Big Beat Steve

Did James Cagney pose for the cover artwork??

Too bad. The subject would have been very interesting to me too.

I could. Easily. And enjoying it. You might want to read itwhile far away from home, e.g. on holiday at a far away place after having covered a good stretch of road.

Sounds familiar. There are collectors and DJs around here who have been doing 78rpm-only record hops at swing/lindy hop dancing events and, in a different part of that subculture, at "roots music" nights (featuring mostly a mix of 40s/early 50s R&B/Western Swing/honky tonk discs) for quite a few years, both on the Continent and in the UK. I.e. programmed strictly within a coherent stylistic framework and not some "what have you". I've even heard of some hardcore collectors who will do DJ programs for even more specialized tastes, including one collector who will vary his record programming as a DJ between "swing music for dancing" on 78s only (but limited to European pressingsbecause that is what this one's collection is (mostly) all about) or even "German/European swing bands on 78s only"! Compared to this, those 50s rockabilly/real rock'n'roll (i.e. "real" meaning pre-c.1962, PRE-teen idols/pre-Beatles/pre-Brill building fare only) DJs who spin their wax using 45s on original 50s pressings only, are comparatively mild and moderate. Could it be that Europe has had the edge of the U.S. in collecting nichedom again? I've often found this kind of programming a bit too restrictive because hardly anybody could possibly have all that huge and wide a collection of originals that would enable him to cover the entire range of music (that DID get recorded in those favorite styles) that would deserve to be heard (again), not to mention all those recordings that remained unissued at the time and only saw the light of day in the CD era (and contain some real gems for these record hops). But there IS some special fascination to listening to those recordings coming from the REAL "period" sources. Not to mention the fact that back in the day the DJs could not handle such a huge range of recordings either that has become all too easily accessible in the CD and digital file era. And seeing a "DJ" (bit'n'byte-J, actually) doing his "DJ"ing via a laptop is just a total turnoff ...

I am not that big a fan of "revival" oldtime jazz that started in the late 40s and only pick up the occasional records of that style of jazz here and there when I feel like it, and though Pete Fountain was a familiar name from my early collecting days in the mid-70s I never sought out his records actively (probably due to reasons a bit like those mentioned by Jeffcrom). Then a couple of years ago I found clean original pressings of "Pete Fountain on Tour" and "Pete Fountain Day" on U.S. (purple) Coral at a giveaway price at a local record store clearout sale (at a price at which you just cannot go wrong, particularly if it is original 50s pressings). And I must say I was very pleasantly surprised. There was much more to him than to those of the actual "recreationist" faction and to me he was one fo those who proved that you can indeed say something new in a style that at first sight has had its heyday long before. This has led me to reading up on him here and there to find out more about the appraisal of his music, and last year I picked up a reissue CD of his 1956 "High Society" sessions at another clearout sale. Nice too (though I like "Pete Fountain Day" better. R.I.P.

Prior to that it was reissued in the "Arista" period of the label on a Savoy single LP ("Solo Piano", SJL 1124) at the same time that all those twofers mentioned earlier were reissued.

IMHO the point is is that of course this is a judgment that is way off base because it postulates an absolute truth - i.e. people just HAVING to be mentally ill if they like music such as late Coltrane. This of course isn't so. Statements like that just are an insult - that's evident and bad enough. But making this a "moral" issue? Ho hum ... You are really getting on slippery ground there. Opinions on music are largely a matter of taste and of what one expects to hear in this or that music, and "absolute truths" will have to stand scrutiny of whether they can be "truths" at all. OTOH just look around among your fellow critic scribes (including self-professed ones) and see how many there are out there who, for example, have found this or that style of rock just "kids stuff" or worse, "music for the mentally retarded" (by YOUR yardstick this is bound to be just as morally inacceptable). Or those who see only the abstract, avantgarde, "high art", "far out" (to use a colloquial term) jazz as really the only jazz remaining today worthy of "serious" (double entendre of that word intended ) consideration and find any more immediately accessible (and, in a certain way, technically more simple) styles of jazz to be musically secondary or even worthless, particularly if played today (and therefore - in the opinion of those critics - reeking of nothing but "reproduction", "copyism" instead of "creativity" - whatever that means, actually ...). "WORTHLESS"? Comes not far below the inacceptability ranking of what McDonough said IMHO. Because it passes judgment in a way that just goes beyond what amounts to different tastes and into what sounds - again - like an absolute truth. Which it cannot be. The same battle, BTW, that for decades has been waged by critics from the field of classical music against jazz. Much to the outrage of jazz partisans (not least of all because it was matter of apples and oranges). So jazz critics of today ought to know much better (no, I am not adressing you personally but rather "your profession"). Say you don't like it, say it doesn't strike a chord with you, say you fault it for this or that technical ("craftsmanly" ) reason (difficult again ...), but don't say - EVER - it's "worthless" or similarly un"worthy" of appreciation.

Marcel, let's put it this way: One thing (post) led to another and there you are in the middle of an exchange on who worte what about whom and how relevant or of lasting value it is. And as for what this has got to do with the Bill Savory colection, remember one of the starting points was that apparently the Bill Savory recordings contain an inordinately high proportion of Benny Goodman recordings. So Savory seemed to have been extremely fond of his music. Which cannot even be said of all those who embrace swing-era jazz wholeheartedly. And doesn't this make for an all too easy starting point for discussions of the relative merits of this or that musician (and eventually of this or that critic who writes about these msucians or others)? Just one of those things you know ... it wouldn't be the first topic to take a detour before getting back on track eventually ...

Of course I cannot claim having read as much as you have of all this but I still I think I see what you are getting at. I brought up Frazier's name just because when I read this Metronome piece of 1955 recently it struck me how Bill Coss accused him (certainly not without reason) of more or less the same things that are held against McDonough here - whose attitude I think I can imagine because I have encountered people like this elsewhere. Though I won't necessarily it hold it against him that he'd have preferred to live in some different era just in order to be closer to his other preferences in life (admttedly I feel like that a bit too - to a lesser degree and more in my preferences for the styles and everyday culture of those times but certainly not for life in those times as such). The world of today and of recent times provide you with enough reasons to want to escape. Yet this should NOT blind you to the drawbacks that come invariably with such wishes. Would he really have wanted to live through the Depression, the war and into McCarthyism or maybe have found himself on the "wrong side of the tracks"? If he forgot the overall realities beause he became too submerged in his dreams and failed therefore, then ... well ... As for his assessment of latter-day Coltrane ... today this may sound like it came from a different decade (when the times were not yet rife for full appreciation) but what is the actual blame? Just missing the point? Much like what some of today's jazz writers seem to have to say about jazz from much earlier decades where they engage in much the same kind of dismissal of those who go out of their way in their enthusiasm for that (relatively) early jazz? Or is it "heresy" what McDonough is blamed for there?

Must say I am a bit puzzled. It includes quite a few of the obvious, but like Danasgoodstuff says, it is all too Blue Note-centric (and BN from a specific period at that). Nothing against that - some of those deserve a rating if such a list would make sense AT ALL, but how anybody can establish an "of all times" list if the very starting point is (by his own admission) a very narrow one due to lack of exposure to what's beyond that (and there is PLENTY) is purely beyond me. Jazz definitely is more than hard bop and a bit of token styles around that. And then, some of those entries appear to be a bit based on hearsay and what is "supposed" to be considered great. Domnérus et al's "Jazz pa Stampen" as the sole entry of "Eurojazz" among the "alltime greats"? Oh come on ... It's nice enough but I'd rather consider it "pleasant" all round, but not sensational. Definitely good enough to make it onto quite a few people's desert island lists, but beyond that? And I doubt even more so that any latter-day work by any of the bigger names would make it fairly far up into such a list if OBJECTIVE criteria (such as the stylistically definite of influential or even groundbreaking character of the music, for example) were applied - to the extent possible at all. And finally, with all due respect, 10 Hank Mobleys among the "Top 100" is just plain ridiculous in any such "all time great" list. This is wildly skewed and out of all proportion. So I really am at a loss as to what this list is out to accomplish. Quite apart from the fact that once you get into reissues from the pre-LP era (such as the Fats Navarro and Lester Young KC sides included a bit up the list - not items I'd dispute, BTW, if you have to narrow down your choices somewhat), you'd have to go ALL the way to cover the pre-LP era, otherwise there never will be any such thing as an "of all times" list if THIS is omitted.

And this is how George Frazier came into the picture, i.e. McDonough's liking for George Frazier now seen as another facet to confirm that he is way off base? Maybe because there was a parallel? Frazier's merits being overshadowed by his latter-day controversional attitude? The picture drawn of his earlier writing days in the "Boston Jazz Cronicles" (and in other sources) reads rather favorably, and then Bill Coss saw fit to call him to order in his column in the June, 1955 issue of "Metronome": "In his early Boston days, he was enormous fun, an uncompriomising enemy of the pompous, a perceptive observer of mores ..." But now (1955) "he is an anachronism in our field. He writes about jazz in a frame of reference long past. His writing is a specimen from the 1920s, singing a song of hedonism, however elegantly dressed ...sounding like a cocktail party hippy despite the dry vermouth of his style." Sounds familiar? I'd bet. "Bow-tie contrarian" meeeting "cocktail party hippy"? Wonder what Coss would have said about Orkester Journalen's columnist Leif Anderson from the same period (who was firmly in the camp of Stanley Dance, Albert McCarthy and other mainstreamists) and was not afraid of calling the bluff of some of the hard bop "emperor's clothers" marketing hullaballoo of those days. Maybe not what has since come to be the "accepted" (and almost mandatory) way of thinking ("terms of references"??) but though his points sometimes are debatable and need to be taken with a grain of salt here and there (like EVERY critic's), being interested in most styles of jazz from that era I find Anderson's thoughts often refreshing and thought-provoking in their "against the grain" stance, even after all these decades.

You put your smilie a bit far down but I would have understood your point (and the one before) anyway (and you mine too, I suppose). Isn't it nice how you can use such a "one word fits all" nonsense word for some 60s-style imaginary futurist technology and then even use it in its real sense within the plot of one episode? Truly "one word fits all". Too bad this particular episode probably never was shown on the screen here (I did not view all of them when they were current o TV here in the 70s but recall a few "time warp" (ah, there it is again, that word! ) episodes, including more than one plotted in the oh so mythical "wild west", but not that one)

Any connection to the "WARP DRIVE" they mentioned in those Star Trek episodes?

Not any different here (see below). But regardless of what "furniture" the record players were put into, record CHANGERS semed to be the thing (and seemed to meet a demand), and apparently the US were more faddish in that respect if they continued to press double LPs for changers well into the 70s.

The really odd thing was that they must have sold record CHANGER turntables by the TRAINLOAD in the U.S. because almost all the double (or more) LP sets I ever came across (and even multiple EP sets) were U.S. pressings (not just from the 50s but up to 70s pressings) whereas I hardly ever saw any German, U.K. or French pressings of double LPs sets arranged like that. Although record changers were marketed widely here too (judging by period radio dealer catalogs and by what you still find at garage sales). As for those records still playing, a friend still uses his 50s record changer turntable (in keeping with most of the other furniture in their apartment) to spin his (mostly more recently pressed) vinyl, often putting them on in stacks of 3 or 4, and each year at his birthday party I cringe every time they ask me to "deejay" (i.e. to change the platters on that thing ...)

So you were one of those too who appreciated that odd combination of sides on double LPs (and more)? Sides 1 and 4 on one disc, sides 2 and 3 on the other. Or even odder if you spin multiple-LP albums (pulled out the "The Kenton Era" 4-LP box set this afternoon and the spread of the sides is even weirder there. Side 1 back to back with side 8, sides 2 and 7 together, etc. (Yes I know why this is so but in the world of TODAY's turntables where you don't STACK your LPs this IS odd ...)

My deck arm is surprisingly tolerant too, including edge warps (some of then obviously caused by past localized heat exposure). I have cured (well, improved significantly so the remaining warp didn't matter anymore) some warps in the past by the method that Kevin Bresnahan describes - careful application of heat (in my case over an electrical heating radiator) so that the record feels not really hot but "hey, this is getting a bit warm" and then storing it horizontally with a couple of phone books (or 10 copies of "Black Beauty White Heat"?? ) on top. Has worked both on dish warps (relatively straightforward but patience required) and edge warps (difficult and LOTs of patience as well as - sometimes - repeated attempts required). Strangely, I have seen the opposite happen to me on a 78! A copy of a Nellie Lutcher 78 on Capitol that I had stored upright along with others in one of those wire racks fashionable from the 50s became so warped after a couple (few, really) years' storage that it became unplayable. And not even any heat exposure to blame it on! I've never seen anything like this happen before, though in earlier years I had stored loads of 78s that way (a practice I have given up long ago, though mostly due to lack of storage space). An attempt at careful straightening/flatteing resulted in a hairline crack. Luckily I got another copy of that one in a bulk purchase some 10 years ago and also have it on vinyl.

I did try to take your point (of Krupa coming from an earlier stylistic period that he never quite abandoned) into consideration and basically I agre wiht what you say. I can only give my own personal (subjective) judgment (that of a fan/collector/listener, not a critic) that to my ears and feel Krupa just weighs things down instead of lifting them up. Admittedly I associate "lifting the rhythm up" with more emphasis on the cymbals. And even if you do not focus on cymbals, the way Chick Webb, for example, propelled his bands along without resorting to cymbal-heavy drumming (that might be considered "progressive" in this sense) is a totally different class by itself. And comparing these two at least to MY ears exemplifies the difference between "driving along" and "clobbering". I think I see what you mean with Krupa's interjections/decorations but compared to Webb who "pushes straight ahead" Krupa often sounds oh so "stationary" (or "running in circles" if you will) to me. I am aware of the "progressive" narrative and am trying to keep this in mind to try to appreciate the music the way it was meant to be when it was made and for example, am bored rather quickly by a lot of latter-day old-time ("dixieland") jazz recordings that claim to bring back the mood of that era but rely on drummers who ride the cymbals like mad. But here we are talking about recordings from an era not that far away from Chicago jazz, and Dave Tough, for example, who came from Chicago too, DID develop into a somewhat lighter and flexible touch, didn't he? And I don't think this was to the detriment of his artistic personality. Now as for drummers rooted in Chicago jazz and STAYING there, for some reason (from what I have heard anyway) George Wettling, for example, just handles this in a less burdensome and more fitting manner (to MY taste, though probably colored by the fact that his swing-era recording settings were more traditional by swing-era standards). Just my 2c and just a subjective opinion, but just trying to explain why I often just find Krupa sort of "out of tune" with his surroundings.

I remember that corner, though only one particular visit when that corner was stacked with 78 rpm records in any significant number (mostly semi-jazz dance bands and loads of vocalist-led recordings, though, at first sight, and no alubms to speak of). but it may have been at that time that I discovered a box of grubby (but cleanable) 78 rpm ALBUMS sitting in a corner almost UNDER the stairs. No records inside anywhere - probably albums they received after the records had broken or with broken records inside. Some nice bebop-era albums in there I would have loved to buy for the artwork alone , but alas the albums were not for sale at that time.

Uh oh ... while I can enjoy these recordings for what they are, they are one of those examples where I really see why a lot of fans and experts of music from the 78 rpm era state that music originally issued on 78s ought to be listend to "the 78 rpm way" - one piece at a time, and not on an LP (or CD) in one go all the way (though they usually refer to early blues or country music when they say so). Those trio and quartet session do tend to wear me out if listened to in LP servings in one go - mainly for Gene Krupa's insistent clobbering (at almost anything above ballad tempo) that to me just drags things down (give me Jo Jones or Big Sid Catlett - for example - any time - and am I the only one who somehow feels Dave Tough brought more nuances to drumming in those BG small group settings than Krupa ever did?). Yet Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton usually save they day for me, but in the long run I still prefer the sextets

I saw several copies of this 78 rpm set pass through eBay (at prices beyond my reach or being outbid each time) in the mid-2000s. Not long after that I found a fairly clean "first-generation" (i.e. period issue) LP version (same cover but of course none of the pictures that make up the "album" of the 78rpm set and grabbed that one. I'd definitely have sprung for the item at Mole Jazz that Sidewinder mentioned.

Disregarding for a moment what this fellow wrote and just concentrating on what by his own admission just was his preferred style of jazz on a PERSONAL level, that just makes him the antipode to all those "jazz" fans out there (and if you are being honest you will admit that there are quite a few of them around these days, including on forums) to whom anything older in jazz than hard bop is just "old hat" in jazz and a sort of "trad jazz" anyway - not just swing, but anything originally recorded in the 78 rpm era. "Bird? Why bother, I have Jackie McLean. etc. etc., and besides, Bird did not record for Blue Note, so ... " (Yes I am exaggerating but I guess you get the attitude I am referring to ) A bit like building your house from the 4th floor on up with nothing underneath. Don't you think that such a house is fairly likely to crumble before long? As opposed to those who for whatever reason choose not to build their house beyond 3rd floor. They won't be able to take in quite interesting views they'd get if they were to venture higher up but at least they do live on a somewhat more solid foundation. Just a case of limitations of a different kind but not more limited than those who give short shrift to "earlier" styles of jazz, particularly if enjoyed (and played) long after their heyday. Anyway ... don't be that dismissive of those who make an effort to take in the whole era and environment of their favorite music. Even though misinformed nostalgia may cloud their judgment at times, something worthwhile may come of it if you really do your homework research-wise and LEARN. Many of those who have eventually done fine research on past times and events have developed along these lines. Which cannot be said of some of those who have approached the subject with an overly scholarly and formalistic attitude. As for George Frazier, if you disagree (understandably) at least you could have mentioned Frazier's involvement with Down Beat (which puts things on an ever so slightly different level). And if Richard Vacca's "Boston Jazz Chronicles" are anything to go by, Frazier DID champion jazz both in Boston and in his work for DB to quite some degree during those years. As for Frazier being a favorite writer, well, "favorite" is one thing, but does this necessarily equal "greatest writer"? Mileages (and tastes) vary (personal preferences too) but if this fellow is firmly in a swing groove (or call it swing rut if you want) then one might just argue why George T.Simon is not in that favorite league (but is this what you were getting at? ). BTW, as far as period writing on the swing era is concerned, would those rate higher in your esteem who would have wished Otis Ferguson had lived longer? The bottom line: Tastes differ, and what has come to be "accepted knowledge" too. Yet sometimes it can be very helpful (to better understand after all) to bypass that "accepted knowledge" and refer to past events as seen in the light of their times and THEN draw your own conclusions. +1 I probably can do without most of the BG stuff (though I am not in the anti-BG field but there just is SO MUCH by him already) but am pretty sure I would take the plunge for mp3s too if no other format ever materializes. Particularly the Basie/Young/Evans sessions and the jam sessions mentioned earlier in this thread.

I know you didn't. But i imagine others may have tended to think so.

+1 And his records for Bethlehem, Contract and Criterion are very nice too. Bud Powell-inspired - yes, but no clone. There was more to him.

Very nice, and no doubt that waitress has earned it, and you have every right to be proud of your credentials that you evidently have in the musicians' community. And in the end everyone benefits from the entire effort. Thumbs up.