Birds small group Verve recordings on LP

[John L]

7 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

I remember those days too, particularly the Lester Young Story twofer (that I bought at once from high school student's money). I remember I also wondered about this being Vol. 1 but nowhere any Vols. 2 etc. in sight. Until years later (at a time my buying priorities had shifted somewhat) I found out they did in fact exist but somewhow never got distributed to any significant degree here so you just never saw them. Looking them up on Discogs now I see Vol. 1 was released in 1976, Vol. 2 in 1977 and vol. 4 in 1979. Not that excessively delayed, it seems ...

(And to be honest, in hindsight I am glad I never got my hands on these later volumes back then. Buying the music in different packagings - particularly the Basie Columbia sessions - made much more sense to me)

As for Bird, I don't know about reissues generally available in the US in the mid-70s, but I remember I bought a Bird twofer over here from the Jazz History series on German Verve plus another LP with Verve masters on Dutch Mercury (Jazz Masters series) rather early on  (1977 or so). So these were some of the starters.

As for you not "longing for the good old days", I get your point, particularly in today's reissue world where you can get almost anything not just as downloads (if you go for that medium) but also in a zillion different "Complete" CD box packagings at almost any moment you want them.

But honestly - didn't you ever reflect on how you approached and explored the music back then? Sometimes I do - and it makes me wonder if we actually still enjoy, absorb and digest the music as intensely today where almost everything is at one's fingertips (and earbuds 😁). Whereas back then, you felt incredibly lucky after having gotten your hands on this or that 12- or 16-track reissue LP of any earlier favorite artist or band of yours that had been OOP for ages. And then you went on to really absorb each and every tune in full, and over and over again. Just because you knew this was what you had and nothing more - for the time being.

It may sound odd but I still can feel that vibe of the "good old days" when I peruse old record catalogs that list these items (or when I spin the LPs again). I am far from sure we always appreciate the indivdiual tracks to the same extent in today's world where you can let an artist's complete work flood your ears in one longish session at any moment. (Sometimes to the detriment of the music and one's listening experience, to be honest,  because quite a bit of music from the 78rpm era was not intended to be listened to in one go but piece by piece at (release) intervals. )

Just saying ...

 

Some interesting comments here.  Yes, it is very hard to absorb new music the same way as back then.  But I attribute that mostly to age.   It is just like with spoken languages.  When you are young, they sink in completely and become a part of you.  But that gets more and more difficult as you get older.