Big Beat Steve

Exactly - that was the tune. Thanks, Dmitry. Struck me as rather unusual at the time. I doubt many of those who bought the record at the time realized who that was. I knew the name not only from jazz records but also visually - the book with this pic has been on my shelf since (about) my 18th year.

Not to let this pass under the radar: Michael Naura, pianist, bandleader, radio MC and key personality of German and European jazz for most of the decades since the mid-1950 passed away on Monday, 13 Feb. RIP

If sounds are that "objective" and scientifically "neutral", why would ANYONE remaster previously recorded music to make it sound so different (vs what the master tape and first-generation pressings yielded) and, above all, louder? Like they wanted to grab a bite of the rock market? Why mess things (and sounds) up? And to bring full things circle in THIS thread, if what one subjectively prefers to hear is so irrelevant and the sounds out there are all objective, why not slap RVG posthumously in the face for having made some of his latter-day remasters sound so loud vs the original recordings? Yes I know this IS quite a different angle of this debate but why, then, did they separate belief (wanting to "update" sounds to suit today's hearing habits or what they thought today's hearing habits to be) from fact (keeping the sound that is there on the master tapes without doctoring) in those (or other) remasters? No matter how we look at it, in the end hearing is a subjective thing and dictated by what we ourselves want to hear and not by what somebody else tells us about what (and above all, how) we are supposed to hear.

One reason for not wanting to play requests being that you don't remember (or don't know) the lyrics to a tune, maybe?

Indeed. But that's right up my alley.

There were several CD series (but you would have to check availability and search a bit - some will probably be OOP and only be available secondhand): - The Birth of Surf (3 volumes) on the (UK) Ace label (a label that spells quality) - Rare Surf (6 volumes) - Lost Legends of Surf Guitar (4 volumes) on the Sundazed label Experts of early surf will probably be able to give you more information.

If this is the typical company the Kirk band gigged with in 1947 (Ray Sneed aka Snead! Billy Wright!), it is no wonder that the music they played in "Killer Diller" had started to lean towards R&B here and there.

I admit I had understood you exactly the other way round. Bashing Little Richard and going all excited over the Beach Boys - another one of those who can't praise "Pet Sounds" enough. (iIt CAN happen .... ) Anyway, greatness is in the ear of the behearer - always, and "tin ears" are not always where those who use that term to bash others' tastes think they are.

A history lesson indeed. Thanks for the link! That tune by the Kirk band, "Gator's Serenade", really cooks but unfortunately it seems to have gone unrecorded. And I cannot think of any later release of that movie excerpt on one of those "Jazz on Film"-style records either. For a sequel to your history lesson and a look at how things evolved I'd recommend this one from 1955:

Including claims that it's "a waste of space", then.

See? There we go ... Tastes differ and the lines very often are not even drawn betwen the Beach Boys and Little Richard. By the same yardstick that you hint at one might say '"Albert Ayler is a waste of space. Listen to some Billie Holiday for a few days, then you can come back and tell us about how "its all good". The "discriminating" criteria that you suppose there are just are NOT there. There is no universal, overriding truth in these fields of music.

The committee is still out (and won't be let back in) ... P.S: My Ellington/Kenton ratio is almost 2/1. That sounds a bit better, at least as far as Ellington is concerned?

+1

Tommy James is cited elsewhere on this subject matter, and I think he was quite a radical case of being held "hostage" by the label.

Agreed. The depth of his tastes is impressive, particularly since he really goes out of his way to obtain what he really is after. OTOH the notion of "mainstream" or "non-mainstream" is a very relative one these days, it seems. In my collection the Louis Jordan LPs, for example, outnumber the John Coltrane LPs by about 10 to 1, and the Stan Kenton vs Trane ratio might even be some 15 or 20 to 1. So by the standards of a lot of THIS forum's "typical" ("mainstream"? ) jazz record collections, mine might look like a decidedly non-mainstream one. Luckily tastes and priorities differ so there's room and space for everyone when it comes to browsing the record racks and sales lists.

A seminal figure in Scandinavian jazz. 100 years ... that's a really long run. RIP.

Same to you.

FWIW, http://www.differencebetween.info/difference-between-artist-and-artiste http://www.english-for-students.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Artist-and-Artiste.html http://www.gingersoftware.com/english-online/spelling-book/confusing-words/artist-artiste http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t3967.htm In short,"artist" will do, particularly if you stress the CREATIVE side of the artist's efforts (not the least important criterion in jazz, isn't it?). And as for the example I mentioned in my question, I still feel the author was unaware of how this term might sound pretentious (and certainly did NOT want to play down the creativity of his favorite music and artists. Nuff said.

Ah, going snarky again. Plowing through others' statements. What you call cutesy was nothing but an attempt at asking a question in a halfway polite manner. And did I refer to an earlier instance where I came across this word or not? We are talking about areas of fairly popular art where this term looks out of place to me, and yes - the use of this term in THESE contexts was new to me and I still find it odd and still am wondering if all of a sudden it is all the rage to refer e.g. to pop "artistes". Regardless of whether there are others out there who prefer to use "pseudo-French" in other fields of "art". So ... you are known for putting things in other people's mouths that just aren't so but don't try to intimidate me. You just don't have the class or authority for that. C'est la vie ....

Ah, getting wisecrackish again? I am quite familiar with the word as such (and certainly not only because I happen to speak French too) but in the contexts I named I just find it odd, to say the very least. Because to me it has connotations that simply are out of place and out of style, at least in the examples I referred to, and given that general writings about the subjects on hand seemed to have coped quite well without it for decades, even when the discussions got quite art-heavy. Of course, if you want to elevate things to some uppity level of art(e) - whereas Webster seems to narrow thisdown to an "often humorous or facetious" use -, then go ahead and be happy on that cloud up there ... And, BTW, just to level things a little, you are welcome to lead this sort of "splitting hairs debate" in a language that is NOT your mother language. Now where would that leave you, I wonder?

Copies are around. If he is that heavily into Little Richard I'd be surprised if he did not have that one too.

Well, various internet profiles of MG have him down as "a stalwart of the Scandinavian free jazz scene" or "free jazz heavyweight" or "prolific free jazz saxophonist". YMMV, though (as they say around here ): At any rate, I found his explanations quite interesting and if you think about it they do make some sense (at least to me). This IS one possible approach.

I think what Dmitry was aiming at is whether the free jazz players really have gone where they are now because they have exhausted every "conventional" possibility of their instrument and of the music and now have gone beyond the "conventional" contents of the music onto a "higher" (in the sense of "superior") level of the muisc that - according to diehards of free/avantgarde jazz - is the only way to go and to progress because everything else is just old hat and worn out. If this was so then any of the top free saxophonists would have to be able to play, say, ANY Hodges, Prez, Bird, Rollins, (yes, eben Bostic and his often.-acknowledged technical mastery of the instrument) etc. forwards and backwards and inside out and will just not remain there because he has played everything there. Or isn't it rather so that they have gone out on a DIFFERENT branch that is just that - different. But definitely not "superior" or "higher" in an evolutionary sense of the word. Which is fine and perfectly legitimate to do for those who prefer to go into that direction (preferences differ ...) and occupy their own niche there, but of course invalidates that oft-held notion of free or avantgarde being "superior". It's just different sides of a multi-faceted coin. And one is as valid as the other. In EVERY stylistic direction. But this is getting us off course. I for one find rather more interest in what Mats Gustafsson said in his interview about the closeness (in HIS understanding) of free jazz and certain old-school honkers on the one hand and punk and their 2-chord structure on the other. Normally he ought to have come under heavy fire by avantgarde jazz "traditionalists" for that.

Very nice introduction to the subject!