Orphaned dates

[Larry Kart]

Perhaps there's nothing to it but this occurred to me while listening to a Frank Wess album "The Long Road" (OJC) that clearly combined two  different Prestige  dates -- one from 1962, the other from l963. The former, released as "Southern Comfort,"  feature an octet with Oliver Nelson arrangements, charts in a mellow Neo-Basie bag with Wess,  Al Aarons snd Tommy Flangan the soloists; the other  with Wess, Thad Jones, Gildo Mahones, Buddy Catlett, and Roy Haynes, released as the oddly titled "Yo Ho Frank Wess Poor You Little Me."

The first session is pretty clearly "orphaned;" it almost certainly was intended to be mated with a similar date of similar personnel, but that didn't happen. The second session strikes me as a different , odder case. The first session is a good one but one of a good many of its kind,; the second session is in several ways exceptional.

Both Thad Jones and Roy Haynes are, when the mood struck them, irrepressible compositional shape-makers, and the mood struck them here. Thad's opening tune "The Lizard" is a remarkable mistereso piece of work, and he, Wess, Mahones, and Haynes plumb its mood to the depths. And so it goes for five more tracks, even the title tune from the Cy Coleman/Carolyn Leigh musical "Little Me," which may be have been the excuse for the date in the first place. All the pieces are given the full weight of everyone's attention -- Mahones is a consistent delight, Thad is thematic as hell, and Haynes places firm, brilliant frameworks beneath and  around  the soloists.  And yet for all that care and musicality, the date was "orphaned." Go figure. Any others come to mind?

P.S. Wess is in fine shape on this date -- very heated and amost Ammons-like at times..

[Chuck Nessa]

I think they are just typical 2 (union) session Prestige dates. Union rules permitted 15 minutes per session and overtime for additional minutes.

[medjuck]

11 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

I think they are just typical 2 (union) session Prestige dates. Union rules permitted 15 minutes per session and overtime for additional minutes.

You mean if more than 15 minutes were recorded they went into overtime?  Or did they only count what was considered a usable take? 

[Chuck Nessa]

7 minutes ago, medjuck said:

You mean if more than 15 minutes were recorded they went into overtime?  Or did they only count what was considered a usable take? 

Don't know about today but 50's through 70's a union session was 4 hours and from that session you could clear 15 minutes of music. Anything over that cost more. Back then I tried to pay for 3 sessions to get 40-45 minutes for an lp. Lots of labels "fudged" the times to gain a few "free" minutes out of 2 sessions.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Chuck Nessa

[JSngry]

That Wess/Thad LP was in print for a long time. I have it as a Status LP, it has a Status sticker on the cover. 

[medjuck]

11 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Don't know about today but 50's through 70's a union session was 4 hours and from that session you could clear 15 minutes of music. Anything over that cost more. Back then I tried to pay for 3 sessions to get 40-45 minutes for an lp. Lots of labels "fudged" the times to gain a few "free" minutes out of 2 sessions.

Thanks.

[danasgoodstuff]

Hank Mobley Quintet

Lee Morgan, trumpet; Hank Mobley, tenor sax; McCoy Tyner, piano; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Billy Higgins, drums.

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, June 17, 1966

1743 tk.3	Straight No Filter	Blue Note BLP 4241, BST 84435, CDP 7 84435 2
1744 tk.14	Chain Reaction	-
1745 tk.15	Soft Impressions	-

* Blue Note BLP 4241   Hank Mobley - A Slice Of The Top   not released
* Blue Note BST 84435   Hank Mobley - Straight No Filter   1986
= Blue Note 7243 5 27549 2 2   -   2001
= Mosaic MD8-268   The Complete Hank Mobley Blue Note Sessions 1963-70   2019
* Blue Note CDP 7 84435 2   Hank Mobley - Straight No Filter   1989

How about this Hank session that's a little short for a 12" LP?

[Larry Kart]

10 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Don't know about today but 50's through 70's a union session was 4 hours and from that session you could clear 15 minutes of music. Anything over that cost more. Back then I tried to pay for 3 sessions to get 40-45 minutes for an lp. Lots of labels "fudged" the times to gain a few "free" minutes out of 2 sessions.

thanks, you live and learn--who knew?

[Teasing the Korean]

Some albums for me are one-sided albums, in which the artist did not bother to sustain the concept over the entire thing, or the label just randomly paired things together to make an album.

Some examples would be the Miles Columbia 12" album with Lift the Scaffold on one side and some random tracks on the other.    Also Art Blakey The Drum Suite with some Jazz Messengers tracks on the other side; and Kenny Dorham's Afro-Cuban with some random tracks on the other side.  (I realize Afro-Cuban was originally released as a 10" album.)

[mjzee]

"Yo Ho!  Poor You, Little Me" was a complete, albeit short (33 minutes) album.

The 3 original sessions that comprise "The Birdland Story" (Roulette) could be considered orphans, since each took up only one side.  The Coltrane side became part of "Like Sonny," the Lee Morgan date was not-so-long-ago released as a stand-alone 10", and the Thad Jones was included in his Mosaic box.

[JSngry]

18 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Don't know about today but 50's through 70's a union session was 4 hours and from that session you could clear 15 minutes of music. Anything over that cost more. Back then I tried to pay for 3 sessions to get 40-45 minutes for an lp. Lots of labels "fudged" the times to gain a few "free" minutes out of 2 sessions.

How did that work for all those Prestige/etc albums that were just 1 day's worth of work but yielded a full (if short) LP. 15 minutes would just be one side?

[Chuck Nessa]

40 minutes ago, JSngry said:

How did that work for all those Prestige/etc albums that were just 1 day's worth of work but yielded a full (if short) LP. 15 minutes would just be one side?

They would file 2 sessions and maybe pay for a few more minutes each time. Most of those records were under 40 minutes. I forget the exact formula.

[JSngry]

Wow, that's pretty, uh...crafty!