Big Beat Steve

Just a wild shot ...: According to various discgraphies and liner notes the tunes were listed as - Segment - Diverse (Segment) According to these as well as the "Bird Lore" discography by Piet Koster, the matrix numbers are 294-3 for "Segment" and 296-3 for "Diverse (Segment)" This looks to me like "Segment" was recorded first and "Diverse aka Segment" later. So "Segment" is likely to have been the original title. As to who renamed "Diverse" - no idea, sorry ... But ... According to the "BIrd Lore" discography, only one of the two tracks called "Passport" from that session was originally released on 78 and on a 10" LP predating the 12" LPs. But both "Segment" and "Diverse (Segment)" were first released on a Verve 12" LP (MGV 8009). Wouldn't this indicate that whoever named these tunes, it very likely wasn't Bird?

In the CD reissue field, in all objectivity I'd have to rate some of the reissue packagings of Fresh sound and certain related labels in this category: For a while they had a habit of compiling, say, "the Complete Quartet (or Quintet or Sextet or Trio or Small Group) recordings" of this or that artist, which then resulted in half or two thirds of two or three original LPs that were combined into one single CD. Because the original LPs (sometimes even sessions) were not made up of one strict group lineup throughout but for some tracks added (or subtracted) one or two other musicians. So ... neither flesh nor fowl if you are trying to round up the discography of an artist whose original LPs either are out of your price range or are unavailable in other reissue formats. (Not that overall I'm unduly worried about this compilation quirk ... in recent years I've scored several of these "complete small-group sizte" thingies at the princely sum of 1 EUR each secondhand, and at that price I can live with those completist shortcomings. And yet it's a disservice to "serious" collectors.) I realize this outright statement opens the door wide for anti-P.D. label polemics by "some usual suspects of this place" 😄, but it just had to be said ... Next ... As for "reducing the risk for one not selling", as you correctly say, there is a similar annoying Fresh Sound CD packaging habit: Very often their "2 LPs on one CD" reissues (basically a sound idea) of relatively rare and obscure acts (that really take determination to be sought out by most jazz listeners who are in the market for reissues of 50s/60s LPs) combine one LP that had had already been out on vinyl by Fresh Sound, and then another one that is all new on the reissue market (because many of these artists and LPs are among those that no other reissue label anywhere else would ever bother with). So those who had already been in the market for these reissues in the vinyl days (as you guessed I'm one of them) often would be getting far less for their money if they wanted the "other" of the two LPs on each CD as well. I've not very often been tempted to pick up the CD anyway at the "New" price but this packaging policy of "nudging the customer into rebuying" is a bit of a drag anyway.

Understandable 😄 but there is a way out in case you do have space for more LP covers ... There is hardly any unused space left on the walls of my music room either, so I cannot really display any more (unless I start alternating), but it would be nice anyway ... Checking again these days I found I have accumulated a few original record covers through the years that are missing their LPs or EPs (or that - in one case - is a duplicate when I replaced a shot vinyl with a far better one). And I guess this happens with other collectors too. So what better use for those "orphaned" covers than to use them to decorate the wall as long as they are "in tune" with your record collection ?

But IMHO this is one reason why it cannot do any harm to any of those interested in the history of an art form (jazz in this case) to try to get access to CONTEMPORARY publications on the subject matter and read up on them and not rely too much (let alone only) on latter-day (re)interpretations by journalists (who often are no all-out historians in the first place) or authors. Some of these much more recent publications may offer historically important insights (if diligently researched and documented) but just as many may be grossly skewed by today's perspective and/or narrative.

I was a bit puzzled when in one of the very first paragraphs the author cited James Lincoln Collier's "The Making of Jazz" as a prime source for his statements. I had started reading it last spring but was somewhat put off by his sweeping generalizations that crop up time and again. So ... all to be taken with a huge grain of salt ... Though heroin addiction no doubt was widespread. As to which is cause, and which is effect ... that sounds like a different story ... OTOH, the following statement as such no doubt is true: "The 1950s were when jazz truly lost its black audience." But IMO this is due to mainly musical reasons in the first place. R&B, Jump Blues, City Blues (you name it ...) replaced jazz (i.e. Swing-style jazz) as the POPULAR music among the Black community and eventually evolved into Soul (with Soul Jazz being about the only style of jazz that was able to maintain a relatively firm footing in the Black community while that style lasted). Yet the days of jazz as a definite part of popular music were largely over soon after WWII. But where's the link of this loss of the Black audience and the widespread use of dope? I cannot quite see it in this article.

Checked the track listing more closely now ... From Disc VII onwards, above all, my curiosity (about new or off-the-radar discoveries) certainly is piqued ... Let's see what Jazz Messengers can come up with ...

Thanks Colin. I had not seen all this when I visited the website. Pity for the list of deliberate omissions. To me, some of the names sound intriguing or even tempting. From the point of view of making long-unavailable sides available, actually more so than (I have to use the term now 😄) some of the "usual 'name' suspects" who have been available in other packagings before. But as they say - one man's meat ... So - no Louis Jordan at all either? Not that this would worry me unduly (these performances HAVE been around as well), but did Mosaic actually find their jazz content to be insufficient too? To me, this somehow would sound like a somewhat narrowed-down definition of what they prefer to see in 40s jazz. Or is it a matter of them preferring to attract a maximum of buyers by rounding up a roster of as-big-as-possible names because rarities and obscurities are too much of a niche interest within what is already a niche market?

Just had a look at the Mosaic website and am wondering (and puzzled ...) as I did not see a complete artist and track listing so far: Certainly the list of artists is impressive so you cannot actually talk about "the usual suspects", but still I am wondering: There were many, many artists who were fairly well-known back then and part of the Swing scene of the 40s (and contributed to the V-Disc catalog) but fell by the wayside in the way jazz history of that period is covered by scribes (particularly by latter-day ones). So ... Will this set include a representative sampling of the offerings of small groups led by the likes of Loumell Morgan, Mary Greene, Page Cavanaugh, Vivian Garry, Les Paul etc.? That would contribute to filling long-glaring gaps in the history the Swing Era of those years. After all (and not least of all) some of the big "name" artists on V-Disc have already been round the block in various guises on the reissue market anyway. Not hedging my bets nor hoping for anything but I just felt this question deserved to be asked ...

Same thoughts here. RIP

As I have almost all the Vanguard material on vinyl this box set would be too much for me (and I guess I can live without alternates), but being able to get a copy of the booklet (as some additional in-depth background info) would be nice.

Further to my post of 16 June 2017, in the intervening years I have found (and added to my collection) a copy of the 1972 UK reissue of the original LP (all eight tracks of the session, compiled and annotated - by Albert McCarthy, no less - in a distanctly non-haphazard way 😄) on Vanguard VRS 8514 (distributed by RCA UK according to the fine print). So they did have their reissuing act together in the vinyl days at least ... and there would have been no need to reinvent the wheel (and goof - as Larry Kart pointed out) for the CDs ...

I'd have to check closely to locate LP compilations that clearly have been made obsolete by more thoroughly "curated" CD sets (but no doubt there are many). BUT - I'd disagree with your above statement. I remember there were many 2-LP sets from the 70s/80s that were part of "complete" reissue programs, but the playing time of each of these clearly exceeded the CD time limits. And at least for quite some time the majors owning the music did not see fit to go to the trouble of doing corresponding CD reissues that REALLY would have made the LPs 100% obsolete. Some of these included IIRC those 70s Bluebird twofers of RCA reissues from the Swing era.

Thanks for your numerous and always highly instructive writings on jazz. RIP

Agreed overall - from what I've heard by him. At times he may have been a bit too "eclectic", though. I have an original of the one linked below (where Hyman is on a lot of tracks in very different settings) sitting in my "to listen to before filing" crate (after a brief initial listen I decided to postpone closer listening to all 4 sides until I really was in the right mood for it all ) : https://www.discogs.com/master/1509825-Various-The-Seven-Ages-Of-Jazz-A-Live-Concert-Presentation @Gheorghe: I think you need to judge these rhythm sections a bit more from their period perspectives. What one would expect (particularly as a musician) style-wise TODAY is not necessarily what would have been the final word then. And above all, didn't Bird play with countless pickup rhythm sections (of no doubt dubious credentials in many cases) after 1950 when he was booked most often as a single but not with a regular band? So that rhythm section (probalby chosen not least of all for their versatility) cannot have been that inappropriate overall.

Google and Wikipedia (to start with the most evident sources) are your friends ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher_Henderson You know, there WAS a history of jazz before Bud Powell et al. More seriously, anyone else among the forumists with any opinions, impressions, knowledge about whether there is any more recent (and relevant) Fletcher Henderson research on the web? P.S.: I am aware that there is a book on Fletcher Henderson by Jeffrey Magee but I have never seen it and - apart from what I've discovered just now about this book on the "jerryjazzmusician" website - have no real impression of in what way it goes significantly beyond "Hendersonia". Anyone out there, by any chance, who has read BOTH books?

Thanks, Niko, for reminding me of this website. I discovered this site last year when I searched the internet for info on some ultra-obscure recordings from the 20s where (according to the liner notes on a 70s LP that I had bought) personnel identification was hazy. And lo and behold - the compiler of this site had gone to extreme efforts to shed some more light on these obscure recordings. I will check what he has to say about the Fletcher Henderson bands but would be surprised if he had not relied primarily on "Hendersonia" himself. But he may well have useful additional info on the Henderson discography.

I bought "Hendersonia" at a rather affordable price several years ago from a German online bookseller via the German branch of Abebooks, but except for browsing here and there I so far just did not muster the stamina to read through and digest that huge, huge mass of information included in its pages. But a while ago, prompted by a dip into the "A Study in Frustration" box set, I finally tackled that magnum opus on Fletcher Henderson again, promising myself to gradually work my way through the book (with no time limit, though ). But one thought has come up now: This book was completed and published some 50 years ago, and no doubt the author left no stone unturned and dug a mile deep for even the minutest snippets of information. And of course he had the advantage of being able to speak to a lot of key persons from the life of Hendetson who still were around then. Yet I wonder ... In today's world of the internet availability and exchanges of information are almost boundless, accessibility of source documents is greatly enhanced and much easier than it used to be in the pre-internet days. And no doubt amateur or pro researchers on almost ANYTHING are around somewhere out there. So I wonder - Have there ever been any sources (websites, blogs, publications) that may have added to the contents of "Hendersonia", maybe even correcting or adding information to that book (even though this likely would amount to details only, but still ...)? Or is "Hendersonia" still the very definite, 100% final word on the subject of Fletcher Henderson in each and every respect imaginable? Any opinions, findings, experiences, anyone? Thanks in advance.

Certainly not as extreme nor as dirt cheap as in your case (judging by what you told here in several threads). Many of the best purchases in the 90s happened at Mole Jazz in London (where I spent a couple of days each time during trips back to the Eurotunnel or Channel ferry after having attended festivals in Norfolk). In general Mole Jazz wasn't that cheap but during two of my visits their stocks had increased to the point of forcing them to rent another shop to display the items on special sale, and while I was there a clerk marked down the price tags on the entire stocks AGAIN. So the totals at the counter were very, very affordable. And what they sold off there visibly were collections unloaded by people having switched to CD (for example, sometimes you could tell from the selection of LPs by certain artists that someone had snapped up the Chronological Classics series that were all over the place then). OTOH some even better buys came my way later on when certain local record stores started holding annual clearout sale days. But that's hard work each time because NOTHING ís sorted by artist or genre there. You have to wade through it all ... At any rate, it's amazing what still hits the market. Just last Saturday a fellow Swing collector from my area told me about a collection of allegedly 10,000 jazz 78s that had come up for sale only about 30 miles from here. He told me he missed out (apparently sold to a specialist shop outside our area) but he admitted that if the price per record had been right he would have taken the plunge ... (But then he is much younger than I am.) I was glad to feel not even the slightest envy inside me when he told me all that. Hope this feeling of sanity lasts ...

Had a run apparently similar to many others who replied. I started buying vinyl (i.e. LPs) in early 1975 at not quite 15, and this continued at a fairly steady pace (my limited funds permitting) to the late 70s and then ebbed off somewhat up to the mid-80s due to another hobby that ate up much of my still limited funds during my University days. From the mid-80s (once I had joined the working population ) my buying accelerated again throughout the 90s and into the early 2000s, though with some ups and downs. Which were dictated by availability at affordable prices (the wave of others shifting from Vinyl to CD in the 90s and dumping their collections did help ), existence of well-stocked local record shops, and opportunities too good to pass up. I did resist CDs for several years in the 90s but eventually gave in as so much became available on CD that simply did not exist on vinyl. For the past 10-15 years my vinyl buying has settled into a more reasonable pace, even coming to an almost complete standstill for a while during Corona (just one single LP in close to two years). Some buying sprees still happen, though, e.g. about a year ago when I had first pick among a 5,000-LP jazz collection a local record store had gotten in ). In fact, now that retirement is upon me I am telling myself more and more often that I need to slow down, not just to eventually ease the plight of my heirs but also because the wall housing my LP collection(now totalling some 8,000) in my music room has been overflowing for some time. Shifting my 78s to an adjacent room in late 2017 helped for a while but now the point of saturation has been reached again. So I had to free three shelves in that adjacent room to accommodate more LPs (luckily there was room in my office to house the special-interest non-music books and magazines that had to make way). I am enjoying the vastly improved accessibility to my LPs (it's not much fun having to wedge LPs forcibly in and out of the crammed shelves). Hopefully my restraint will last ...

To set straight an (inexplicably) oft-made blunder in that title: The ACTUAL song title (as per the flower and the color derived from it) is FUCHSIA Swing Song. ❗ Or just very much tuned in to music from past decades and aware of a lot (which should be a natural to anyone seriously interested in the heyday of jazz - though the above tune admittedly is not so jazz-ish ). (FWIW, personally I had not been born yet when Sheb Wooley hit the charts with that one, and yet ... )

With all these plugs, it looks like I'll have to watch out for that Brunswick 10-incher to come up in one of the special offer bins.;) (Stranger things have happened around here ...) (See, re- your misgivings in that other ("Reddit") thread, reviving this age-old thread didn't hurt at all ... 😁 and this might indeed lead to a new round of discussions ...)

Yes, what he (not wrote but) recycled is rather meager for someone who really ought to take an active interest in subjects like this.

Just did a quick check on Discogs: Indeed - Discogs does list the Australian pressing for Vol. 1 (LAEA 12038), but no Australian ones for Vols. 2 and 3. (Haven't looked for Vols 4 and 5 yet)

@Romualdo: I do not have the details on hand but this indeed seems to be so (if I remember correctly what James Harrod explained on his site). And in some cases the tracks were edited (truncated) on the EPs to fit them onto these 45s. @Jazzcorner: Of course in the end it is just the music that it's all about. My point was just that these EPs pressed in Europe back then are an intriguing side aspect of these JWC sampler releases (and their marketing history) that merits some exploration (in my opinion). I referred to the JWC LPs in the title of my thread simply because the FIVE SAMPLER LPs titled specifically "Jazz West Coast" and their contents were the starting point for my question about which of their contents were also released on EPs culled from THESE LPs. (The "other" Pacific Jazz EPs were an afterthought) So IMO dwelling on what LPs there were overall (this was discussed before in another thread) and stating what LPs one owns seems a bit beside the point to me in THIS thread.

That's all very well, but to me they ARE (of interest). Tastes and interests differ, you know ... LPs are a different topic and have been covered in extenso in numerous publications (and FWIW were not the target or subject of this thread anyway). But EPs are part of the way the music was marketed at the time as well. And they were overlooked for no good reason. Thankfully James Harrod set the record(s - literally ) straight.