Big Beat Steve

Thanks for bringing this topic up. I corrected the bass player identity on my copy of Sounds of Swing 121 too. And then I went looking .. I knew i had a Gerald Wilson 78 on United Artist (I seriously doubt this was "THE" UA that Chewy alludes to - this label was founded much later). And it turned out to be this "Dissonance in Blues". The line-up given on that LP seems to be way off in other respects too as the flip (or rather "A" side) of that 78 - "My Last Affair" (coming from the same session) - indicates Trummy Young and Willie Smith as featured solists.

I've just checked the Basie entry in Bruyninckx for CBS 67205. I Ain't Got Nobody and Going to Chicago are on Vol. 1. Shout and Feel It and Where Shall I Go (Song Of The Wanderer) are live recordings (no CBS studio recordings) reissued elsewhere too. Who? and Upright Organ Blues are by Glenn Hardman & His Hammond Five, apparently included for the Lester Young solos. No Basie, so I am not sure what their place is on a Basie compilation. I have this session on a CBS "Young Lester Young" LP from 1972, and therefore might even predate "Super Chief".

Now that I've seen the cover I remember this one. I saw it numerous times in the record racks and always put it right back (not just for the silly 70s cover which still makes me cringe). Hodgepodge compilation that should be interesting as a starter but invariably leads to lots of overlaps if you explore this music deeper on other reissues. If you want to get these recordings on vinyl, IMO the best way to go would be the six double LPs from the "Jazzotheque" series on French CBS which has them all: https://www.discogs.com/Count-Basie-Count-Basie-VolVI-1946-19501951-The-Orchestra-And-The-Octet/release/7663820 (A full overview of all six 2-LPs sets is at the bottom of the track listing on this page) These Columbia recordings also were released as an LP box set (with fairly basic layout and packaging) by some other CBS branch at one time (It took me ages to locate Vol. 5 of the above Jazzotheque series so when I saw that box set in a shop one day one day - which was fairly cheap secondhand - I almost sprung for it for the contents of that Vol. 5 but in the end did not because I liked the Jazzotheque packaging a lot better - and eventually Vol. 5 did turn up anyway ).

This debate is at the point of running in circles - again. You know the non-retroactive European PD laws as well as I do. And they make most of the Fresh Sound CD reissues (i.e. pre-1962 recording and release dates of the orignal material) totaly "legit" by European PD laws and for European buyers. If anyone wants to complain about substandard identification of source material, please look at the oft-touted Proper boxes. Their credits as given on many V.A. box sets and CD sleeves are just laughable - and utterly misleading. Having to leaf through the booklet to find out at last which is which is not the way to do it if you're being serious about your stuff.

In the same vein: Was Wade Legge white? Those who claim so - please look at his BN cover.

Talking about editing, wasn't there some rather huge and heavy-handed editing going on with certain Louis Armstrong recordings on Columbia in the 50s? I think Chris Albertson once wrote rather a detailed and acidic piece about this here. One piece of editing I personally really regret are those jam session recordings by Bird in Sweden in 1950. I think from the first time these were released in 1959/60 the editing was there. I have a Spanish Storyville pressing from the 70s where the liner notes even give details about the Swedish (cream of the crop, mind you) soloists edited out because "of no great interest" - and this by Lars Werner, jazzman, scribe and producer himself! Understandable considering the cult surrounding Bird but still a pity ...

Actually I now wish I still had that "Bielefelder Katalog" from the early 60s that I was given along with the 1960/61 issue of the jazz catalog. But it was sold off at a fleamarket a long, long time ago as it really was "surplus to requirements". Its correct title was "Katalog der Schallplatten klassischer Musik", listing what was available on the market in Germany, probably a bit like your "Schwann", except that it focused on classical music only and had track listings etc.. Copies of older volumes are around on abebooks and elsewhere, though. I just checked - at the time my 1960/61 jazz catalog was issued with some 110 pages, the classical music catalog had a whoopping 288 pages. And I am pretty sure the portion of import records listed in the classical catalog was far smaller than in the jazz catalog (where I do think all the Blue Note, Pacific Jazz, etc. listed in there, and of course French Vogue, were imports, not German pressings). So this might give you an idea of the relative size of the record market in this field here. Mike is correct about what he says about soloists/conductors working with orchestras from other countries. From what I also remember in those record racks is that while I cannot really remember US solists/orchestras there, let along US pressings (except for those early ones), featured soloists and orchestras from various West European countries also were around. Same for Czechoslovak (above all) and Polish records with classical music, and these most often were imports from those countries (mainly because records from those countries were dirt cheap here and apparently were exported widely from behind the Iron Curtain). OTOH I cannot recall having ever seen a record featuring Lily Pons, for example (a name I would have noticed for quite a peculiar reason too long to explain here ). Again, I observed this only browsing through the bins, but since apparently a an awful lot of fairly well-cared for collections (wishing you'd hit on jazz collections from the same era and in teh same conditions ) were dumped there and sold off cheaply (because there is no huge market for classical vinyl) you just couldn't help noticing and getting an idea over time of what was out there.

I am not into classical music at all so can only comment as an "observer". But if what I have had to wade through in the record bins at countless record clearout sales in the shops (or even at the usual fleamarket crates) through the years is anything to go by, it seems to me that classical and light classical music from DOMESTIC labels featuring German or European artists was omnipresent in huge, huge numbers here in the 50s and 60s. (Deutsche Grammophon, in particular) I've long ago stopped wondering about the "interesting" older vinyl record jackets seen in stacks that on second look turned out to be classical or light classical music. As for Americans, I suppose Jascha Heifetz, for example, would rank as a U.S. artist? Those big names certainly were sold here too, but probably on domestic pressings, not imports. I also remember the annual record catalogs issued each year were even thicker for classical music than those for jazz and blues (Experts will be familiar with these "Bielefelder" catalogs - and the one "classical" catalog from the early 60s I had was about twice as thick as the jazz edition, and the jazz edition would only reach that stage about 10 years later - and this doesn't even take into account the sales figures which were far higher for classical LPs than for jazz LPs, for example). As far as I can remember IMPORTED pressings with foreign conductors, orchestras and soloists were relatively thin on the ground in those bins, with one exception: For whatever reason I've always had the impression that older 10-inch LPs from the 50s with classical music had a higher share of those thick cardboard U.S. pressings than later LPs did. But maybe this was because whenever I saw a bunch of 10-inchers I checked them particularly closely, only to be dispppointed at a rate of about 99:1. Some very nice cover artwork there, though, but you have to draw a line and cannot start buying items outside your (wide) fields of musical interest just for that ...

Same here.

I wonder for how long the red vinyl remained listed as the only version available or if maybe they immediately followed this up with black vinyl with otherwise identical sleeve and lable, deep groove etc.

This is misleading (as the "earlier" in the thread title might too easily be understood to mean original pressing).The "first one" is not an original either. Far from it. It is earlier than the other one but considering the multitude of repressings this is all relative. In doo-wop circles (where the Dootone label is a HUGE one) it has been claimed long ago that "Dooto" were later repressings and "Dootone" was the real thing in the heyday of the label. The dark red/maroon labels were reused later on for reissues but they had been around on originals as well so the red label does not necessarily equate reissue. IMO it is not the label that gives it away (one would have to look closer at the label details) but the "Authentic Records" logo on the lower right that indicates a later-day reissue. But not all the reissues had the logo, Also see here: http://www.bsnpubs.com/la/dootone/dootone.html Which indicates this "first one" must be from the 60s. So it is a repressing too, and certainly not even a "first repressing". A bit away from the original pressings at any rate. And even from the few older Dootones I have seen, what they say about label dating not being an exact science here is putting it mildly ... What's also baffling is that both reissues use a catalog number with an AUL prefix that according ot the site below indicates an "Authentic" subsidiary label reissue: http://www.bsnpubs.com/la/dootone/authentic.html So how come a 60s Dooto three-color label is matched with an "Authentic" cover? Another case of attempts at identifiying details of this label not being exact science ...? The discussion at the end of this one (below) might also shed some light on the reiterations of this record: https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/dexter-blows-smoke/

These "thesauruses" must have been all the rage in the early 60s. German Brunswick did this one in 1962: https://www.discogs.com/de/Various-The-Golden-Book-Of-Classic-Swing/release/6657195 and followed it up with this one in 1963: https://www.discogs.com/de/Various-The-Golden-Book-Of-Classic-Swing-Volume-2/release/3650829 But the 60s are several steps away from early or even earliest vinyl box sets.

It depends ...

But these Columbia/Epic sets came out much later than the 50s ...

Leaving the fact aside that what King Ubu wrote was 11 (ELEVEN) years ago, it really isn't so that they "are changing" their policy only now. Fresh Sound have been fairly straightforward about discographical details for a very long time. At least on most of those I picked up. Checking a few CDs at random I bought, those from the period that King Ubu alludes to (e.g. Joe Holiday, FSR 439, or The Mitchells & The Joneses, FSR 444, both from 2007) have full session details and thumbnail facsimiles of the original covers. Eleven years ago. Not to mention the NOCTURNE box set from as long ago as 1998 (NR3CD-101) which is a standout. And honestly, considering what other (LOTS of other, including so-called "legit") labels do (or rather, don't do), I cannot really fault them even for their earlier reissues (e.g. Lorraine Geller, FSR 195, from the 90s) that give full session details but do not indicate the original LP titles and catalog numbers. Lots of other labels, including recirculated stuff by the majors, did worse. Not all reissuers are Mosaic, not by a very, very, very long shot. So IMO Fresh Sound at any rate did give "decent" info.

6 LPs - that should indeed qualify. But I, for example, had understood the original intention of the thread to refer to jazz releases. So if we take the above 1953 Glenn Miler box set to be jazz, are there any earlier ones in the vinyl era?

I'd vote for the Stan Kenton "The Kenton Era" 4-LP box set (Capitol T-569) released in 1955. It must have been among the first in jazz in the VINYL era. A close runner-up probably was "Satchmo - A Musical Autobiography of Louis Armstrong" (4 LPs on Decca, 1956). As for 78 rpm "box sets", when (i.e. what minimum number of records) does a multi-disc "album" (of which there were plenty) become a "box set"?

Your bucket's got a hole in it. "Photobucket 3rd party temporarily disabled."

Another name that deserves a mention: Clora Bryant (tp)

Yes, I totally forgot. I knew there were non-piano playing jazzwomen from the bop era but somehow this name escaped me.

Gents, PLEASE ... Be patient and don't undermine his enthusiasm ... See this ... Where (and how) would you (or we) all be at THAT age, I wonder? (BTW, I suppose Fran from the old AAJ board has passed on by now ... He was an extraordinary character.) My thoughts too when I first saw this thread. . Mary Lou WIlliams Jutta Hipp Marjorie Hyams Mary Osborne Valaida Snow Tiny Davis & The International Sweethearts of Rhythm Lorraine Geller a.o. (and no, I don't particularly like Candy Dulfer )

While the forum was inaccessible and my McAfee aked if i actually wanted to follow that "goodmayor" link (yes, exactly the same problem mentioned by JSangrey happened here too) I checked what I did download and the website I am remembering was something totally different. From what I still can trace, it seems to have been a sort of photo collection titled "#1 Detroit Jazz photos back to 1947" put up in the "Member Photos" section within a larger, probably Flickr-like photo album site called American Greetings Webshots (none of which I can find online anymore, not even under the name of the one who put up that album - which of course I cannot just state online here now. I've done a bit of googling and the Webshots site seems to have been sold and then went under, much to the dismay of former Webshots users). Here are some photos found there - about the only ones I downloaded out of curiosity at the time. There were plenty more private period photos so the ones below are not even the tip of the iceberg. Benny Carew band: Kenny Pinson on the next two photographs (no idea which one of the two saxophonists he is): Kenny Singer and his band: Benny Carew and Kenny Pinson barely rate a footnote in the "Before Motown" book, Kenny Singer is not mentioned anywhere in there. So as you can see there was a bit more going on in Detroit jazz at the time, even beyond this very detailed book. And who knows ... some of it may have been taped somewhere and might have found its way onto the apparently never-happening Uptown project (which is why I remembered the above website again). Makes you wonder what has been lost to posterity (not just because bands and artists went unrecorded but because their remaining photographic evidence was lost after the mangled Webshots sale ...)

Thanks for that link, Niko. It may have been that one (there cannot have been that many sites on Detroit jazz that have all gone down or been made inactive) but if so, then the contents have been modified since I consciously saw them. The one I am thinking of had a lot more pics from real unknowns from the early post-war Detroit era whereas the photo gallery in that site above has a lot of the (fairly) well-known who were also featured in the book. I may have downloaded some pics at the time and will post them here later on, maybe. So it appears that the "Jazz Before Motown CD by Uptown has been in the works for all of 13 years now? (I admit I had forgotten about that earlier thread and its later "up" messages)

Which Detroit exactly? The "Before Motown" book is fantastic and extremely instructive on a scene that seems to have passed largely under the radar. BUT - a couple of years ago there was a website or blog on the same subject matter (jazz in - roughly - 1945-55 Detroit) with a LOT of period photographs (unfortunately all of them relatively small) but a huge portion of the bands mentioned and shown there (many of them white) somehow do not seem to have made it into the book. (The names do not have entries in the index of the book) So the scene seems to have been even larger. Anybody remember that website? For some inexplicable reason it went down several years ago.

Huh??? Recorded 19 April and 1 May 1958.