Swinging Swede

Shhhh, don't mention two goals within one minute to the English!

Sweden-Bulgaria 5-0!

Hey, the word kerfuffle does exist! From Merriam-Webster Online: Main Entry: ker·fuf·fle Pronunciation: k&r-'f&-f&l Function: noun Etymology: alteration of carfuffle, from Scots car- (probably from Scottish Gaelic cearr wrong, awkward) + fuffle to become disheveled chiefly British : DISTURBANCE, FUSS Here’s an interesting text about it from a site called World Wide Words: KERFUFFLE A commotion or fuss. You will most commonly come across this wonderfully expressive word in Britain and the British Commonwealth countries (though the White House spokesman Ari Fleischer used it in January this year). It is rather informal, though it often appears in newspapers. One of the odder things about it is that it changed its first letter in quite recent times. Up to the 1960s, it was written in all sorts of ways—curfuffle, carfuffle, cafuffle, cafoufle, even gefuffle (a clear indication that its main means of transmission was in speech, being too rarely written down to have established a standard spelling). But in that decade it suddenly became much more popular and settled on the current kerfuffle. Lexicographers suspect the change came in response to the way that a number of imitative words were spelled, like kerplop and kerplunk. In those cases, the initial ker– adds emphasis, as it does in other words, perhaps onomatopoeic but perhaps also borrowing the first syllable of crash. But we know kerfuffle was originally Scots and it’s thought that its first part came from Scots Gaelic car, to twist or bend. The second bit is more of a puzzle: there is a Scots verb fuffle (now known only in local dialect), to throw into disorder, dishevel, or ruffle. No obvious origin for it is known and experts suspect it was an imitative word. It is probably linked with Scots fuff, to emit puffs of smoke or steam, definitely imitative, which in the late eighteenth century also had a sense of going off in a huff or flying into a temper. Some specialists think kerfuffle is also related to the Irish cior thual, confusion or disorder. It seems to be a minority opinion, though. Well, it’s always nice to learn new words. I think I learnt the word soporific from Hardbop too.

Maybe that was a typo, but it was still the Old Testament band after the war. “Atomic Age” is excellent. Or maybe "Atomic Era" or "Atomic Years". Something with “Atomic” in it at any rate, since that is how the Roulette era has come to be referred to.

Not bad, but I agree with JSngry about the post-Roulette/pre-Pablo era. Those years were messy label-wise in that Basie seemed to jump between labels for almost every new album. And there actually were more albums for Verve than for Reprise anyway, so it shouldn’t be called "the Reprise Years". But stressing the “popular” aspect is right, since there were a lot of "commercial" oddities during those years (Beatles, Bond etc.). I’m not sure either why the war years should be considered Radio Days more than other periods. I must also mention that the terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” refer to Basie’s first and second big band during their entire existences, and not just the first years of each. Maybe it wasn’t intended, but it can look that way from the listing above. These are just minor objections regarding the names of the eras, and they can be changed at a later time anyway. The basic structure seems fine to me. A couple of possible additions, though: Since the Count Basie Orchestra still exists, and has recorded over 10 albums since Basie’s death, one could consider adding a chapter about the orchestra’s doings after his death. Also, while the two years between his big bands when Basie led a smaller group may be a relatively short period, it was a significant departure. The band included many modernists and Basie himself was apparently content with it. One could consider making that an era of its own, albeit a brief one. OK, you asked for feedback so there you have some!

A Mosaic might be a be a real future option, but otherwise even if Japanese Verve reissued the remaining albums, or if we would get more LPRs from US Verve, they would be just straight LP reissues, and not have the few extra tracks that weren’t on the original albums. So if you want it all, and don’t want to wait too long, the “Eurodomain” releases aren’t too bad a way to go. Last year when Classics could go into 1952 I remember that the Basie installment covering that year was the one I was looking forward most to. And I wasn’t disappointed. It has the 22 first Clef tracks (including those that remained unreleased until Paradise Squat) in chronological order, and I thought the sound was very good. This material has also been released on an Ocium CD, as P.D. mentioned above. Ocium has already released a second CD covering the Clef recordings, but I don’t think the next Classics volume is far away. No Wardell Gray on the Verve sessions (lots of Vice-Prez and Lockjaw though!), but he is present on the three preceding Columbia sessions from 1950-51. They can also be had on a Classics CD (as well as one on Ocium) that I can fully recommend. Gene Ammons, Georgie Auld, Charlie Rouse and Serge Chaloff are among the other saxophonists that turn up on these sessions. Can’t forget Buddy DeFranco's excellent contributions either!

I must correct myself a bit. The material on Basie Jazz was later split on two other Clef albums, The Swinging Count! (which is being reissued) and Basie Rides Again! (which isn’t). These reconfigurations enabled Granz to add two other 1952 sessions (one on each album) that previously only had been available on 10” LPs. Thus with the Japanese reissue of The Swinging Count!, Basie Jazz can safely be considered obsolete and scratched from the list, and only Basie Rides Again! remains of the 1952 albums. Well, this is tricky! As for the contents of Basie Rides Again!, a list follows below. All of it was also on Paradise Squat, which contained the first 29 tracks (and an alternate) that Basie recorded in 1952. Paradise Squat also included all of The Count!, one track from The Swinging Count!, two previously unissued tracks, and one track that was on a 10” LP but apparantly by mistake wasn’t included on any 12” Clef LP because of a mix-up of tune titles. MGC 729 Basie Rides Again! Paul Campbell, Wendell Culley, Joe Newman, Charlie Shavers (tp) Henry Coker, Benny Powell, Jimmy Wilkins (tb) Marshall Royal (as, cl) Ernie Wilkins (as, ts) Floyd Johnson, Paul Quinichette (ts) Charlie Fowlkes (bars) Count Basie (p) Freddie Green (g) Jimmy Lewis (b) Gus Johnson (d) Neal Hefti, Sy Oliver (arr) NYC, January 25, 1952 Jive at Five No Name Redhead Every Tub Paul Campbell, Wendell Culley, Reunald Jones, Joe Newman (tp) Henry Coker, Benny Powell, Jimmy Wilkins (tb) Marshall Royal (as, cl) Ernie Wilkins (as, ts, arr) Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis, Paul Quinichette (ts) Charlie Fowlkes (bars) Oscar Peterson (p -4) Count Basie (p, org) Freddie Green (g) Jimmy Lewis (b) Ray Brown (b -4) Gus Johnson (d) Buck Clayton, Andy Gibson, Buster Harding, Nat Pierce, Don Redman, A.K. Salim (arr) NYC, July 22 & 23, 1952 Bread There's a Small Hotel Blee Blop Blues Be My Guest You're Not the Kind Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis, Paul Quinichette (ts) Count Basie (org) Oscar Peterson (p) Freddie Green (g) Ray Brown (b) Gus Johnson (d) same location, date Blues for the Count and Oscar Paul Campbell, Wendell Culley, Reunald Jones, Joe Newman (tp) Henry Coker, Benny Powell, Jimmy Wilkins (tb) Marshall Royal (as, cl) Ernie Wilkins (as, ts) Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis, Paul Quinichette (ts) Charlie Fowlkes (bars) Count Basie (p) Freddie Green (g) Gene Ramey (b) Gus Johnson (d) Al Hibbler (vo) NYC, December 12, 1952 Sent for You Yesterday Goin' to Chicago By the way, stuff like this can be looked up on the ever-expanding Modern Jazz Discography, which has detailed information about Clef/Verve sessions and releases in the 50s.

Did these small group cuts appear on any Verve/Clef/etc LPs in their time? The two July 1952 small group tracks on Paradise Squat were first on the Clef LP Basie Jazz and later one track each on the reconfigured Clef LPs The Swinging Count! and Basie Rides Again!. The December 1952 small group tracks made their 12” debut on The Swinging Count!. The Jacquet small group session with Basie on organ was on a Clef 12” LP called Port Of Rico.

PM sent!

By the way, what remains after the Japanese batch is the following: Basie Rides Again! (1952) Basie later retitled The Band of Distinction (1954) There are also several 60s albums done for other labels but now owned by Universal. Maybe the Japanese will do a second batch!? [update: Basie Jazz (1952) deleted from the list since all its material later was split between The Swinging Count!, which now is being reissued, and Basie Rides Again!.]

Yes, it is odd. Although the CD format has been around for 20 years now Verve has, except the recent LPR of The King of Swing, for some reason not released any of the many albums covering 1952-54 – the early New Testament period, which I think has to be considered fairly classic. Now these recordings are falling into the public domain, and other labels have been quick to release them in the last year or two (and more will come soon). What has Verve been thinking? As for the contents of Sixteen Men Swinging, it does collect the complete December 1953-August 1954 sessions. The Dance Session albums did however have three tracks recorded earlier. I put together a little discographical list with the tracks involved in the various albums discussed above, and which albums they were on. Maybe it can help to sort things out for those interested in discographical details. DS1 = MGC 626 Dance Session DS2 = MGC 647 Dance Session #2 B = MGC 666 Basie [= MGC 722 The Band Of Distinction] BRA = MGC 723 Basie Roars Again TKOS = MGC 724 The King Of Swing SMS = VE2 2517 Sixteen Men Swinging NYC, July 22-23, 1952 You're Not the Kind (DS2, BRA) Los Angeles, CA, July 13, 1953 Plymouth Rock (DS1, TKOS) Blues Go Away (DS1, BRA) NYC, December 12, 1953 Peace Pipe (DS1, BRA, SMS) Straight Life (DS1, BRA, SMS) Bubbles (DS1, TKOS, SMS) Softly with Feeling (DS1, BRA, SMS) Cherry Point (DS1, TKOS, SMS) Base Goes Wess (DS1, BRA, SMS) Right on (DS1, TKOS, SMS) The Blues Done Come Back (DS1, TKOS, SMS) NYC, August 16, 1954 Slow But Sure (DS2, TKOS, SMS) You for Me (DS2, TKOS, SMS) She's Just My Size (DS2, BRA, SMS) Soft Drink (DS2, TKOS, SMS) Two for the Blues (DS2, TKOS, SMS) Blues Backstage (B, SMS) I Feel Like a New Man (DS2, TKOS, SMS) Down for the Count (B, SMS) NYC, August 17, 1954 Stereophonic (DS2, BRA, SMS) Sixteen Men Swinging (alt) (SMS) Sixteen Men Swinging (DS2, BRA, SMS) Ska-di-dle-dee-bee-doo (B, SMS) Perdido (B, SMS) Mambo Mist (DS2, BRA, SMS) Eventide (B, SMS) Two Franks (B, SMS) Ain't Misbehavin' (B, SMS) Rails (B, SMS)

Actually, the material on the Dance Session albums and on Sixteen Men Swinging is not quite the same, although there is a lot of overlap. The Dance Session albums have together three tracks that aren’t on Sixteen Men Swinging. On the other hand, Sixteen Men Swinging has eight tracks and an alternate that aren’t on the Dance Session albums. Those eight tracks were originally released on a Clef album simply titled Basie. I suppose the playing time on the 70s LPs was a lot longer than those from the 50s. But it gets even worse discographically. Although Dance Session and Dance Session #2 were 12” LPs, it didn’t take long before the same material came out on two other Clef LPs, which not only had different album titles, but also different configurations! The new Clef albums were titled Basie Roars Again and The King Of Swing, and each had half of Dance Session and half of Dance Session #2! The aforementioned Basie got the new title The Band Of Distinction, but at least kept the track configuration. The problematic thing with this is that Verve a couple of years ago released an LPR of The King Of Swing. So if you got that one you already have half of Dance Session and half of Dance Session #2! Frustrating, isn’t it? So what to do now? There is of course a possibility that US Verve at a later point will release an LPR of Basie Roars Again to complement the earlier LPR, and thus make the Japanese Dance Session releases superfluous, but we can’t be certain of that. The Japanese are at least consistent in that the Dance Session albums were the first 12” LP releases of this material. Why US Verve chose what basically is a reissue version instead I don’t know. I was unaware of this mess when I posted the list above, and had assumed that they had completely different material. I only came to this conclusion after doing some discographical research today. I hope I got it right.

I’ve wondered all this year why Verve and EMI don’t utilize the Basie centennial to put out a bunch of titles, as record companies did when Ellington turned 100 five years ago. I mean, if not this year, then when? They won’t get a better opportunity. Well, as usual it is the Japanese that come to our rescue. I just noticed on hmv.co.jp that Universal Japan on August 4 (the month Basie was born) is coming out with no less than twelve Basie Verve albums, eleven of which as far as I know are new to CD! (if we count official releases at least; the earliest of these recordings are in the public domain now and have recently come out on other labels) Here is the list: The Count! (1952) The Swinging Count! (1952) Norman Granz Jam Session #3 (1953) Norman Granz Jam Session #4 (1953) Dance Session (1953) Dance Session #2 (1954) Hall Of Fame (1956) One O'Clock Jump (1956-57) On My Way & Shoutin' Again! (1962) Basie Land (1963) Basie Picks The Winners (1965) Basie’s Beat (1965-67) One O’Clock Jump was a VBR some years ago. There is also a release the same day called Cheers For Basie!. I don’t know what that is; maybe a compilation or a tribute. (Now we can only hope that we will see some Roulette releases too. It would be inexplicable if we didn’t.)

Be warned that although Dusty Groove calls it a CD, it isn’t. Since it’s a new European EMI release it is in the Cactus Data Shield format. You can see the copy protection symbol on the back cover (lower left).

I just saw (on World's Records' site of all places) even more upcoming Lone Hill releases. They seem to be cranking out titles at quite a pace right now. WOODY SHAW QUINTET JERSEY BLUES JOHN LEWIS ORCHESTRA U.S.A. THE DEBUT RECORDINGS [1963] ART FARMER NEW YORK JAZZ SEXTET THE ALBUM: COMPLETE RECORDINGS [1965-1966] CLIFFORD BROWN QUINTET COMPLETE LIVE AT THE BEE HIVE EMMETT BERRY OCTET & SEXTET THE NEW YORK RECORDINGS [1958] WES MONTGOMERY ALL-STARS A GOOD GIT-TOGETHER [1955] PAUL CHAMBERS MOTOR CITY SCENE: COMPLETE RECORDINGS [1959-1960] RUSTY BRYANT ORIGINAL QUINTET COMPLETE RECORDINGS [1963] I obviously noticed the Clifford Brown Bee Hive recording.

More Lone Hill titles now listed on Fresh Sound’s site. Lots of ”complete” this and that. Bobby Hackett - Complete In A Mellow Mood & Soft Lights (2 Lp On 1 Cd) Buck Clayton - Complete Legendary Jam Sessions Master Takes (3 Cd Set) John Coltrane - The Complete Mainstream 1958 Sessions - 2 Cd Set Dodo Marmarosa Trio - Complete Studio Recordings - 2 Cd Set Dick Twardzik Trio - Complete Recordings Eric Dolphy - Eric Dolphy Quartet's Complete Recordings Featuring Lalo Schifrin Pee Wee Erwin Sextet - Complete Fifties Recordings Eric Dolphy - Eric Dolphy Quintet's Complete Recordings Featuring Herbie Hancock Kai Winding & Carl Fontana's Cleveland Express - The Complete Ohio Sessions

Yeah, you’re right, it must be Ramsey Lewis. There was even a second Christmas album by Lewis, and I suppose both would fit on one CD, but since it’s an LPR it will probably be just the first album. Well, more Jamal can’t be far off anyway now when the legal problems are over.

I thought the consensus was that he was Ravi Shankar's son. Maybe I got it wrong.

Quoting myself just to mention that in the above batch the Krupa and the Roach seem to have been dropped in favour of Patato & Totico - Patato & Totico (LPR) - Reissue - GRP Records Dave Pike - Manhattan Latin (LPR) - Reissue - GRP Records I already have the Roach but I was looking forward to the Krupa. Hopefully it (they) will appear in a later batch. The Roach is in print as part of the Mosaic set, so that might have something to do with it being dropped. Some new batches announced too: 2004-07-09 Bill Evans - California, Here I Come (LPR) - Reissue - Verve Records Ahmad Jamal - Chamber Music of the New Jazz (LPR) - Reissue - GRP Records Ramsey Lewis - Another Voyage (LPR) - Reissue - GRP Records Oscar Peterson - A Jazz Portrait Of Frank Sinatra (LPR) - Reissue - Verve Records Jimmy Smith - The Boss (LPR) - Reissue - Verve Records 2004-09-21 Alexandria Lorez - Alexandria the Great (LPR) - Reissue - Impulse! Records Freddy Cole - Waiter, Ask the Man to Play the Blues - Reissue - GRP Records Blossom Dearie - Sings Broadway Hit Songs (LPR) - Reissue - Verve Records Ella Fitzgerald - Hello Love (LPR) - Reissue - Verve Records Sergio Mendes - The Fool On The Hill (LPR) - Reissue - A&M Jazz 2004-10-19 Ahmad Jamal - Sound of Christmas (LPR) - Reissue - GRP Records Jimmy Smith - Christmas Cookin' (LPR) - Reissue - Verve Records Not pertaining to the LPR series, but also worth mentioning; on 2004-10-05: Norman Granz - The Complete Jam Sessions Box Set - Box Set - Verve Records

Which immediately shows in Verve's reissue schedule. There are already two Jamal albums slated for reissue later this year in the LPR series: Chamber Music of the New Jazz and Sound of Christmas.

Well, this one obviously... A real classic, and yet very few have heard it.

Has the Booker Ervin been dropped?! I was looking forward to that one, and I think I'm not alone.

From amazon.de: Good question. Corrupted disc and corrupted cover. I'm not buying them either. But someone obviously thought it was a great idea.

Some nice covers there. But the one above is the cover of the Charly reissue from the 90s. This is the original:

It's listed on the Disconforme site: http://www.disconforme.com/pages2/lonehill...hilljazzcat.asp