Big Beat Steve

So did I. Quite a while ago.

Discographers in the PROPER sense of the way a discography is bound to be organized no doubt will disagree any time. They'd just GOT to keep everything strictly chronological by recording dates. Rundowns of album listings are not discographies in the proper sense of the word the way the term "discography" is commonly understood. Album listings or release listings are a different matter altogether and serve their own purposes but should not be mixed up with discographies because by nature this kind of simple listings is incomplete discographically (I suppose this the kind of list you are referring to, but - no, I don't consider the Goldmine listings true discographies either. "Releasography" if you want - yes, but beyond that? ). And Discogs very often is flawed enormously when it comes to providing comprehensive overviews and not just "listings". In the same manner that all those so-called "discographies" which list only the A sides of 45 rpm releases (like they often exist in the pop field) cannot truly qualify as discographies either. Anyway - what's keeping you from filing a complete LP's worth of material issued decades later between the albums that it belongs to chronologically by its recording dates? That new addition to the artist's recordings adds to his recorded legacy from THAT period (and to how he sounded at THAT time), not from a later one. Just my 2c @TTK: The point you make might be true in some cases but this a door that swings the other way too: Just remember how many late, late first-time releases there were and are by name artists that make their influence felt NOW because they have been released for the first time NOW yet influence our perception of the artist strictly in the context of how he was THEN (case in point: All those first-time relases on the Uptown label). I just checked the Wiki entry on that VU album you mention. Isn't that a classic case of a recording adding to the discography of the time the album was actually recorded? Cutting-room floor snippets belatedly put into circulation? Never mind if it was ahead of its times. The music is primarily linked to a specific era (the era it was recorded). My point exactly when I wrote this: Anyway - what's keeping you from filing a complete LP's worth of material issued decades later between the albums that it belongs to chronologically by its recording dates? That new addition to the artist's recordings adds to his recorded legacy from THAT period (and to how he sounded at THAT time), not from a later one. BTW, I proceed just like you do with compilation albums. The best comon denominator one can possibly find. And yes, we are crazy (of sorts) to worry about such things. But once your record collection reaches a 4-digit figure (or several dozen just by one single artist) you'd better start getting some order into your filing system - or else ...

I read your sentence three times and still am not sure if I really understood it correctly. You mean to say a session released for the first time much later than when it was recorded does not belong into the CHRONOLOGICAL sequence of the artit's discopgraphy? Just because it was not released immediately after the recording date? Where else, THEN? And do you realize what kind of helter-skelter muddle this would make with discographies of many, if not MOST artists who have had a relatively long and fruitful recording career? Of of those whose recordings were rather spotty and blank spots were filled later by long-unreleased or latterly discovered recordings? What would you make of those sessions that were not released DECADES later but maybe just 3, 4, 5 or 10 years later? (Happened not that rarely in the hard bop era, e.g. on the Prestige label). Or what about all those 30s/40s bands (and orchestras, in particular) that have been preserved on LOADs of airshots, transcriptions, on-location live recordings, etc. - to the extent that sometimes up to 50% of their rcordings from any given year are made up of this kind of recordings (that STILL form a valuable part of their recorded legacy)? You are opening a can of worms there, IMO.

No, Basie. At least here. BTW, this entire discussion (and others, similar ones on OP) - which I find relatively pointless, BTW (mainly for the reasons outlined by Milestones - you CAN'T apply absolute yardsticks to subjective perceptions of art, and in writing this I for one am certainly not the biggest OP fan around) - reminds me very much of earlier, MUCH earlier discussions and lots of opinions put into print about ART TATUM. Written long ago, some while he was still alive, some not all that long afterwards. Plenty of virtuosity, chops - yes, but too much showing off, pianistic fireworks aplenty but this and virtuosity crowding out everything else, no jazz feel, so what he played not really being jazz, etc. etc. Yes - of course he is seen differently now but he did arouse a fair bit of controversies in various camps through the years too. And wouldn't really hold it against those who wrote it. Different strokes and perceptions that often change over time, that's all.

The ones I have are fleamarket finds from quite a while ago and therefore - I guess - pretty obvious choices (party record survivors , though really not in bad shape). - 45-1735 Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers - Moanin' Pt. I & II (two copies, actually - one with silver lettering on dark blue label, one with white lettering on light blue label in the upper half of the label and reverse colors in the lower half) - 45-1776 Jackie McLean - Greasy Pt I & II (silver lettering on dark blue label) (all 43W 61th St. N.Y. address on label, RVG in runout section)

"German Treasures" may be a somewhat stilted way of describing it, but the basic fact is that Weill's earlier (pre-emigration) works (particularly his co-works with Bert Brecht) have been present all along throughout the decades in various incarnations and have always had their place, the Three Penny Opera and "Mackie Messer" being by far the best known, of course, but Mahagonny and others are well-known quantities among the target group of such works too. In short, IMO the article is skewed in this respect. His US works are "obscure" over here for sure, but given how his earlier works have been perceived and presented for decades now, his U.S. works more or less come from a "different Weill" to the German (or European?) audience and - probably unfortunately - were lumped in with "Broadway" productions at large.

Me too. Compared to what "Mäckie Messer" still is over here, September Song is certain to be just nowhere. All in all your explanation nails it.

Just listening to the Mosaic "Classic Capitol Jazz Sessions" CD box set. Someting's gone wrong in the booklet inside the box to accompany disc III: In line with their session coding running from A to B through AA to AAA to ZZZ, the back cover lists the Deane Kincaide session as session R and the Scatman Crothers session as session S (plausibly so in accordance with the sequence of the tracks on the CD). Looking up the discographical details in the booklet, though, the Scatman Crothers session is listed as session R and the Deane Kincaide session as session S (in that order). Whatsamatter, Mosaic? Your proofreader been taking five when the texts were okayed for printing?

I can very well imagine these records sitting on the shelves forever at the time, lack of interest in the golden days of WCJ being one factor, and the utterly nondescript, cheapy cover artwork being another. I bought a couple of them secondhand at really low prices during the past 15 years and do not regret having bought them. I will certainly snap up others whenever I come across them. They DO fil a gap if you are into WCJ (or just plain "jazz") from that era. But - again - admittedly even if I had been wise to what they contain EXACTLY and what to make of them in the historical context at the time they were new I probably would have passed them by when they sold at full price. Their presentaiton just was subpar - as were a LOT of reissues or belated first-time issues of "older" jazz in the 70, unfortunately.

Is that the official, historically definite spelling of his first name according to latest research?

Some of mine (yes, like Mingus said - depending on the type of jazz one listens to ): - Keynote Recordings (Fresh Sounds CD box if you cannot source the 21-LP Japanese LP edition or any comparable one - which very likely will be the case) - Complete Nocturne Recordings Vol. 1 (Fresh Sounds - there never was a Vol. 2) - The full run of the Svensk Jazzhistoria 2- or 3-CD box sets on the Caprice label and - depending on one's personal tastes - quite a few BEAR FAMILY box sets (Mosaic is far from being the only bright star on the box set sky - particularly if FIRST TIME REISSUES are concerned)

Of course. Unfortunately. Actually records are even more difficult to "cover up" than other "used" items. For a time I bought quite a lot of mags and paperback books from the 40s, 50s and early 60s from the US. Can you imagine to what kind of repackagings and splittings into multiple smaller parcels and envelopes I sometimes had to resort to (and talk the - sometimes stubborn - sellers into) in order to keep the costs PER SHIPPING within limits so as to slip things past customs with only a minimum of customs fees due? Global priority envelopes made this possible (despite their price increase over time) because the cost actually increases in an almost LINEAR manner according to weight. So 4 times 4 lbs did not cost significantly more than one parcel of 15 or 16 lbs. Records (particularly record SETS) are more difficult because once customs people check things you cannot get by with "used" sets stated at an all too low"nominal" value only. And LP- or box-set-sized parcels ARE more conspicuous and invite inspection even more readily than Global Priority envelopes containing printed matter.

Unfortunately by then the customs people would rip me off BIG TIME.

Only 500 to go to make it a memorable total.

So you asked for it ...

Saundra HUMMER? See earlier discussion in this thread. I doubt it's got any further during the past 5-6 weeks.

And some of his also-rans too, I guess (considering it is the COMPLETE sessions). Actually I'd spring for it (as I think I'd even be able to unload - at a quite decent price - the full run of 80s Pathé and Route 66 LPs with about 2 thirds to 3 quarters of this stuff that I already have) but shipping from the US over here just is too prohibitive. So - no way, sadly ...

Ha, so I wasn't far off the mark at all. Thanks, Niko!

I don't think they are that rare. Offhand I can think of a handful of those "Unipaks" (had no idea they were called like this) from the late 50s and the 60s that I have among my own records: Examples: Lionel Hampton - The Mess Is Here (Bertelsmann 61017) (original pressing, it also existed with a standard non-foldout cover) Epic Encore Series reissue LP series of 30s Brunswick/Vocalion etc. recordings, e.g. Artie Shaw (Free For All) and Earl Hines (Hines Rhythm) (I one picked up a couple of LPs from this series with vinyl in excellent shape dirt cheap at a fleamarket that came from someone who apparently was so terribly bugged by this "leftie" design of the covers that he CUT OFF and discarded the front gatefold cover, making the back (track and personnel listing) the front cover and the liner notes the back cover of a "standard" "rightie" LP. From what I have seen in sale bins, this type of sleeve seems to have been even more common in the field of classical music in the late 50s and 60s.

If I had to do a phonetic spelling of the man's name the way I recall it, I'd write it as "Jacques Crépinaux" (or Crépinot? or Répinot? or ...?) but I have no idea if this is near the actual spelling. Does that phonetic spelling ring a bell, maybe? BTW, in the beginning I figured THIS was the main host of the show because the somewhat "accentuated" sound of the name somehow rhymed much more with the agitated voice of the host (Averty).

Oh, quite a pity. A generation steps down and a page is turned. RIP. I remember his radio show "Les cinglés du Music-Hall" that I often listend to in the early 80s when I lived relatively close to the French border and was able to catch French FM stations on my radio. This is where I got a lot of interesting initial listening exposure to a lot of 20s and 30s music, both French and U.S., both jazz and semi-jazz as it was often to be found in France (I think this is where I first came across the name of Jean Sablon - who was accompanied by the distinctive sound of Django's guitar). A really "extreme" show by any yardstick - it cannot have been often (not at that time and certainly not today) that the presenter would have gotten away with a FULL hour of music by the Abe Lyman orchestra or by a full hour of a zillion different versions of one and the same early 30s hit song by singers male and female, orchestras, combos, French and foreign, etc. And all this mixed with Averty's permanently excited voice who often sounded as if he was about to go overboard at any moment. At least to non-French ears, and particularly due to the contrast with his co-presenter (Jacques something - do you remember his exact name, Brownie?) who seems to have acted as a sort of straight man to Averty's excitement. (A fitting name, BTW - "averty" is virtually the correct word for the French equivalent of "in the know" . )

Well, I was familiar with "OP" from previous Oscar Peterson threads and thought nothing of it here (though normally I am not one to use abbreviations excessively, such as all that YMMV stuff and so on ...), and somehow I was under the impression that what you took to mean "OP" is most frequently referred to as the "thread starter". But I CAN see your point of "double entendre".

Oscar Peterson Original Poster playing .... ha ... Not "the OP". Just "OP". Big difference ... Trying to pull someone's leg?

For a moment I thought he was talking about Jimmy Rushing!