boston is another good example. A fix of this was around in the net....

And as you say: many will notice the difference without being able to explain it. But most, even musically savvy (or half-savvy such as me) will never be able to correctly perform definitive pitch correction.

[JSngry]

You just need to have it to the point where the songs are in the keys they got played in. Between "standard practice", knowing instrumental idiosyncrasies (i.e. - false fingering sounds on saxophone, etc.), and your own good ear, you can usually get close enough. When you get down to a matter of microtones, hey, too many variables. Unless you have a known-quantity reference of that performance, don't sweat it. But otherwise you can get close enough to make it sound real.

[AllenLowe]

for years I listened to Bird play Lester Leaps in (I think it was), from the Rockland Palace, in the key of B. It was so damned fast, I was amazed - until I decided to try to play along.

Edited February 28, 2012 by AllenLowe

[bichos]

coming back to bird at the rockland palace: the first issue of the complete concert (it was not a club date but a large dance hall) was in 1996 by jazz classic records. all performances are with correctly issued for the first time, running at propper pitch & correct key. it was done by doug pomeroy. they used the two known different sources and put them together. so we have a "true" stereo version of bird playing "lester leaps in"! i don´t know if this 2 cd set is still on the market.

keep boppin´

marcel

[ejp626]

coming back to bird at the rockland palace: the first issue of the complete concert (it was not a club date but a large dance hall) was in 1996 by jazz classic records. all performances are with correctly issued for the first time, running at propper pitch & correct key. it was done by doug pomeroy. they used the two known different sources and put them together. so we have a "true" stereo version of bird playing "lester leaps in"! i don´t know if this 2 cd set is still on the market.

keep boppin´

marcel

It appears to be out of print, though some used copies are circulating. And typically enough, there is a 2008 version from RJR that clearly takes this mastering as the starting point and then adds some unrelated tracks to fill up Disc 2.

It's hard to know what Membran did in this case for this release.

[king ubu]

Got my box today... looks okay, although the booklet starts out much better (more cover pics) than it ends...

I guess there's plenty of errors in the info (the line-up for the Hakim/Jordan LP is totally freaked, for one - the Hakim line-up for the first half of the album is nowhere mentioned at all).

And there's plenty of tape flutter in Lowe's "Satan in High Heels"... not nice!

I wonder if that's on the Collectables edition, too? Got to check.

As for the criticism voiced above regarding Dial, Everest and other label's material being used: it was used by Charlie Parker Records in the first place - there's no use in blaming Membran for including it in this box. It would, though, be interesting to know more about how it came that Charlie Parker Records put out those sides from Tampa, Dial, Savoy (which was based on radio broadcasts anyway... so maybe it was "out there" before Savoy put it out, before Savoy acquired rights, if they ever did, about which I know nothing), whatever...

Also, what's Egmont?

http://www.discogs.com/label/Egmont

[JSngry]

I can confirm that many of the Royal Roost airshots were available long before Savoy issued them. On Everest, for sure, not sure about CP Records. Also pretty sure that some were available on real bootleg LPs even before that.

The missing link in the label chronology is ALA Records...who IIRC correctly had the same mailing address as the legendary Alamac records.

[king ubu]

http://www.discogs.com/label/ALA%20Records

(what the hell is that Red Holloway thingie, "Erotique"? cover indeed looks like some of those CP releases!)

[Big Beat Steve]

Also, what's Egmont?

http://www.discogs.com/label/Egmont

AFAIK Egmont was a budget label that did the U.K. pressings of some of the Charlie Parker Records releases (through a licensing deal or whatever). I have both the Cecil Payne LP and AJS-8 (Lester Young Just you Just Me, see Vol. 16 of the CP box). The back covers of both LPs only refer to the contents of the respective records and to CP Records but I do seem to remember that other Egmont LPs coverd into other fields (non-jazz) and listed their other releases available on their back covers - like other U.K. budget labels such as Fidelio.

BTW, I find that Discogs site (which for some reason is linked rather often here) utterly disturbing. Clearly something thrown together haphazardly from various internet souces without any checking for representativeness (let alone completeness) or plausibility (such as in the case of this Egmont link which lists a totally unrelated recent release). Pretty useless, IMO, this site - except as a sort of memory aid to confirm that there IS something along the lines you vaguely remebered.

[king ubu]

Well, I think discogs is what users put in there... it's getting better/more complete as time goes by. It is what it is.

Sometimes it's pretty useful though.

[JSngry]

Ok, took a trip to the shelves...the actual label that released all the CP Label stuff in the late 70s was AJ Records, which was "distributed" by ALA Records, 4010 West Jefferson Boulevard, Los Angeles California -90016

The series was called Archives Of Jazz, and the covers all looked like this:

[JohnS]

I have four Egmont albums. I can remember where I bought them and the amazement at finding them in a local tobacconist/newsagent at 10 shillings each. Needless to say I bought all four. A stunning bargain at the time for some pretty decent music.

Edited March 17, 2012 by JohnS

[Big Beat Steve]

Ok, took a trip to the shelves...the actual label that released all the CP Label stuff in the late 70s was AJ Records, which was "distributed" by ALA Records, 4010 West Jefferson Boulevard, Los Angeles California -90016

The series was called Archives Of Jazz, and the covers all looked like this:

There are more links to the contents of the new 30-CD box:

AJ Records also reissued LPs from the TAMPA label.

Archives of Jazz Vol. 6 (AJ-507) was the Tampa (TP-11) sampler "Jazz Americana" (now on CD No. 12).

[JETman]

Got my box today... looks okay, although the booklet starts out much better (more cover pics) than it ends...

I guess there's plenty of errors in the info (the line-up for the Hakim/Jordan LP is totally freaked, for one - the Hakim line-up for the first half of the album is nowhere mentioned at all).

And there's plenty of tape flutter in Lowe's "Satan in High Heels"... not nice!

I wonder if that's on the Collectables edition, too? Got to check.

As for the criticism voiced above regarding Dial, Everest and other label's material being used: it was used by Charlie Parker Records in the first place - there's no use in blaming Membran for including it in this box. It would, though, be interesting to know more about how it came that Charlie Parker Records put out those sides from Tampa, Dial, Savoy (which was based on radio broadcasts anyway... so maybe it was "out there" before Savoy put it out, before Savoy acquired rights, if they ever did, about which I know nothing), whatever...

Also, what's Egmont?

http://www.discogs.com/label/Egmont

Are the discs packaged in jewel cases or mini-lp sleeves?

[David Ayers]

Got my box today... looks okay, although the booklet starts out much better (more cover pics) than it ends...

I guess there's plenty of errors in the info (the line-up for the Hakim/Jordan LP is totally freaked, for one - the Hakim line-up for the first half of the album is nowhere mentioned at all).

And there's plenty of tape flutter in Lowe's "Satan in High Heels"... not nice!

I wonder if that's on the Collectables edition, too? Got to check.

As for the criticism voiced above regarding Dial, Everest and other label's material being used: it was used by Charlie Parker Records in the first place - there's no use in blaming Membran for including it in this box. It would, though, be interesting to know more about how it came that Charlie Parker Records put out those sides from Tampa, Dial, Savoy (which was based on radio broadcasts anyway... so maybe it was "out there" before Savoy put it out, before Savoy acquired rights, if they ever did, about which I know nothing), whatever...

Also, what's Egmont?

http://www.discogs.com/label/Egmont

Are the discs packaged in jewel cases or mini-lp sleeves?

I was wondering about that myself...