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jimmie lunceford lp box 1981 on columbia digitalized??


mike n

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But he knows what he wants to know.

 

That said, I wish Mosaic would issue a Lunceford Columbia set. I had that LP set but sold it - too many alternate takes in a row,  and my favorite track ('Tain't What You Do) had a tick. If Mosaic would program it with the alternates at the end of the discs, it would be fine.

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hello fellow members.Thanks much for your replies and please forgive the terseness of my question.As for mr Lunceford there seems as much to recommend his orchestra as to find it lacking in some respects.Still  i find the music addictive, bite after bite, then wanting more.Being more in the analog camp it's not alway the easiest or  most rewarding venu for this band, In my opinion..Thanks again for your response.Never expected this much

 

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18 hours ago, jazztrain said:

No major personnel changes when he shifted labels.

There are some mighty good Lunceford sides from his Vocalion/Columbia sessions.  You may not need everything on the box.  This has a nice selection:

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My recollection is that it leaves out some good ones that I would have included.

I remember I skipped it because I didn't approve of Keepnews' selection, either.

Used copies of the Classics and Masters of Jazz CDs are pricey and the first covering the January 1939 Columbia session duplicate many tracks from the Decca sessions included in the Mosaic box. I'm close to getting the CBS 4 LP box once again ...

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11 hours ago, brownie said:

I have kept the eight CD Lunceford   series from the Masters of Jazz label that went up to the April 19 41 session when the band went back to Decca after the move from Columbia. 

Excellent series!

Yup - and you did me a great service there, too! :tup

Added to my collection, the Mosaic in the meantime ... and also went for the Chrono(lo)gical Classics with the later recordings. The LP box that started this discussion was my very first Lunceford acquisition, while I was still in high school ... been in love with the band's sound ever since!

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20 hours ago, mike n said:

Being more in the analog camp it's not alway the easiest or  most rewarding venu for this band, In my opinion..

 

Quite true. Being more in the analog camp as well, I remember it took me a lot of LPs with duplications and overlaps and helter-skelter programming to get most of what I wanted from his prime years (luckily most were bought secondhand at quite affordable prices). The Lunceford orchestra was not an easy one to buy efficiently on vinyl.

I also agree with what others said about his output being uneven at times. I remember buying one of the Classics CDs (covering his Columbia years) at the time for a handful of tracks I did not yet have and on listening found most of those fairly non-essential.

BTW, I cannot remember having ever seen that vinly box set anywhere anytime in the record stores (and we did have excellent jazz departments here in the 80s). No doubt I would have snapped it up right away without hesitation - but no such luck ...

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6 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

BTW, I cannot remember having ever seen that vinly box set anywhere anytime in the record stores (and we did have excellent jazz departments here in the 80s). No doubt I would have snapped it up right away without hesitation - but no such luck ...

Me neither - got it from jazz by post in Munich, Germany's leading jazz mail order shop of the day, who, btw. distributed the first ECM releases.

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hello again ..Somewhat off topic but still partly in the lunceford area..There seem at least three vinyl source of Mr L on Mca/decca jazz heritage series..some as far back as 1968 all the way up to the early 80's(quite possibly digital..Also some from France and some from the US..Many find these fine (simulated stereo..ugh!!!) My experience was quite a while back, maybe 20 years ,giving the US issues a try and finding them a bit odd but cheap..Now they are dear so i am reluctant to give a second try..Many,good, no great, titles..But what of the sound..early ellington, jimmy noone, many more..Any find these captivating( including chick webb) or even listenable... I wonder...I wonder a lot...thanks

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I have a huge, huge lot of those MCA Jazz Heritage LP series (across the board of the artists covered) and can't complain. I've bought both French and U.S. pressings as I came across them and am satisfied with both. If you can find them secondhand they usually are cheap here.
The programming of the individual LPs is a bit erratic (sessions split up, no chronology etc.) but if you have the full run of LPs on one particular artist you have the ground (of what that artist did for Decca) covered really well (and the Lunceford LPs in my opinion are better than just good)

As for "simulated stereo", I don't know what makes you think the actual "Jazz Heritage" series were simulated stereo. Some of the French ones I have say "Mono/Stéreo" in the fine print on the label (no stereo claims on the cover) and the way they play on my equipment any (pseudo?) stereo separation is quite non-existent. So I can live with that quite well. I think you are confusing them with an older U.S. series from the 60s (record numbers starting with "DL"). I have unloaded most of the few I had as they are duplicated both by an even earlier LP series on German Brunswick (sometimes having an identical track sequence) and by the MCA Jazz Heritage series and have kept only those few that were not covered in the other seris (such as the Jan Savitt LP which is programmed excellently IMHO, BTW) and in these few cases I can live quite well with that stereo.

Edited by Big Beat Steve
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I kept all my old Jazz Heritage LPs, and to these ears, the reprocessed stereo sounds pretty awful. I remember after the big Decca fire that some of us were horrified that those might be the only versions left of some fairly important music.  I think the French series used those old "remasterings" where they were available and added much better mono ones where they weren't.  That would explain why some were listed as "Mono/Stereo." Some of the latter series were very cool.  As for the old one, well, I liked some of the covers!

 

gregmo

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Just to clarify this, the "Jazz Heritage" series I am referring to is the French/U.S. series on MCA from the 80s, and NOT the U.S Decca "simulated stereo" series from the 60s. The material reissued on that 60s U.S. series did exist in other forms too that the 80s MCA reissue could have taken over (and that would have been preserved for posterity if the worst had come to the worst, BTW ;)). Quite a bit of the contents of the V.A. LPs from the 80s MCA series were reissued in the 60s on German Brunswick in their "The Golden Swing Years" series and they were definitely mono. I also have a NM copy of the German version (same track order throughout) of the U.S. "stereo" LP by Earl Hines ("South Side Swing"). The German pressing definitely is mono and sounds fine. I've parted with the U.S. LP several years ago without actually listening to it (much less making an aural comparison though I had heard about the complaints about that fake stereo); I only kept a copy of the back sleeve for the liner notes by Stanley Dance which are different from the ones on the German reissue.

It may depend on one's equipment but IMHO that 80s series ain't thad bad all in all. I've listened to some of those marked "Mono/Stereo" in the past 2 days and somehow my setup seems to "level out" whatever stereo there may have been left on some of the tracks ... ;)

Edited by Big Beat Steve
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