Big Beat Steve

Reading an interview with Henri Renaud in the November, 1959, issue of Jazz Hot, I came across the following recollection by Renaud when he discussed the 5 LPs worth of material he recorded in the U.S. during his stay there in 1954: "I also participated in a recording for Prestige that featured three pianists - Duke Jordan, George Wallington and me. It was never published for union reasons: The musicians' union confiscated the tapes." Has this session ever been issued since? I cannot find any mention of Henri Renaud in the musicians' index (and no trace of a collaboration of Jordan with Wallington) in "The Prestige Book" published by "Jazz Critique" (No. 3) in the 1990s in Japan. An entry in the Jazz Profiles blog (August 14, 2017) mentions this session but this is a reprint from a 1957 feature in Jazz Monthly (UK) so is not any more up to date on on what may have happened with it later on. So .... does anybody have any specific info on this?

I can't give you the exact background (for I don't remember exactly) but to the best of my knowledge they stopped thier reissue program about 10 years ago. Some French forumists might have more info. The English Wikipedia entry apparently was updated haphazardly. They mention the label changed ownership in 2004 and stopped reissuing music in 2008 but the rest of the entry largely reads in the PRESENT tense - as if the label was still in operation. (The French-language entry is even worse) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronological_Classics

IIRC towards the end of the life of Classics they offered either downloads or CD-Rs even from their website. But of course who'd be able to prove what ANY seller ellegedly negotiated with ANY label owner?

There are (have been) three Classics CDs with his recordings: 1933-41 (Classics 690), 1944-45 (1024) and 1945-50 (1334). I only have the last one - find it very pleaseant and listenable. Wouldn't say it's cocktail piano. Though of course jazzing up the classics in this manner isn't to the liking of everybody (I for one like it better than most of that Third Stream stuff of more than a decade later ). There also was an LP in the Musicraft reissue series from the early 80s: "Herman Chittison - Piano Genius" (MVS 506). Its recordings (spanning the period from December 1944 to May 1945) likely duplicate the contents of the second Classics CD. His interplay with guitarist Jimmy Shirley is quite something IMO. Many of his European 30s recordings have also been reissued on various LPs. @jazztrain: Re- India: Are you sure you are not confusing him with Teddy Weatherford?

So ... time to revisit the Fourmost Guitars again, then (I've had the original LP for about 15 years now). Thanks for bringing this up. By coincidence the other day I worked my way through a stack of 1958/59 Jazz Hot and Jazz Magazine from France (looking for specific features and reviews) and also noticed these Fourmost Guitars were reviewed. Jazz Magazine found it "all in all a very good guitar album" and considered Dick Garcia to be "far superior to Joe Puma, having really astonishing technique and ideas". On the other hand, in "Jazz Hot " where this LP was the subject of the monthly "Pro and con" double review, diehard discographer and researcher Kurt Mohr tore it to shreds, rating it "of no interest" (1 star), considering it an exercise in "vanity and desolation" and a "deadly bore", The way Mohr elaborated on this, he clearly preferred more "meaty" guitarists, a point his colleague André Francis (3 stars = "good") took him to task for, pointing out that "a keen follower of R&B singers will hardly be moved by the music produced by jazzmen leaning towards west coast jazz" (sic ...) "but why bother reviewing such a record at all, then?". Francis had special praise for the interaction of the musicians on most tracks and particularly for the contributions of Dave Schildkraut with Chuck Wayne. BTW, Kurt Mohr found "Li'l Basses" most palatable (relatively speaking) of them all.

FWIW, the release date for this set indicated on the Mosaic website now is "Late May". Holding my breath with due patience ...

My point exactly - all along. Agreed too. Although some of the HRS has been available for a long time in other forms (Riverside ...) this set draws together items that to a large extent are off the beaten tracks of the "obvious" names and therefore fills a gap. Which is a bit more than what can be said of some "big name" sets such as the recent Teddy Wilson set (cf. Hep CDs), for example, great as though it undoubtedly is thanks to the Mosaic treatment.

@Dan Gould et al. re-downloads or not: No need to try again. It is clear that Mosaic have NOT been in the market for downloads. So the point of the original discussion with Justin V still is this: The alleged unavailabilty or OOP character of a body of music as a criterion for the worthiness of a reissue project cannot be compared with the "availability" as downloads (cf. Savory). I'd still bet downloads are not the preferred form of "in-print" music to the majority of typical Mosaic customers and comparisons with "download" availability therefore are pointless. So ... if somebody has to try again it is not me but Justin V. And I am a bit surprised that my description of Mosaic going for downloads was seen as anything but purely theoretical/hypothetical in this context by anybody here.

That's not the point and you know it. All I said was that visibly Mosaic has gone the vinyl and then CD route up to now and certainly not because they oh so sadly just could not, not, not get the download permissions but because (laudably) they believed in physical media for their reissue projects. And correctly so IMHO, seeing what their primary buyer target group is (no doubt quite a few do downloads too but it's certainly no priority with the majority of their customers). In short, as far as I have read downloads never figured seriously in the Mosaic equation so what may have been out there in download formats (no doubt huge chunks of the contents of many other Mosaic sets can also be had via download if somebody tried and preferred to got that route only) is beside the point when it comes to discussing which "recently unavailable" music has been "more unavailable" than other music.

I don't think the Savory set is an apt comparison. The Savory music was 100% unavailable until quite recently and to the majority of THIS niche of collectors that Mosaic caters to, downloads are only third or fourth "best" choice (or else Mosaic would reasonably have opted to go the download route long ago ). If you want to choose another set for comparison, use almost any other of the "name" sets. Very, very often the "newness" of the Mosaics was more about packaging and sonic upgrades but only to a relatively small extent about making music available again after a long "totally OOP" period (because a good chunk of the music of many box set WAS available elsewhere without having to search for ages and/or bound to be present already in the target groups' collections because it was not nearly as (relativley) obscure as the Bee Hive recordings).

Speaking of which ... what would be a correct price for that Condon set? There is one available (NM S/H) at a local record store. I already have a bit of those 50s Columbia recorings but who knows ...

I regret to this day I haven't grasped one of the opportunities to attend one of his concerts here. He was present in many settings through the years, often as a featured "elder statesman of jazz" soloist. It would have been interesting seeing live (and not only through broadcasts) how he had evolved over time. My Herb Geller leader LPs are all early ones too and include his three EmArcys and the two Jubilees but of course I'd have liked to have them signed by him.

It's not the apostrophe that's decisive. The correct name and spelling is "Onkel Pö's Carnegie Hall" (yes, with an "umlaut"). Popular success (beyond jazz circles) mostly came from Dixieland concerts (and made the club quite legendary throughout Germany in its time) but they did branch out into other jazz styles a lot. "Pö" comes from "Pöseldorf", the name of the suburb of Hamburg where the hall was originally located. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkel_P%C3%B6

His name is somewhat familiar among Europeans interested in jazz of that period. Two years ago I came across an original EP from his "The Electric Guitar of the Eclectic Elek Bacsik" LP at a French fleamarket and found it very interesting listening but a bit hard to pin down on what he set out to do, particularly since the comparison with the recordings of Django Reinhardt is inevitable. Then, the other day I noticed a detailed review of this LP in the French "Jazz Magazine" (December 1962 issue) that may explain the impact it had on first-time listeners. The reviewers found him very promising and hoped for greater things in the future but perceived this initial LP (done at a late age of 36 years) as indulging in way too much ornamentation and florid, decorative effects . Apart from a very successful Opus De Funk they found the remaining nine tenths of his record rather to be bound to please fans of virtuosity and esthetic preciousness but not as something to establish him as breaking new ground among contemporary guitarists. They also saw him anxious to work his way out of the shadow of Django (whose influence he allegedly refused to acknowledge, though it seemed to weigh more heavily on him than that of his admitted influences Barney Kessel and Wes Montgomery). (End of paraphrased quotations) As for Bacsik being a cousin of Django, widespread family clan ties notwithstanding, what's up there? The French and German Wikipedia entries (contrary the the English one) do not mention anything like this (the French ought to have known anyway), and the Jazz Magazine reviewers refer to Bacsik as a "remote brother by race" of Django only. Maybe his late start and (at that time) lack of orientation perceived by the reviewers also were a reflection of his personality at the time? Early in the 50s he had appeared with the Italian group led by Renato Carosone but was relatively soon let go on account of his "lack of reliability" - long before the group had its major chart successes, contrary to what the Wiki entries seem to imply.

Yes, it's very good. Though I must admit I liked his first one ("Boston 1950") even better. Don't quite know how to put it but somehow i find the first one more "coherent". But any glimpse into an otherwise undocumented past is very welcome. Of course here's hope too that the label will continue.

+1

Or replies to what Mjzee said (needless to say I understand his point), then, might just as well be considered a case of "I know I am right so if they don't listen to what i feel they ought to listen to then they are nowhere". However, it all boils to down to "YMMV" or "one man's meat is another man's poison". And "your loss" arguments usually doesn't hold water either. There isn't that much mandatory listening for EVERYONE in such an IMMENSELY wide field of music and just about anyone can come up with a dozen recordings from one's personal and reasonably wide tastes or favorites that "others" (who admit they don't go for that music because they, in turn, have different priorities and favorites and won't listen to EVERYTHING in DEPTH either) would have to listen to by all means. Not so, though. It's all a matter of taste, and tastes differ, and if it's outside of what you feel like exploring in your tastes then it's no loss to you.

Let me know, then.

Agreed about download providers. What I was referring to was the reissuers of tangible media (CDs or - unlikely too - vinyl) since CDs crop up at sales outlets (online or shops) worldwide today anyway, regardless of whether they are "supposed" to be there or not (as has often been seen in the past).

Following the other posts, I just checked my 78s (I knew I had a Guild by Maurice Rocco - it's Begin the Beguine) I not only found I also have Musicraft 368 by Maurice Rocco. Next door in alphabetical order sat the one below that seems to be missing from the discography on 45worlds.com: It's not even on Discogs. But Discogs shows another Musicraft release by her (15027). Her overall leader discography probably is slim (Jepsen has no entry) but I'd say she deserves some reissue of her leader tracks too . The only "reissue" of her that I am aware of is a One Night Stand LP (Joyce) with airshots of the big band she briefly led in the 40s

All I know is that this debate is relatively irelevant on today's worldwide reissue scene because according to EUROPEAN P.D. laws all of these recordings ARE P.D. When they changed the law (at the lobbying of Messrs. McCartney and Cliff Richard) in 2012 all those recordings that had already been P.D. according to the PREVIOUS 50-year rule REMAIN P.D. because the new, longer protection period will not apply retroactively. I.e. whatever was in the P.D. at the time the new law became applicatle will remain so. And since Musicraft weas LONG gone by 1962 ... So it all depends on whether a European P.D. company will jump on the reissue bandwagon in this field. Not very many candidates, though. The only European reissue label I can imagine maybe doing a somewhat systematic reissue of labels like this one day is Acrobat (U.K.). They have done a 2-CD set on the Melodisc label and have also covered Atlas and Macy's (focusing on R&B) and an artist CD (with 78s from various indie labels) of Peppy Prince ("who??") that would take some dedication for a label to see through. Blue Moon (from the Fresh Sound stable) also covers those years, but this label is more geared towards R&B. Don't see if they will branch out into jazz, and I am not sure if theF.S. Cool 'n Blue subsidiary is reissuing new things.

Seven, actually. They also included an unissued tune: "I Would Do Anything For You". Re- Mel Tormé, his Musicraft sides were reissued on the reactivated Musicraft label of the early 80s on 4 LPs: MVS-508, MVS-510, MVS-2000 and MVS-2005 in adition to the sides with Artie Shaw (MVS-503 and MVS-507). The sides with Artie Shaw had been reissued before (e.g. on Everest, according to Discogs)

Those that I have as 78s (Harry The Hipster Gibson, Sherman Stewpot - yes indeed! Novelty! and I may have some by other artists) from memory don't sound worse at all than the average 40s Indie label 78rpm in comparable condition.

Nice and informative links (the one on 45worlds.com (in particular), thanks! So Joe Marsala, Herman Chittison, Cylde Bernhardt and, depending on one's purist (or non) tastes, Maurico Rocco and Phil Moore (in addition to the ones already mentioned, inciding Harry THe Hipster Gibson! ) deserve a nod for their jazz output on the label too. I think at least part of the Mel Tormé recordings were relased on the Musiccraft LP reissue series in the 70s/80s too. I have one of them, and while i have not listend to it for a while I remember it was being at least semi-jazz and not to be sneered at. I am familiar with a few of the hillbilly records (through reissues). For those who are into early post-war country music, they can old their own among the lot of indies.