John L

I was listening to the Hindsight box set: Big Band Jazz: the Jubilee Sessions the other night. I was struck again by a basic question. We all know that the war years were tough for big bands. Even the best and most popular bands experienced very high turnover and a decline in average quality of personnel. So how at exactly this time did a certain Mr. Wilbert Baranco assemble and keep together an absolute dream band with the likes of Charles Mingus, Lucky Thompson, Melba Liston, Vic Dickenson, Willie Smith, Snooky Young, Howard McGhee, Hobart Dotson, Britt Woodman, and other solid talent? Or maybe the question should be, "why isn't Mr. Baranco more well known?"

I bought the single disk "Best of" from the Self Portrait box. It is so damn good that I am kicking myself that I didn't take the full plunge. I inevitably will.

Damn!

Fantasy made almost all of its money from Creedence Clearwater Revival. Jazz has been more of a labor of love. They have done a superb job with all of the labels that they acquired. I would have hoped for the opposite direction, that Fantasy would acquire another label like they did Specialty, and then do it complete justice. Duke/Peacock for example. I guess that the wind in the industry is really not blowing in a good direction these days.

In the mean time, what can you do? You'll just have to throw on some Hooker N'Heat and go with the groove. Isn't the 25:00 version of Boogie Chillin on that one? Good God!

Stomping the Blues is essential reading as well, regardless of the degree to which you agree with the arguments in the book.

The irony is that probably some people really don't open their Mosaics in the interest of resale value.

It sounds like he is getting a lot more, a beautiful art momument. His apartment in Baltimore has been turned into a national museum.

The Wald book is an interesting read. He put a lot of thought into it, and there are some interesting ideas. Yet I have the distinct feeling that the book tries to be more controversial than the content would really call for. He continually refers to the "accepted wisdom" about the blues or "existing blues histories" without giving any citations whatsoever. I try to read most blues histories, and have never seen one that argues some of the points that Wald is supposedly taking issue with. What existing blues history claims that Robert Johnson had anything close to the popularity of Bessie Smith, Leroy Carr or Lonnie Johnson druing his lifetime? Wald's use of the term "insignificant" for Johnson refers only to his relative lack of popularity in the 1930s as compared to nationally known artists. There is nothing new here. Johnson's regional musical influence did have a measurable effect on the subsequent classic Chicago blues sound, however. What blues history claims that the famous country blues artists were not influenced by urban blues? In many cases, these links are obvious. As for the question of which came first, urban or rural blues, there is evidence gathered in a number of studies by David Evans and other scholars that Wald appears to be unfamilar with. He doesn't even raise the main questions. What existing blues history claims that Robert Johnson and other commercial country blues artists limited themselves to only blues? The fact that they were, for the most part, professional entertainers who played a variety of music for various different publics has been well documented in past literature. On the other hand, Wald goes much too far here, in my opinion. He concludes that the only reason why these artists did not record their full repertoire is that record companies did not allow them to do so. He also argues that the Mississippi Delta was no different than other blues regions in that respect, and discounts generational differences as well. While it is true that record companies were looking for blues, and did often limit the scope of what "blues" artists could record, that is not the full story. Just because Robert Johnson played non-blues music at white country dances to make ends meet doesn't mean that he would have wanted to record all of that music under his own name. There are also strong generational differences in the scope of music recorded at the very same dates in the 20s and 30s, with the younger generation of country blues artists focused much more exclusively on blues. Does Wald think that record companies placed different restrictions on artists conditional on age? Finally, the development of country blues in the Mississippi Delta relative to most other regions clearly reflects the effects of hightened segregation and a relatively greater weight to African versus European and white rural elements. Wald doesn't touch this issue, and instead paints a picture that discounts race as a factor in the nature of rural music. Show me a white artist who sounded ANYTHING like Charley Patton, Son House, or Robert Johnson.

Jim S and I posted almost simultaneously. It makes me feel good about my taste when it coincides with Jim's.

Al Cohn has a really dynamite series of recordings on Xanadu records with Barry Harris or Jimmy Rowles on piano. The cream of the crop might actually be the duets with Jimmy Rowles: "Heavy Love." But the others are also superb. You may have a hard time finding this stuff commerically, but last time I looked all of it could be downloaded from E-music.

Could it be based on an American Indian melody of some sort that Bird felt was appropriate to play before Cherokee? Somebody must have thought to ask Dizzy Gillespie this question. No? Didn't you ever cross paths with Diz, Jim?

I have a few of the tracks from this concert, and they smoke!

But, from an objective standpoint, what else is there? You can't measure things like "emotional impact" objectively. That what makes these arguments both so much fun ... no wrong answers, lots of interesting comments. PS: Man in the High Castle is fantastic ... I wonder when they'll make a movie out of this. I think that some of the points I summarized above have a strong element of objectivity to them. We can objectively speak of Miles as an historically important and highly influential trumpet player (whether you like him or not). Discussing how Miles affects you emotionally is completely subjective. But noting how many people Miles affects emotionally is an objective observation.

The argument seems to be that our justifications for liking Miles are too subjective. A question would then be what are the proper objective criteria to use for evaluating trumpet players? Certainly, technique and lack of mistakes are insufficient. if individuality is brought into the the picture, then Miles scores very high. If the ability to have an emotional impact on many people is considered, Miles scores very high. If influence on other trumpet players (and other musicians in general) is brought into the picture, Miles scores very high. Lee Morgan has been cited here repeatedly as a superior trumpet player to Miles. While Lee may have been more rooted in Clifford Brown, he always cited Miles as a primary influence, notng Miles' use of space and nuance. It seems to me that a fairly objective case can be made for Miles as a great trumpet player.

This is a beatiful CD, LP, or whatever. I play it quite frequently

Yes, you would think that it would make sense for record companies to pool resources and at least go after the larger music chains. Here in DC, for example, Tower records always carries a complete line of the JSP sets. Since the prime Maria Callas catalogue is now coming into the public domain in Europe, I know that EMI is very interested in taking action to at least protect the US market.

Darn That Dream

Michael Brooks wrote some nice liner notes too.

Now those are some good looking Mosaics. I might have to pick one of them up tonight. They take credit cards. Right?

In past years, I had a lot of respect for the JSP label. They invested in high quality remastering, including that of John R.T. Davies, and in making classic early jazz recordings available in the best sound at a fair price during a time when few other labels had such an interest. As you may have noticed, the market has become flooded by JSP sets recently, although most of these sets differ little from the products of labels like Proper and Definitive that exploit the liberal copyright laws on the continent. The remastering on many sets is no longer first generation. Still, they are making great music in good sound quality available at a very low price. But yesterday I saw the new 5-disc Bunny Berigan set, and really couldn't believe my eyes. As most of you know, Mosaic records recently made a very special investment in Bunny Berigan, tracking down many "lost" tracks of Berigan as a sideman, performing a suberb job of remastering, and issuing a 7-disc set that provides the most comprehensive portrail of Berigan ever assembled. Now a five disc JSP set hits the market that is nothing but a reissue of the Mosaic set with a number of alternate takes eliminated. They not only stole the music, but the track selection as well. This looks to be just blatant theft. You would think that they would be a little more subtle. Anyway, I think that I am going to stop buying JSP sets for a while. Does anybody know what happened? Did the management change?

Pete: Thanks. Yes, I remember that Miles made a soundtrack with Hooker et al. I just forgot that it was "The Hot Spot." I have heard a few tracks from it, and it sounds nice. I will have to track it down. Do you agree with that over-the-top review?

Fantastic! Many thanks, Brownie. I can always depend on you to come through!

John, are you a fan of "The Hot Spot"? If it has to do with good blues, then maybe I should be. What is it?