Big Beat Steve

O.K., understood. Including the "fewer things" aspect. I am trying to go that route too, but so far only in my other collecting areas (way outside music) where I am thinning things out slowly and carefully (but definitely). So overall the reduction process so far is a slow one, but at least the maximum has been reached with some of my collections, and in recent times the downsizing process has at least "started".

Wow ... What made you sell the collection you'd built up (no doubt as a result of lots of searching and crate digging and spending) just to start all over again later on, investing again as much effort (and probably money)? Dire need of money? Lack of space? Period of fed-up-ishness? Total change of preferred styles of music? Just wondering and asking out of sheer curiosity. Because that would have been unfathomable for me (for better or worse ).

Thanks for the kind words but my knowledge of such matters is spotty and far, far from comprehensive. In this case I cannot add anything about the liner notes. My copy of "Steamin'" is the earlier German Bellaphon pressing (BJS 4054) of Prestige 7580 (which has liner notes by Chris Albertson date 1968). This was not the only version released there - later OJC reissues used an earlier Prestige cover IIRC. @Niko: Mid-april - OK. But (just to speed up research in Jazz Podium): Which year?

I would have to know which year this is from. I have a complete run of Jazz Podiums from its beginnings in 1952 up to December 1966 (except one single issue from 1965). If it was published later then, sorry, I won't be able to help. I've sold all these (had the issues up to the mid-80s) years ago.

Sad to hear about his death. I had been wondering off and on during the past 4-5 years about their catalog. It seemed like not much at all was still available from Dragon in recent years, and looking at their website now I cannot see any trace of a mail order section anymore. Pity ... will have to look elsewhere for those reissues of 50s and 60s Swedihs jazz that I had passed up in the past.

Thanks everyone. I've sent a PM to "JamesAHarrod". And as for the 45 rpm listings on Jazzresearch, these 45s look like they are more recent than what I am looking for, but yes - it's interesting reading anyway.

Thanks, I had been aware of that site. But this does not show any release info except the original (first) one. And those ads strewn all over the site are a HUGE nuisance!

I am afraid neither Charly nor Bear Family would have been that obliging!

The recent discussions of 10" LPs and 45 rpm EPs on another thread prompted me to raise a question in the same vein: Is there a truly comprehensive discography somewhere (online) that not only gives an overview of all the five Jazz West Coast sampler LPs on Pacific Jazz but also their foreign releases (UK Vogue and French Swing pressings have different catalog numbers) as well as the 45 rpm EPs culled from them? Checking my collection a moment ago, I pulled out 45 rpm EPs of Vols. 3 and 4 from those JWC samplers (German pressings by the German license holder), figuring they were excerpts (i.e. single EPs) presenting selected tracks from each LP. But on looking closer at the back of the sleeves I see that both are marked "Vol. 2". So there must have been more covering the contents of each LP. So it would be interesting to see which EPs actually existed. General discographies (e.g. Bruyninckx) are of not much help because i) EPs aren't always listed, given the multitude of LP and CD releases and reissues that fill the columns in the discographies anyway, and ii) checking all the artists entries from the LP one by one in a discography to see if any artist's tracks from one of these albums are also on a 45 is a long-winding affair. And Discogs is spotty and hit-and-miss too. In short, I wonder if any discographer has ever gone to the trouble of documenting all these formats including foreign releases with that degree of detail. (Paging Mr James Harrod now ... )

You mean those multi-part EPs that came either with (multi-)gatefold covers or as small (7") box sets holding the individual EPs or as separately sold EPs that combined to make up the contents of ONE LP each? But the EPs that Daniel A was aluding to followed a somewhat different marketing path (and filled a corresponding niche): The EPs from Scandinavia and France (above all) sometimes existed as sets of 2, 3 or 4 to make up one LP's worth of music but often did not come as individual multi-EP sets that gave you the entire LP contents if you bought all of the EPs but rather came as EXCERPTS of the corresponding LP. Since vinyl was fairly expensive in Europe throughout the 50s and well into the 60s (a rough estimate based on average hourly wages works out at average prices of about 50 EUR or $50 in today's money for ONE LP!) many companies or distribution license holders figured it would be just as sensible to give the buyers a sampling of the LPs in question by marketing EPs with the contents of about one third of the LP (and an accordingly lower and much more affordable price tag). So for many 12" LPs there also was ONE 45rpm EP with part of the contents. There were many LPs on Prestige, Atlantic or Roost, for example, that had spinoffs in the form of ONE EP on the Metronome or Sonet (et al.) labels.

Actually - from all the record reviews I've read in period Orkester Journalen and Estrad and from those Metronome, Gazell and Sonet 45s I have - the EPs from Scandinavia usually had 4 tracks and played at 45 rpm. 33 rpm 7" records usually had SIX tracks (3 on each side), unless they were used to release particularly long tracks.

As long as you (or others who feel like you) don't get the funny idea of splitting your box sets into individual CDs and let them be disposed of that way. While browsing the CD bins at the record clearance sale at our leading local used record shop last April I came across MANY box sets that had been split into individual CDs that ended up sitting scattered across the entire room full of unsorted CDs for sale. So it took long hours of determined searching the bins to find a maximum of them, but many sets seemed to have been incomplete, with the remainders maybe snapped up by others or tossed into bins not (yet) put up for sale. And sadly the booklets had disappeared. According to the shop owner they had received these "sets" that way 😕. The CDs still were nice finds at 1 EUR each but this WAS annoying. Particularly since they included many interesting items right up my alley: - The Beat Generation (3 CDs - found all three - thanks again to TTK for sending me key excerpts from the booklet) - King Curtis / Blow Man Blow - The Capitol Years (Bear Family) (found all 3 CDs) - Jimmy Red - The Vee Jay Years on Charly (found only CDs #3 and 4 out of 6) - Bo Diddley (12-CD set on Charly - took CDs 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 12 - did not find CD #2 and was not interested in the remaining - incomplete - CDs from this set featuring his post-mid-60s recordings) - The Cadillacs - The Complete Josie Sessions (Bear Family - but found only CD 4 our of 4) Pity ... Even for the seller who probably did not realize (or care) that this definitely reduced the worth of his items.

I must admit I am surprised that at 64 I am still below the apparently "typical" age bracket of the more active forumists. But maybe I was tricked into feeling differently because in my area - among the jazz collectors I personally know - I am one of the older'uns. The other day I tried to arrange a meeting with a guy - my guess is he is in his early to mid-40s - to pass on a handful of LPs he had bought from me. But the proposed meeting did not come to pass because he was busy elsewhere - negotiating a deal to buy a collection of 78s and driving up there to collect it. So not all (collecting) hope is lost, it clearly seems ... And yes - more non-boomer blood is welcome anytime. Can only do the forum a lot of good.

Not very common AFAIK. At least in jazz/rock/blues/country segments from the 50s. The reverse (7" 33s) even were more common. And in absolute terms, that's saying something. Judging by record reviews and release lists, 10" LPs dominated in the US up to, say, 1955, and then a fairly rapid shift to 12" LPs was made. In Europe (e.g. France, a.o.) 10" LPs had a sizable share of the LP market much longer - at least until the early to mid-60s.

Thanks for the link. I had been wondering about what that discography might include too. I have a very early British printing (Peter Davies Ltd.) of that book but it does not provide a discography either. At any rate, a rather balanced listing IMO with few surprises.

I see there are many facets to this problem. Having recently turned 64 I hope "I am not there yet" either but have started scaling down at least a little, starting with my "other" area of collection (late 50s classic cars and all the parts and documents that go with them) and gradually weeding out things. The idea of letting some of the car books go was to free shelf space for my records and music book library, but lately I've every now and then caught myself wondering "Do I really want to add that many more records"? Which does give me the creeps at this time because the enjoyment still IS there - and some kind of "hunting fever" too. But great finds and purchases from the past 2 years made me realize that it would be unwise to encourage my heirs to sell my collection in bulk to a shop. Seeing the prices at which our local #1 record shop sold vinyl and CDs from quite interesting collections in recent times (and no doubt still made a decent profit, though they even let items unsold after a while go into recycling - which I only learned "after the fact" ) I shudder to think what they paid per item for those collections. At any rate, I think my son at least knows what to do and what not to do. His musical interests run in quite different directions but are expanding, and he has caught the collecting bug too. Besides, one of his side jobs during his University days was working in a record store (one of his tasks was to list items on Discogs). So he ought to have some insights. Beyond that, I guess there will be takers (somewhat younger fellow collectors among friends) for at least part of my (real 50s and 50s-style) rock'n'roll, plus country/hillbilly and R&B/blues records. But jazz? Much less likely, alas. Particularly since part of my collection reflects my eclectic and "special" tastes sometimes off the trodden paths of the "usual name suspects". Well, we'll see ...

This should make an interesting NEW topic for sure. Lately I've been thinking about this very question in connection with a number of my collection areas. I am not sure yet if this is cause for serious worry ...

It won't rhyme in English. So one possible (approximate and not very P.C.) rendering would be: "The man likes to play the viola, but the woman just gets a slap in the face" (To understand this in its proprer context, the sense of humor of caricaturist/satirist Manfred Deix always was very, very coarse and decidedly P.I. )

Thanks. At any rate, looks like the Message from Newport and his Newport Suite (plus helpings from his EmArcy catalog and his Birdland Dream Bands on Vik) will do (not just "have to do") for me.

Amazing. How would you characterize that "fan base"?

I wonder if we have lost all the non-German(ophonic) fourmists in these exchanges by now? 😄 But the points raised by you are the core of the problem: There is a lot going on in these areas that is hardly (or not at all) translatable adequately if you really want to capture and reproduce the feel, the insider's terminology or slang and the "vibes" of the original language. Which is what you ought to aim for if such texts are to be translated properly at all. German is not the ideal language for that. And even if you come up with lots and lots of "insider slang" in the target language (that at first sight look like "equivalents") this will often be skewed because the "insider worlds" and the connotations that go with it are not always the same in a different language (see Gheorghe's Austrian-Viennese German example above, for example). So ... better leave well enough alone "and learn some fucking English"!

Though the latter one would be feasible in a passably idiomatic manner: "Er spielte, als ginge es um sein Leben" (He played as if his life depended on it) (to name just one possibility).

Quite right. I happen to be a professional translator (with close to 40 years of professional experience "on my back" - mostly in many areas of engineering and economics but also a fair number of non-fiction books), and honestly - regardless of how interesting the subject matter might be to me personally, I would not have gone out of my way in any attempts to acquire translation assignments for music books (particularly jazz) into German. If it is to be really, really well done, it is a highly demanding and time-consuming task. Though the translation standards for jazz books have improved through the decades on the German market. Some time ago I chanced upon an original copy of the German translation of Sidney Finkelstein's (at the time) influential "Jazz - A People's Music". The German version clearly was well-intentioned but awkward and corny in more ways than one. Though probably not bad, objectively speaking. I have read a few German translations (by leading publishers) from the same (50s) period of novels by Sinclair Lewis - ouch .... Talking about books recently discussed here, the German version of "Hear Me Talkin' To Ya" is relatively acceptable, given the times it was published (and the then prevailing standards in the profession). But the colloquial nature of the original texts may have helped here. I am also one of those who bought Ross Russell's "Bird Lives" back in the 70s, and - fiction or not - it did give me insights, including those parts that "may well have happened that way". (And without wanting to go into greater detail, reports of other documented backstage and off-stage incidents somewhat corroborate the likelihood of some of Russell's fictionalizations) One day in the later 80s I received a German copy of this book (first published in German by Hannibal in 1985) by a well-meaning relative. It WAS readable but IIRC I put it away before I got to the end because compared to the orignal it just was uneven. I still have the book in a corner but have not looked at it in decades. I might pick it up one day if I have a LOT of time to do a private critical comparison with the original. (Yes, "professional deformation", I know ... ) Speaking of Hannibal publishers (of Vienna), for a time in the 90s a lot of their (translated) musician biographies were commonplace at Zweitausendeins. I picked up several of them (Dexter Gordon, Woody Herman, Kenny Clarke a.o. as well as Sally Placksin's Women in Jazz), but again was underwhelmed. In many places you got a distinct feeling the translator was grappling for words, and in some cases missed a finer point that clearly showed that he or she was not sufficiently familiar with the artists or that style of music. Which did not bode well for any trust by the (knowledgeable) reader in the German text. By comparison (again IIRC), the Sally Placksin book had the best translation. Another German one I recently got (my wife was unaware I - of course - already owned the U.S. printing) was the German translation of "Sam Phillips" by Peter Guralnick. This recent publication probably reflects the typical state of the art in the profession and should read well enough to most readers. I am not sure I would have been able to do it vastly better overall (particularly because translators usually have to work against insanely sick publisher's deadlines). Yet the German version has certain quirks that make it sound corny ever so often too, and in some cases there are goofs that - again - make you realize the translator failed to double-check the way he rendered the facts into German (in short, he misunderstood ...). So ... overall I still prefer reading any music books in the orignal language. Be it English or French or any other language I at least know sufficiently well to cope with (Spanish, Swedish). Yet this begs another question: Are English translations always that much better? One jazz book I have been (re-)reading in recent times was/is "Cubano Be Cubano Bop - One hundred Years of jazz in Cuba" by Leonard Acosta. I had started on it after I had bought it in 2007 but put it away as I found the going a bit rough with all that "name calling". But what bothers me in the first place now is the English translation which - personally speaking - grates me more and more (I am about one third through the book now). It just is so convoluted, awkward, stiff and clumsy. Strictly linguistically, what the translator wrote certainly is correct for the most part. But his wording and style just are so stiff, old-fashioned and stilted. My Spanish is relatively rusted up (but not enough to keep me from picking up Jordi Pujol's "Jazz en Barcelona" from time to time) but the more I continue with the Acosta book the more I feel this translator had fallen into the trap of writing Spanish with English words. Very often you literally sense the wording of the Spanish text through his translation. Which is not the way to tackle such a subject in the first place. Because both languages in their structure and typical ways of expessing things fluently really work differently. In short, at least in part a disservice to the subject of the book and a missed opportunity ... Having got all this off my chest , I am now beginning to wonder what those who have read the well-circulated English editions of Joachim E. Berendt's "Jazz Book", for example, have to say about THAT English edition ...

That's the one that came to my mind first when I saw the title of this thread. Classic stuff. A friend had it in our high schol days in the latter 70s, and a couple of years later I got my own copy of it.

About the presumed recording date: Remember this was the state of discographical knowledge as of 1950. Superseded long since. As for the Selmer logo, I am aware the one on the record label is the one used on the instruments. As Selmer used a different (simpler) logo in their magazine ads in 1947/48 (actually using different typefaces here and there), however, these ads are no indicators of when the releases of the records on the Selmer label (using the same Selmer logo) may have started. I have just checked a few more Jazz Hots from that period, and the first one that features the actual Selmer logo in their instrument ads is from March 1949. Now when did releases on the Selmer label actually start and how long after their recording session did "Hawk Variations" stay in the can?