Big Beat Steve

I think I will be listening to this tune with totally "new" ears from now on. And belated birthday wishes to you.

Nice idea. But are all of them really that specific to the 78 rpm era? (e.g. TOPS or GTJ) And "Brandt" must have been one that found its way into the range because some client ordered a one-off in the first place. (This seems like a REALLY oddball label - with graphics that are not likely to make many - except fanatics of this specific label - go overboard with excitement). Speaking of one-off record label T-shirts, about 12 years ago my better half and me took a lindy hop basics class. One of the side events to liven up the sessions was a "theme" record party focusing on "bananas". So I had the below shirts made for the two of us for the occasion (drew up the banana couple based on a photo of a dancing couple I had taken years ago).

Thanks, Cliff and Rostasi, for these infos. I was actually thinking of a regional or academic/University library. I've had reader cards for both of our local ones but have not been there so long that I probably would have to sign up again from scratch. So I guess I'll have to see how I can contact the two GERMAN sites (shown by Rostasi) via our library. Actually, the other day I was on the verge of springing for an affordable original Danish copy of Rosenkrantz' book available online. But in the end I decided against it - not only because reading Danish is a bit more difficult for me than Swedish, at which I am fairly advanced. But what is more, the English version seems to have been expanded considerably over the Danish original, judging by the page counts. BTW, Cliff, on a (tongue-in-cheek) side note - that "other" autobiography you mention is by Teddy Reig, not Teddi. That "Teddi" might (involuntarily yet incorrectly) allude to a different sex (e.g. Teddi King ).

Yeah, right. And that was almost all the way in the 78 rpm era (1951). Great film. Thanks for the link. Too bad the image is so blurred (14th-generation recopy? ) No way to capture well enough the details (records, etc.) of the scenes at the HMV shop. But the music snippets (right up to Barber, the crooners and Lord Rockingham) are fitting (and hilarious, as you say ...).

When I referred to listening "booths" I was actually referring to such booths. Which did exist, judging both by testimonials from some who were around in those days, period photos and ads and by certain period films where a listening booth was part of certain scenes of the plot. I dimly remember that there even was a Hitchcok crime movie that had such a scene. And I more distinctly remember both German and French movies from the late 50s/early 60s that were geared at a youth/teenage audience where you had scenes with rows to teens listening to record over those "telephone receiver" type headphones (very similar to the record shop from 1958 I showed above). But my MAIN point about these record shops "in the days of old" was about those shops where the bulk of the records were stored BEHIND the counter and you went to the counter and asked the clerk if he/she had this or that record or if they were able to suggest you new arrivals by certain artists or items in your preferred styles of music, and they then pulled them from the racks behind them to show them to you (and play them too, if the customer so wished). And this is where the listening booths (as part of period shop furniture) came in too and were mentioned by me. All of this triggered by the post about the character in L.A. who would not let customers browse the bins but forced them to tell him beforehand what they were looking for. The Technics turntables in our local secondhand shop BTW look and sound OK and well cared for. I agree that the headphones make the records sound incredible - but OTOH I hardly ever listen to records through headphones at home.

By all accounts they must have existed, judging by the tales (tall tales?) of youngsters of bygone decades who cherished their memories of piling half a dozen high into a booth after school to listen to a stack of the latest hit parade platters, and then buying maybe one single or none at all ("ah no, not actually my cuppa") until even the most sympathetic shop owner would kick them out of his place. I don't know how long these booths lasted after (circa) 1960 (if at all), though. Also see the below record sleeve from the 78rpm era.

I can tell you that over here listening facilities at regular record shops (when there still were NEW records to be sold and therefore a certain number of record shops) went out of operation here sometime in the latter 70s. The only one local shop I remember that still had listening facilities (those "telephone receiver"-type thingies at the counter) was a long-established shop but by those later 70s the listening service had been modernized and trimmed down severely compared to the below photograph (which shows the same place in a photo from a 1958 product catalog). No other shops in town offered any possibility of listening in before purchase anymore. To the best of my understanding, actual listening BOOTHS in record shops were phased out long, long before. In the more recent era of shops dealing in secondhand records, listening facilities do not exist everywhere either. Our #1 local secondhand shop is a commendable exception and has a corner setup in plain sight of the counter where 2 Technics turntables with headphones are set up for the customers to listen to the records before purchase. Turntables operated by the customers themselves on the understanding that common sense and discretion be applied ("use the pickup arm lift at all times", i.e. don't put the pickup onto the record with you grubby, clumsy fingers! ), though I am baffled ever so often when I see how hard it seems to be even for so many of the (usually) discerning and knowledgeable clientele of the shop to pull the record out of its sleeve and hold it ONLY with an "octave grip" and not by placing their clumsy thumbs onto the grooves ... So ...

Of course thumbing through boxes can be tempting regardless of the overall layout of the shop. But it all depends on whether records for browsing were in boxes in that shop at that time anyway. I know (now, and knew in the past) more than one shop where record stocks simply were overflowing in all directions and lots of records were in boxes placed outside the actual bins (sometimes even piled for the customers to shift them themselves if they wanted to peruse the contents of all the boxes). So that customer had only himself to blame for being called to order but I'd cut him (and his "record hunter instinct") some slack.

Seconded. Honestly.

Thanks, Mhatta!

The tune programming alone of his "Ellington 55" album on Capitol would make this a "dance album" IMO. I find the "Ellington touch" given to these relatively atypical tunes rather interesting.

Crazy, ths LA place ... OTOH (apart from this nasty "customer disservice"), this somehow reminds me of stories about record stores way, way back a long time ago in the pre-self service shop days when most of the records in stock and for sale (usually 78s) were in racks on the wall BEHIND the counter and the array of clerks manning the counter and you had to ask the clerks for your specific wants and they pulled them out of the racks. But those were the days when you had listening booths too. All quite hard to imagine as a business model today ...

Which concert/release is this? Bruyninckx only lists the studio recording of that title (Feb. 4, 1950) but no live performance. So it must be a comparatively recent release.

Update of sale in above list and an addition: 10) Blues Records 1943-1966, Mike Leadbitter/Neil Slaven, 1st edition 1968 (Oak Publications, paperback), 17 EUR Slight edge wear to spine and page margins from leafing through but overall good condition

Like Dan Gould, I wonder how much of the Vanguard sessions really is new (or how many unissued tracks - or sessions - there are out there at all). In fact, given the almost countless reissue repackagings from the 70s and 80s, I've found the Vanguard sessions are among those where you are most liable to end up with duplicate purchases because there were sooo many different reissues from the US, UK, France and elsewhere (that never were exceedingly rare on the secondhand market) that it is almost impossible to remember exactly the contents of which cover artwork equal those of LPs with totally different cover artwork. As for the V-Discs, it would be nice if they wouldn't limit their (either small group or big band) session packagings to the obvious "name" candidates or usual suspects. The likes of Phil Moore or Loumell Morgan et al. deserve some reissue action too. (Though I really wouldn't hedge my bets as to how far they will venture into THAT territory ...)

Yes, interesting as a list of fairly recent music books. The Berry book might be interesting. Will keep it in mind. I was puzzled a bit about that "In Search of Billie Hioliday" title. How many "In search of" approaches are there (and are there needed) to write a biographies? 😁 (Cf. "In Search of Robert Johnson", and it seems there are many other cases like this). Is the life of Billie Holiday as elusive to subsequent generations as that of Robert Johnson, for example, I wonder? Excepting "Saxophone Colossus" which by all accounts is a monumental opus (in the truest sense of the word ) but at the contents of which I've only glimpsed so far (but its time will come ), I hope none of the other books "suffer" from a tendency I've noticed in other relatively recent music books (as if this was a trend that has become more frequent in the most recent decades), i.e. the contents reading as much about the actual subject as about the self-perceived greatness of the author (i.e. "see how great I am at writing about my subject"). Which can get tiring ...

+1 Too bad it's rather short (because Teddy Reig died before he could be questioned in even gereater detail).

I cannot imagine any library in our greater area having that book for loan. But if so, your method would have prompted me to take the entire book and run it through my office photocopier for "permanent reference". I did so fairly often in the 80s (in those times when internet and worldwide purchase opportunities were unheard of) with long-OOP or inaccessible foreign books. I've replaced some of them with originals later on but my (photocopied) copies of Ira Gitler's "Jazz Masters of the 40s" (double-sided photocopies tidily cut and stapled into a homemade paperback copy) and Gunther Schuller's "The Swing Era" (both taken out on loan from our local "Amerika Haus" - when that still existed) are still on my shelves.

I know some around here who would be willing to take these 78s off your hands (yes there are a small handful of fairly young'uns around here who are into 78s - and I might even spring for certain Esquires, for example, myself) but distance makes this unreasonable, and since Brexit has occurred this has become even more unfeasible, unfortunately. And of course my sincere condolences to your loss. FWIW, as for 78s in London, I am afraid that ever since Mole Jazz and Ray's Jazz Shop (are there still remnants of Ray's at Foyle's at all?) have become a thing of the past these outlets for jazz 78s are no longer feasible either.

One more detail to add/correct: The INTERDISC distribution company was not based in Italy but in Switzerland. It was their pressing plants (and record sleeve printers) that were based in Italy. Thanks to James Harrod for providing this info.

No doubt.

Just in case anyone's interested: It was a pleasure to receive not only a speedy reply by James Harrod (thanks agian, James!) but also a lot of profound information that cleared up a great deal of details for me. And I was pleased to be able to return the favors by sending a couple of EP details and cover/label scans to James that so far had been missing from his listings. To summarize the gist of the subject of these EP releases of the contents of the five Jazz West Coast LPs, what is known so far is this: The EPs released by Pacific Jazz in the USA fizzled out much earlier than European EP releases (the European markets hung on to EPs for quite a bit longer as LPs were really expensive here and not easily affordable for the average jazz fan. So it made sense to market the LP contents in EP form - either for purchase in several instalments or as individual excerpts to give the customers a taster of the LP). EPs for the European markets essentially came from three license holders: - Among the numerous EPs relased by Vogue (UK) of Pacific Jazz sessions there was at least one EP (EPV 1195) with excerpts form Jazz West Coast Vol. 1. - The German license holder "Ton-Treu Schallplatten" ("True Tone" - their name figured only in the small print on the labels and covers, and their pressings were marketed outside Germany as well) released at least two dozen EPs with Pacific Jazz and Good Time Jazz tracks, including several covering the Jazz West Coast samplers: --There were three EPs (EP4-59, EP4-78 and EP4-79) that covered the contents of JWC LP Vol. 4. --Vol. 3 may also have been covered by three EPs; however, only two (marked Part 1 and Part 2, EP 4-48 and EP4-76) have been documented. The third one may hide among the handful of catalog numbers in this series of which details are as yet unknown (they do not figure on Discogs either). --Vol. 2 may also have been given the treatment with 3 EPs. But again, only two (EP4-52 and EP4-75) are documented. --I am not aware of EPs for the Vol. 1 and Vol. 5 EPs, and none figure in the list established by James Harrod. I think, BTW, that some of the lengthier tracks on the JWC LPs may have been edited and shortened by Dick Bock for release on the EPs. - Interdisc, another license holder (operating out of Italy as far as I have been able to find out) operated concurrently with Ton-Treu and released their own EPs with catalog numbers that are "similar" to the Ton-Treu pressings (e.g. Interdisc WP-5475 matches the contents of Ton-Treu EP4-75). Again the contents covered all of Vol. 4 and possibly all of Vol. 3 and Vol. 2 (but not all three EPs for each of the latter two LPs are documented). In total at least 7 Interdisc EPs featuring music from the JWC sampler LPs were released. But their covers (artwork and info) are a mess: Their artwork used the musician drawing of the Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 LPs (and the "Jazz West Coast" William Claxton folio) and they did not reference the LP volumes the contents were excerpted from but were numbered consecutively from "Part 1" at least to "Part 6" and possibly beyond. So it is not easy to identify the provenance of thier contents at a glance. By 1962 Pacific Jazz/World Pacific LPs were handled by a different distriubtor in Germany, but I am not aware of any PJ/WP EPs bearing his imprint.

I distinctly remember I've had such premonitions, though I for the most part cannot recall which ones they exactly were about. However, as far as I recall these "hunches" were not so much about records that I wasn't particularly looking for but rather about records that I had been looking for either for quite a while or for special reasons and somehow felt "the time is rife for a copy to pop up". And sho'nuff, that's what happened. About the only occasion like that where I do remember the details (this occurred last December) was the Lionel Hampton sessions with Mezz Mezzrow of November 1953. One day I read a review of a 12" LP featuring all the tracks from that session, and upon checking my shelves I found I "only" had a 50s original 10" with part of the tracks, and started wondering "How come the others escaped me through the decades?" And then, a couple of days later somehow a distinct feeling grabbed me that "the next time I'll stop by my #1 local record shop I'll find a copy there". For no particular reason because I had not checked the Hampton bins for ages. And indeed - there were two copies of a 70s Barclay reissue twofer that included ALL the music - both in great condition and nicely priced - one priced even nicer than the other so that's the one i took home.

For those of you who feel "imprisoned" by their record collection, do treat yourselves to THIS book: https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/160774869X/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_de_DE=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&crid=2MXVESJYVTUR7&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.fRjRhXXa6h-D4tj-akoMCIv5ziOgomRvRBGnzF8XRKFIYy5SuA1yDqwgMM9V7qbhTdKJYVTIzx5khbC-OlJusufAe-JhW4dh1wSwLrOnGtntmJtz8tLmXpIzXxc3sB_-fizgZZ6eG-2GO1fBVX_vLiAOZ_GlDOo5rY7kfYz07fxa837r9YG9MlUmmJ2jgtqcvv5Lfg5eS6eKSiJGRjoEK4Mm2kqoF8e0eG3m7QHHzFY._BwIslQgMwFDDhdx_cJdWUhFDQ7k6uvz59YI-RP6RJM&dib_tag=se&keywords=Dust+and+Grooves&qid=1719567214&sprefix=dust+and+grooves%2Caps%2C146&sr=8-1 Whenever you feel overwhelmed by the records you have amassed, just looking at the pics from various collections and "music living" (aka "hoarding" ) rooms at collectors' homes around the world will make you realize "No, my record collection isn't the worst - nor the most disorganized!" 😁

I will check my copies but probably won't be able to do so before Sunday afternoon. Hope this is OK. Beyond this, I would also be able to check (step by step) my copies of Jazz Hot (France), Orkester Journalen and Estrad (both Sweden) from that period (I have complete runs up to the early/mid-60s) to see if there is any interesting mention of that "new" Quintet in there (in record or concert reviews, for example). Obviously this will take a bit of time. I also have about two thirds of the copies of Jazz Magazine (France) and Jazz Monthly (UK) from the second half of the 50s up to the early 60s so some relevant issues may not be there.