Big Beat Steve

Yes, your own nutshell does make sense. But can you define "types" and "purposes" of music by the time and space the respective category of music "occupies"? Without wanting to go into philosophical contemplations (not my cuppa, really ...), at first sight it seems to me like there must be HUGE overlaps. Can't there be both "cuisine" (gutsy?? ) and "philosophical" (brainy?? ) music that crams its space in time just as full due to different kinds of intenseness (but intenseness in both cases), for example? I may have missed something there but if it boils down to music being perceived (and probably perceived differently?) in terms of how it occupes its space in (its) time, then I am having a hard time of NOT writing that "somebody is stating the obvious".

Maybe if you'd recap in a NUTSHELL (straightforward, no meandering) what the essence of that statement is, then? That might help. And even then I'd probably not see what the final two paragraphs havegot to do with the preceding statements. Who being influenced by whom (or allowing oneself to be influenced) - or not - has got to do what exactly with the "types" and "purposes" of music at large?

Thanks - now I feel a bit better after not having understood much of what this writer may have tried to get at.

Yule Struttin' is in the thread starter's list.

Along the lines of "Jingle Bel Jazz"; I'd also recommend - "Mr Santa's Boogie" (Savoy Jazz SJL 1157, vinyl) - "Hipsters' Holiday" Rhino R2 70910 And then for something a bit different: - Hot Club of San Francisco: "Hot Club Cool Yule" Azica AJD-72242

Nobody willing to discuss this yet? Amazing ... My 2c (though I must admit quite a bit of what that author writes is beyond me and my easy comprehension FWIW) im MY (somewhat more down to earth , no-frills) terms: There is music for the brain and there is music for the guts and there is a time for everything and the two do complement each other (and yes - there are overlaps and the borders sometimes are blurred) To explain (on a strictly personal level that anybody else can agree or disagree with as much as they like - "that's only me" ) for my main styles of music: Modern jazz tends to be for the brain (though I sometimes wonder, for example, if the West Coast jazz I sometimes listen to on a sunny afternoon out in the garden relaxing in my deck chair and sipping some cold drink is only for the brain ) R&B/blues, early jazz, (real) rock'n'roll and hillbilly tend to be for the guts Swing can be both, depending on the artist and recording (but with an overall tendency towards the guts) Again ... just me, just my 2c

This one must be omnipresent here, it seems. I don't have many Giuffre leader records but this is one of the two Giuffre LPs (plus 3 EPs from various other LPs) I have (don't even remember why I bought this one specifically). Must listen to it again occasionally.

I've read one with the same (German) title (and another volume of Vian's collected essays) years ago in its German translation (which sometimes is very good, sometimes is awkward). Some time ago I obtained his "Ecrits sur le jazz" which has the contents of both of these two translated books ("Round About Close to Midnight" I suppose has the same contents as the identically titled German one) plus quite a bit more. I am working myself piecemeal through these close to 700 pages whenever I feel like it now. Vian is a master of language and really has to be read in French if you want toget all the finer points of what he writes. Quite a bit of his style really is just about impossible to translate adequately, although I guess Mike Zwerin would be the one to do as good an English translation as you are probably ever likely to get. And Vian is one that you cannot grasp if you approach him with too much "benefit of hindsight". To do him justice, he really has to be read and understood in the context of his times. Of course some assessments are faulty (both his enthusiasm and his dislikes do go overboard at times ...) and lots of information is outdated (due to lack of background source material and available references, among other reasons) but it is evident that he BURNED for his music and really got into it. That Charlie Shavers piece that you mention must be the one originally published in Jazz Hot No. 75 in March, 1953, and reprinted in these books. Will read it in detail during the weekend (I have the music too - on one of those Onyx LPs). But from what I have seen in glancing over the piece is that this - as usually - is not something to be taken as a documentary opus but as an example of the IMPRESSION that the music left on the listener and capable writer. Again something to be judged in the context of its times. His monthly "Revue de presse" in Jazz Hot was quite something else too. Outspoken in a way you can hardly imagine nowadays, and in its intensity something you have to take in in small doses only. When something grated with him he really took no hostages and luckily he lived at a time when there was no such thing as "P.C." yet. BTW, the Herbie Haymer tracks indeed come from the Sunset label.

@JSngry: Very, very likely. Because Black Beauty White Heat also names Charles Nadell as the photographer. And THEY say they took the pic from the Charlie Christian website. The people at the website might have researched too, I'd guess ...

Reuss with such unkempt curly hair and (relatively) disorderly front teeth? THIS I doubt, in turn ... And according to the usual suspects among biographers Reuss had already been out of the Goodman band for more than one year by the time Christian joined. No conclusive proof but some indication, I'd say ... Another indication according to Bruyninckx is that Covarrubias (artist name Arnold Covey), apart from being present on various big band recordings from July, 1939, to April, 1940, was also present along with Christian at the November, 22, 1939 session of the big band where CC soloed on Honeysuckle Rose. Later withdrawn and superseded by this, according to the fine print in the liner notes. Nice to have both ... The exact picture with Freddie Green shown in the opening post is printed on the back cover of this LP, BTW.

The third person in the top photograph is Arnold Covarrubias. See "Black Beauty White heat", page 288 - unless you distrust captions written by Frank Driggs as a matter of principle. The second guitarist in the bottom photograph must be Freddie Green. His posture is typical. And considering that only Basie-ites (apart from Goodman and Christian) are present in that photograph certainly are pretty clear indices.

Picking up a huge bunch of vinyl at a clearout sale at a local record store the other day, I bought the "Bud Freeman All Stars featuring Shorty Baker" LP (Swingville 2012) recorded in 1960. Shorty Baker impressed me quite a bit. Nice discovery!

Now since this thread came up again after all these years ... An addition - better late than never ... So WHICH track by the Eddie Beal combo (feat Eric Dolphy) is this, then? The soundtrack LP of that movie (Mercury MG 20293) is/was available again more recently as a facsimile LP duplicating the original cover. No idea where it came from and who reissued it - but it does not look like any of the Spanish reissues at all as no mention of Fresh Sound (or any other reissuer) is to be found anywhere, neither in the fine print nor anwhere on the label which duplicates the original Mercury label (minus the "deep groove", of course). Might well have been a shady reissue done by some small "entrepreneur" within the 50s rock'n'roll/rockabilly subculture in the 80s.

Trying to narrow down the timeframe: The Bud Powell recordings from that session were on Roost 509, 513, 518 and 521. The Stan Getz session recorded on May 15, 1950 was released on Roost 512, 516 and 522. Some of the tracks from his session of December 10, 1950 were released on Roost 520 and 522. Assuming that Roost released their 78s sequentially in the numbering order and not with HUGE intervals between each release, the first Bud Powell release is unlikely to date long before spring, 1950, and 521 cannot have been released before the very end of 1950 at the earliest.

Science (or "facts") doesn't win listeners over. Individual, personal perceptions (including perceptions of sound) do.

@JSangrey: Yes, friendly I hope too, and keeping within certain limits. @Paul Secor: No comment about deleting posts (I will have to delete my reply to you above too, then, because it has lost its meaning now) but sorry if I was unable to get across to you that statement that was intentionally poignant (and - yes - exaggerated) to bring out the gist of the problem. I appreciate country blues as much as most others but to the exclusion of most everything else in blues?? As all too many were apt to do for a long time? All those old (and preferably "rediscovered") black artists were touted as the latest word in every imaginable way for quite some time. And beyond that - a very, very narrow line was drawn by some of those "powers that be of the blues scene" for all too long about what was "commercial" (as if the old blues bards in their time had not been out to make a buck or two with their music and please their buying listeners too) and "not worthy of serious interest". You had to be (relatively) old and rough to be "the real thing". Joe Williams (as opposed to Big Joe, of course)? Charles Brown? Percy Mayfield? Ivory Joe Hunter? "Commercial!" And so on and so on. Or Roy Milton or Joe Liggins or Louis Jordan (heaven beware!) or whoever else in that vein? Musical competence above a certain level seeemed to speak against the artists, regardless of whether those who were being touted instead "could't play shit" (to quote some Detroit R&B musicians re- John Lee Hooker as per "Before Motown" - note I am ONLY quoting, not agreeing, though I see where they came from). And it was in those circles of "advanced" listeners and collectors that I heard reservations about Mose Allison (to bring things full circle) - rather along the lines of "neither flesh nor fowl" and "white man has no point singing the blues like that". Stated by WHITES who probably thought of themselves as being at the forefront of "true" blues connoisseurs. And, sorry to say, no doubt,reflecting a tendency even among scribes of where the priorities were supposed to be. Just look at what Leadbitter EXCLUDED expressly from the first edition of his discography. No matter how highly I valued his discography at that time for what it was it made me cringe for what it was NOT (as I had taken an interest in what might labeled R&B in the wider sense at an early stage). Hope I have been able to make my point NOW.

- deleted - immaterial now.

Not even getting into THIS use of the word "clever" which I find just utterly silly, I was half expecting a response like this ever since this thread started because I have heard these feelings by some too (a long time ago). Probably people who like their lives heavy and crude. In their case it was a matter of blues (or blues-like music) being only acceptable if sung in croaky voices by old men sitting in the gutter. Unfortunately not all that rare an attitude among a certain category of European blues fanatics at that time.

Yes, I think those Prestige twofers had a profound effct on all of us who got started in the 70s. As for being "covered by The Who", actually my first exposure to Mose Allison's repertoire was listening to "Parchman Farm" as played (a bit uptempo) by The Nashville Teens (a Brit-R&B group who covered the song in 1964 for Decca). The lyrics just stuck because by that time I had already read a bit about the history of Parchman Farm in various country blues books (thank you, Paul Oliver! ) Then some time later I heard Mose Allison's original on the radio and was .... well, intrigued ("So this is where they got it from") by this uncanny mix of "white jazzman singing and playing the blues in a way that is neither white nor black".

Strange. Label-wise, to me Mose Allison rhymes with Prestige. (Yes, my focus is on his earlier works, and what I've head I really enjoy) RIP

Seconded. Thumbs up!

As usual in these matters, you did a fine job, MG! This thread seems to have passed me by in September (in fact I was busy otherwise on 22 and out of town most of 23) but your post certainly deserves some forum reaction. And say what you want about those honkers, they added to the language, to the immediacy and to "connecting with the people" - and just in case any detractors step up: At least they screeched in tune and with the beat - which cannot be said of a certain brand of "avantgarde" saxists.

Bobby Jaspar died in early 1963. How "free" did he become in his playing towards the end of his life? These would have been VERY early examples of French free jazz. According to the discographies, Hot Time, Quiproque, Et Monk? and Fast Fats (sic!) were recorded by a Jef Gilson septet (includig Bobby Jaspar) in October, 1958, and Mode Azul was recorded "c. 1960" by another Jef Gilson group (without Jaspar). None of the two lineups include Byard Lancaster. So these tunes originated in pre-free jazz days. The first group has Roger Guerin, Fernand Verstraete (tp), Louis Fuentes (tB), Bobby Jaspar (ts), Walter Davis jr (p). Doug Watkins (b), Art Taylor (dr), Jef Gilson (arr, cond). Acc. to Bruyninckx, these sessions were orignally released under Art Taylor's name (on the Spirit Jazz label sometime in the 60s). The second one has Jean Liesse (tp), Jean-Louis Chautemps (tS), Jef Gilson (p), Guy de Fatto (B), Robert Barnet (dr), Georges Kirsch (cga). The credits given by Discogs seem to be very misleading (again ).

Does that unknown recording sound more like a club gig or like an after-hours jam session? I've searched high and low through the Swedish, French and German jazz mags I have from October, November and December 1959 and have found nothing whatsoever about any club dates by the Messengers beyond the major concerts named in the online Blakey discography. No advance publicity, no listings in concert/club tour schedules, in fact very, very sparse advance promo even for the concert hall events for this tour (except in the French mags which did a BIT more promotion) by a major group like this. And no club dates listed anywhere.

It's still a bit rough for the part of the tour that the purported Danish recordings come from: There also are: Nov. 24, 1959: Göteborg, Sweden Nov. 25, 1959: Copenhagen, Denmark As for the unknown recording, though I have not heard it, of course, I am a bit puzzled by Mikeweil's post above which I think initially brought up the question of Copenhagen as a possible venue. I am not sure if I got his post right. So it has been established that the subsequent tracks definitely are not 1959? Refering to this statement, the first 4 tracks of the cd on dime are what's known as "KB-Hallen", Copenhagen, Denmark, November 5, 1959. on this cd the above is listed as 11/18/59 dusseldorf. the rest of the cd is the mystery tape "11/19/59 dusseldorf". The first 4 tracks apparently incorrectly listed as 11/18/59-düsseldorf, then, but in fact listed in discographies as 11/05/59-copenhagen (which cannot be the correct date either) should be quite different aurally, shouldn't they, from the mystery tracks, accordng to what others have said here about the period when those tunes were likely to feature in their "book" and who sounds like whom (or not)? Just trying to figure this out ...