Teasing the Korean

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We can split hairs over what constitutes a "concept" album and what constitutes "pop" music, but you can make a strong case for the Andre Kostelanetz Columbia album Exotic Music (1945) as an example of a very early concept album. Also, the same year as The Voice (1946), Gordon Jenkins released Manhattan Tower, a concept album if there ever was one, conceived specifically as an album. Other early examples of pop concept albums released as both 78 and 10" albums would include Yma Sumac's Voice of the Xtabay, Les Baxter's Ritual of the Savage, and Harry Revel's Music Out of the Moon, Perfume Set to Music, and Music for Peace of Mind.

There is a major point now in reissuing music the way is was packaged at the time: to more fully convey the experience. For example, I think it is wrong for Blue Note to remove the Milt Jackson tracks from the Monk "Genius" albums, because those tracks were part of those albums for decades. Presentation, organization, and artwork are the major reasons why I do not buy Mosaic box sets. It should be the listener's job to place tracks in chronological order; it should not be the listener's job to re-assemble released albums that are part of the cultural and historical record. And I disagree with you about the Latin jazz stuff. Yes, there was Latin music earlier, but those records did not mix Latin music and bebop the way the Machito and Chico O'Farrill sides did. Those earlier RCA recordings, for example, did not present thematic suites. So Clef and Norgran are more important and groundbreaking than the earlier RCA sides, IMO.

Very interesting essay! I am and have always been fascinated with the early days of LPs and 10" albums in general. Regarding your first point, I would completely disagree. The fact that any album may be a compilation of sorts does not necessarily matter to the listener who experienced it in that particular presentation. The folks who bought those early 10" albums may not have known that they were compilations, and may not have had all the individual tracks from 45s or 78s or whatever. What formulates the idea of an album in someone's mind is a combination of the music, the presentation, the cover art, and how they experienced it. Discovering artistic intent after the fact does not necessarily reverse the original experience. Regarding your second point, I would argue the early Verve/Clef/Norgran issues of Afro-Cuban jazz, including recordings by Bird, Diz, Machito, and Chico O'Farrill, very much at the "cutting edge of contemporary jazz at that point.

I have a few of their LPs on vinyl. A good group sound, and Buddy is great on vibes. Monk makes the electric bass sound more like an acoustic bass than any other player I've heard.

I am interested in Dizzy French Riviera and Milt Wizard of the Vibes. Thank you!

I believe he does Les Baxter's "Quiet Village" on the same LP.

Too funny! I HAVE that CD! I knew I'd heard the track someplace but could not find it on any of my Jimmy Smith LPs! Thanks!

Has this 45 ever been issued on an LP or CD?

I do.

Anyone know anything about the box sets on this label? The box sets of Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Quincy Jones have good reviews. Enlightenment seems to be a European EU label, but the reviews don't mention anything being sourced from vinyl (that I saw).

The whole point of Playboy in its heyday was that it was supposed to provide, for better or worse, a roadmap to "the finer things in life" for a couple of generations of males in the U.S. who had fallen off the turnip truck and suddenly found themselves in the middle class, back when it was still somewhat possible to attain middle-class status in the US. If you want to know what Playboy was really about, skip the photos, skip the interviews, skip the articles, skip the fiction, and (1) look at the ads; and (2) read the letters, which are priceless: "We're having my boss and his wife over to celebrate my promotion. We are serving chicken paprika. What kind of wine should we serve?" "I just bought a new stereo system, and when I hooked it up, it's not making any sound. What do you recommend?" Can you imagine, if you did not know the answers to these questions, writing a letter to a magazine, and then waiting months for a response? I have no idea what Playboy is like now, but I collect/accumulate vintage issues up until maybe the mid- to late-70s, and these are a great window into another era. It is almost like a form of time travel. Perhaps paradoxically, disposable artifacts tell us much more about a culture than its high art communicates.

That forest ain't never coming back. Completely different species of flora have taken over. The extinct ones had their day in the sun.

Phil Woods is not an artist whose work I specifically seek out, but wow, he is on virtually EVERY New York hi-fi space-age big band record of the 1960s, including those by Michel Legrand, Oliver Nelson, Quincy Jones, Kenyon Hopkins, and Manny Albam. (Imagine a time when major labels poured so much money into these kinds of sessions!) Phil's soloing on those records is always so distinctive. One of my favorite Sunday albums is Images with Michel Legrand, well worth seeking out if you like those two artists. Clark Terry, incidentally, is on so many of those albums too. I am reminded of the quote by Gene Lees: "When you are young, in any generation, major public names surround you like great trees. When you grow older, and start losing friends, one day you realize that you don't have many left. And then there is another dark revelation: even those famous figures are going, and one day it comes to you: They're clear-cutting the landscape of your life."

Over the years, I have started threads on jazz topics that did not neatly fit under any of the sub-forums. I ended up posting these in "Miscellaneous Music" because they did not fit any place else. As a result, the threads got buried and received minimal hits and replies. I wonder if it may be a good idea to create a "Jazz General" sub-forum.

We all decide individually what is "good music." I drink too much wine to be grumpy. I am neither a fan of Erroll Garner or Concert by the Sea. I like his mambo album, and I like the bossa track that I burned from "A New Kind of Love" before I unloaded it.

Wow, with all respect, I could not disagree more. I think a recording is a completely separate thing from a live gig. The process is not important to me; the finished product is what matters. And I don't care whether what I'm listening to meets the criteria for being "jazz." I want to hear good music. In fact, I consider Teo Macero to be a member of the band (Miles's band, not Erroll Garner's).

Regarding point 1, no the technology was not available in 1999. The stereo on Newport was achieved by synching two different monaural recordings of the same music, each recorded with different mic placements. Regarding the second point: I'm not saying fake live albums make sense, or that they are a good idea. I am simply stating that they exist and that the practice was widespread. And yes, many were based on actual live performances, such as Peggy Lee at Basin Street and the Peggy Lee/George Shearing Beauty and the Beat. If they had faked Concert by the Sea, it would not have been any more bizarre or outrageous than any of the others. And the people who would have bought the LP would not have known the difference. Again, IIRC there were practical reasons, good, bad, or otherwise, for both "Lee at Basin Street" and "Beauty and the Beast" being re-recorded in the studio. By contrast, balancing sound quality and quality of performance, there was no good reason to re-record "Concert by the Sea" in the studio and add fake applause/crowd reactions. Further, to repeat what I said, to make fake applause/crowd reactions sound convincing on "Concert By the Sea" would have taken the judgment and nerves of a diamond cutter, given the way audiences spontaneously reacted when they recognized what tunes lay behind Garner's off-the-wall intros. Just listen to the album and see how particular to each piece the flow of that response is. To be fair, neither you nor I can say why a producer made particular choices 60 years ago. I can't remember why I made certain choices on an album that I edited only a year ago. They made sense at the time. If "Concert by the Sea" were faked, no would have known or cared, including you and me.

Regarding point 1, no the technology was not available in 1999. The stereo on Newport was achieved by synching two different monaural recordings of the same music, each recorded with different mic placements. Regarding the second point: I'm not saying fake live albums make sense, or that they are a good idea. I am simply stating that they exist and that the practice was widespread. And yes, many were based on actual live performances, such as Peggy Lee at Basin Street and the Peggy Lee/George Shearing Beauty and the Beat. If they had faked Concert by the Sea, it would not have been any more bizarre or outrageous than any of the others. And the people who would have bought the LP would not have known the difference.

Having found over the years your posts to be very funny, I'm expecting lyrics of Cole Porter or Lorenz Hart quality. Please don't disappoint me.

Spectral analysis software was developed initially for forensic purposes, to allow law enforcement to boost or remove certain sounds from recordings, for example, to remove the sounds of the voices on 911 calls to focus on the background sounds. It is much more sophisticated and precise than parametric EQ: You can focus on the inherent sonic quality of the particular source, rather than just the frequency range. For better or worse, this technology has implications/applications for musical recordings, particularly recordings made under less-than-ideal circumstances. You can either boost an instrument that is buried, or reduce an instrument that overwhelms. Needless to say, like all software, it will only keep getting better and better. Some have suggested that it can one day be used to create "stereo" mixes of mono recordings. I was just wondering if this may have been used to improve the sound of this album. I can't name all the fake live albums off the top of my head, but there were many - Peggy Lee/George Shearing, Art Tatum, Tito Puente. I would imagine that that a major factor was selling audiences on a "live" performance, but having the quality control - both in terms of audio and performance - available in the studio. Later, in the multi-track era, it became very common for entire instruments, or many instruments, to be re-recorded in the studio to boost or replace bum parts on live recordings. I'm not defending the practice, I'm just acknowledging it, so given all the work that went into preparing the original "Concert by the Sea" LP, I wonder if they ever considered just issuing a fake live album.

I don't read anything Phil Schaap writes, so I don't know specifically what you are talking about. I'm just saying it was common to re-record live albums in the studio back then, and I'm sure that was driven by factors beyond the musical quality. By the way, did they use spectral analysis software on the remaster to improve the balance?

Because they thought that this concert captured Garner in peak form? Didn't stop them from re-doing most of Newport!

"A New Kind of Love" has a nice bossa that I digitized before unloading the LP.