Big Beat Steve

Actually several albums' (three 10-inch LPs) worth of music. ;)

A random note about jazz musicians looking down on (down-home) bluesmen: The "Before Motown" book about jazz and R&B in Detroit has statements by black jazz and R&B musicians from the early 50s that clearly put down John Lee Hooker, stating "he couldn't play shit".

Yes I guess this was a sign of the times, though I wouldn't call it intentional ignoring but just different priorities regarding importance. And I'd venture a guess that the inclusion of so many second or third-rate (white) big bands from post-war years (that may be fine to include for completists but a bit of overkill and leading to a distinct bias if they are included to the exclusion of other, more notable black bands) reflects the personal experience and career of Leo Walker who probably was in the midst of things in the years after WWII. But of course the 40s/50s were a time when you often still had a blind spot when it came to what happened "across the tracks". Overall, with all the books out there the information you have available TODAY is quite O.K. (and internet helps too ;)), though of course the IN-DEPTH history of black territory bands still is not covered THAT well. There IS one book that balances the score somewhat: "SWING OUT - Great Negro Dance Bands", by Gene Fernett, first published in 1970 and reprinted later with unchanged contents (except for an "updated" cover). Certainly far from exhaustive but very nice in the way it is done - if you can live with the fact that we take information for granted in this world of the internet that was hard or impossible to come by in those pre-internet days. OTOH the fact that 1970 was a time when many of the old bandleaders were still there to be interviewed helps too, of course

NOW I know why Gringott's struck me as so unmistakably British and why I felt I had experienced that atmosphere myself before! That said, I cannot complain about the depth of their stocks. My hit rate during my stopovers there in the 90s was comparatively high.

Yes, Dave, these are the ones I was thinking of. But also this one: "The Big Band Almanac" by Leo Walker published by Ward Ritchie Press, Gardena, CA (at least the 1978 first printing I have was; later editions if those existed - may have been published elsewhere) The book complements George T. Simon's book well, though I have a feeling that the author is a bit biased towards white and commercial (not necessarily very jazz-minded) big bands and digs deeply into what was left in the way of big bands after 1945. Or to put it another way, all the bigger names among the black big bands are there, of course, but the coverage of the white bands is much more in-depth, right down to really obscure or local bands. Example: The (black) Floyd Ray band (a fine swing band, though underrecorded) does not figure there but Barney Rapp and Carl Ravazza are (right where his entry might have been too) - huh?? A useful book anyway ... And for somebody interested in the music of that period (particularly if not only all-out jazz big bands) they are all pretty essential reference works. P.S. Re-Guy Lombardo, no put-down intended, his commercial success speaks for itself, but don't expect him to rate highly among those who favor swinging (JAZZ) big bands. All I meant to say (using him and Horace Heidt as examples) was that during the swing era jazz (i.e. the swing style of jazz) was indeed pop music but not all pop music played during that era was swing. See?

No, it definitely was not Foyle's. I did shop at Foyle's during my stays in '75, 75 and 77 and a.o. bought Ross Russell's "Bird Lives" as well as Bill C. Malone's "Country Music USA" there. Not sure that I was stumped by the way they arranged their books because I remember I had no trouble finding these two books coming from totally different publishers (and was very pleased with my finds, particular with the latter which I had perused at the local Amerika Haus library prior to that trip). But now that you quote it I seem to remember that multiple queuing before taking away the books and heading down in their rattletrap elevator. Overall Foyl'es hadn't changed that much when I went there again throughout the 90s. The shop I mentoined above (possibly on Regent Street) was totally different - huge, much more modern sales area on the ground floor. No multiple stories to the best of my recollections.

I KNOW we'll never get a box set along these lines... Yet offhand I'd not mind such a box set that includes THESE, for example: LD 045 Willie The Lion Smith LD147 Raymond Le Sénéchal Sextet: Modenr Jazz in Paris LD182 Alix Combelle avec Buck Clyaton LD 184 Geo Daly LD 203 Beryl Booker with Don Byas LD 209 Frank Foster LD 212 Fats Sadi Other reissues may already exist but these might not be the most "obvious" choices for such box sets and might therefore fill some gaps worth filling .

You are probably right but what I meant is another box in THIS format compiled in order to plug holes. Honestly, casual buyers would not notice (some of the material of #1 is already too obscure for superficial listeners-in anyway) and advanced collectors would enthuse ...

Oh yes, some of them do push sales, but haven't they been out in that BLACK "Original masters" series of the late 90s or in other formats that aren't totally unavailable? Do we collectors (who aren't all newbies) want duplicates ALL the way? The first box was fine, despite the duplications with what one (even as a non-completist) had and many of its CDs serve well as fodder for the CD player in my car, but another one with even more overlap? Not really ... Fill the (reissue) GAPS, you Vogue people! (Yes I know I'm being unreasonable and unrealistic but it just had to be said at least once ...) You know what? Somebody ought to get them to do a CfD (Club francais de Disque - French equivalent of Jazztone) box set! They did some pretty nice and unfairly overlooked sessions and 10in LPs back then, ...

Indeed. There would be a lot of proper Vogue 10-inch (or even 12-inch) LPs from that period released back then (beyond all the Bechets ;)), some probably never before reissued, but that would make this really a "Eurojazz" box (remember the first box also included a bit of U.S. headliner acts) and therefore would require compilers and producers who are much, much more ambitious and not afraid to target NICHE markets even WITHIN the "jazz niche market" instead of the big names.

Re- St. Martin's Lane: I remember Honest Jon's only from his site far up Portobello Road. The only record shop in St. Martin's Lane I remember was James Asman's (but that was in the 90s so I don't really know about his previous activities). Not only judging by the shopping bags, James Asman (specializing more in oldtime jazz and early dance bands, at least in the 90s) seemed to cooperate with Mole Jazz in a way. One time I made my rounds at the London shops in the 90s I bought two of the three Hampton Hawes All Night Session LPs (having previously read about them in Ted Gioia's book) as very clean U.K. originals (on Vogue). And lo and behold, on the very same day I found the third volume of these recordings (U.K. Vogue original too) in the "mixed bag" bin at James Asman's - with a somewhat more worn cover but fine, glossy vinyl. And at one quid who was I to complain? As if Mole had unloaded some of their "not quite good enough" stock at Asman's.

I think a VERY close look at the individual discs that make up this set would be in order. I doubt too much of this was originally recorded for Vogue. To me, most of it sems to be Vogue issues of U.S. recordings leased at the time for the French market. So probably quite redundant today. Browsing the list briefly without doing any discographical research, the Stan Getz tracks look like his Roost recordings to me, Charlie Christian of course is the oft-recycled Esoteric LP, discs 6 to 8 look like the Dial masters recycled, the R&B men come from King. The Miles Davis CD reads like his Blue Note 10-inchers (a lot of the Blue Note 5000-series LPs were issued on Vogue with different cover artwork at the time, and BN in turn released some Vogue recordings in the 5000 series) and Lester Young looks like some Savoy and Aladdin combined, right? Maybe interesting to see how France got exposed to these U.S. artists at the time but I doubt there is much you don't already have in other guises and/or need badly if you don't. I think I'll pass this one up. Too much too often recycled elsewhere there IMHO.

Yes you can get mixed up in your memories about those shopping places you visited (musing about missed opportunities ..). One place I cannot recall exactly but which left a deep impression on me at the time (1977) was a book shop that was a bit outside the inner city streets "littered" with record shops. IIRC it was one of the major north-south streets runnig off Oxford Street - possibly Regent Street or New Bond Street. I think it had a record corner (though no jazz or blues I remember) and also music instruments but a huge section of music books (second only - probably - to the Bloomsbury Book Shop or - later on - the Compendium Bookstore in Camden Town where I regularly left money in the 90s until unaffordable leases forced them to close). What I remember about that bookstore I visited in 1977 was not only the huge range of (for the time and for me) "esoteric" specialist books on blues and roots music (and jazz too, I think). I bought two of the Studio Vista paperback blues books (series edited by Paul Oliver, I think) on Tommy Johnson and Charley Patton (which I still have today) though I did not get any number of their recordings until quite a few years later. And this shop also had loads of different music magazines, starting with Blues Unlimited and the like but also including what would best be described as "under the counter fanzines" such as the legendary early rockabilly mag "Not Fade Away". Incredible to me as a 17-year old non-Brit that such specialist publications existed at all, and too bad I visited that place during the final days of my stay there, so not much money left ... Anybody remember what this place might possibly have been?

That rules out the "The Works of Duke" LP series that French RCA did of all this material (incuding alternates -which were not exceedingly many) in the 70s/80s on 24 individual LPs (repackaged in five box sets - the first four with 5 LPs each, the final one 4 LPs). For those interested, it was marketed worldwide, it seems, and might still crop up in secondhand bins here and there. In fact at a recent local clearout sale a lot of them cropped up here at 2.50 euros each (so I finally was able to get that single LP - Vol. 17 - that I was still missing). BTW, would it be possible to get all the 'Chronological Classics" CDs at all without incurreing major costs, now that they have been deleted for quite a few years? A lot of CDs from this series go for insane prices on the secondhand market. This may not affect Ellington but who knows ...?

Re- this statement on the blog linked above ... Dealing mainly in jazz, folk, blues and world music they had, as indicated in the flyer on the left, a shop in New Oxford Street and also the basement of a bookshop in the Charing Cross Road. During the 1970's, they moved to bigger premises in Charing Cross Road, close to the Astoria. ... could it be that the record shop I remember visiting on the ground floor of a corner building a few steps away from Foyle's books in 1976-77 was Collet's?

That happened to me once at Mole's: Erroll Garner's "Concert By The Sea". A recording that somehow sounded much better through that P.A. than the individual tracks I must have heard on the radio LONG before. As for Dobell's, the above-linked blog has a picture of a Dobell's corner shop front that I cannot recall at all (though I do remember a record shop like this under a different name at a streetcorner just a few steps from Foyle's from the 70s). When did Dobell occupy those premises? The Dobell's I remember from my visits in '75, 76 and 77 was this: 's

I was sort of late to the game (born in 1960) but when our school arranged for 14-day stays in Croydon in the 70s I joined the trip in 1975, 76 and 77 and as I had started buying (collecting, in fact) records a bit earlier in 1975 I already was aware of Dobell's through a pretty up-to-date tourist guide by our 1975 trip and went to Charing Cross Rod each time but of course funds were VERY tight so I wasn't able to buy much but rather gaze in amazement at the incredible choice. The small, overfilled, dingy shop at a sort of semi-basement level still lingers in my memories! I remember I bought both at the "Jazz" shop and at the "Folk" shop next door, though. What I remember I did buy there was rather an eclectic mix including a Memphis Slim double LP from the "special offers" bin, some old-time country music (Gid Tanner's Skillet Lickers) and one of Dobell's own productions, "Cyril Davies All Stars" on the Folklore lable (a followup to his 77 label, as far as I can tell). I don't remember any partiuclar details about the staff by others in the above-linked blog, except that they all were very patient with me (sensind the newbie, maybe) and let me browse for quite a while. Too bad I was so short on funds at that age - there were so many other great shops in London and the suburbs at that time (particularly to me from the Continent, though ours at home were nothing to sneer at either if you look at it objectively), including several well-stocked secondhand record shops on Portobello Road (no, I don't think I went to Honest Jon's then - these shops were further towards the other end) or e.g. the Bloomsbury Book Shop run by John Chilton's wife (a connection I was unaware of then) where I bought the 3-LPs set with Clifford Brown's Paris sessions from the record bin (or was it around the corner in another shop?) and my long-searched-for copy of Leadbitter's blues discography as well as a book on collecting rare rock'n'roll (particularly doo-wop) 45s and "Catalyst" , the first book on Sun Records (yes, she did stock that wide a field of books!). I received her periodical stocklists for some time thereafter and remember when I once asked about the huge "To Bird with Love" book I duly received the next list with a handwritten notice from her on it: "Can get "To Bird with Love: 56 Pounds - UGH!!" After 1977 it took me 15 years to get back to London and when I was back for the first time in 1992 I duly went to Mole Jazz (from whom I had VERY cocasionally bought by mail order before) as well as to Ray's Jazz Shop, spending LOTS of money at both shops (particularly at Mole, though) each time I went to London up to 2000 (sometimes several times a year). I also remember in 1992 I tried to locate Dobell's but not only found that the shop was gone (I was unaware of his previous move) but also that the Charing Cross Road area where his shop was had been redeveloped beyond recognition. Needless to say that the Dobell's price stickers (and John Kendall's too - there were some) remaining on some of the secondhand vinyls I bought from Mole and Ray's have been kept on the records to this day ... As for Ray's Jazz Shop, they always were my second stop AFTER Mole (Mole had more to choose from and better prices) and sometimes James Asman's but I always found some select stuff there, including in the "printed matter" sectio that yielded several Metronome yearbooks as well as Delaunay's and Jepsen's discographies at affordable (though not cheap) prices. Heaven-sent in those pre-internet days ... Their "Rare as hens' teeth" and "Rare as rocking horse manure" bins had tempting items too but usually were out of my price range. Though maybe I ought to have picked up the Prestige 16rpm LPs they had one time I dropped in there. The discount for buyers paying cash was always appreciated, and the personnel at Ray's always was very obliging too. I particularly remember a somewhat short, stocky, bearded and bespectacled fellow whom I always tried to deal with. Funny thing about the downstairs blues and roots section one time ... in 1998 I went there with a girl I knew who was more into rockabilly and they in fact stocked some bootleg vinyls current on the circuit then (compiled by London rockab' DJs) so she picked one and asked to listen in to this or that track upstairs. They obliged but after not much more than one track one of the other staff - a long, thin, grey-haired fellow (I think Ray himself, according ot the pics on the blog linked above ;)) - pulled the needle off the record in dismay as he apparently had had enough for his sensitive ears .... (or was it the photomontage of Margaret Thatcher in domina posture on the cover that was too much?) Well, whaddaya want? The record came from their own stocks ... (Yes, the girl did take the record ;)) And re- the Ray's blog above, that cache of 78s brought in via Chris Barber in 1974 must indeed have been huge. I bought some mint DeeGees And Savoys from a stash of 78s in a corner of their blues & roots basement in the late 90s! Must have come from that very source. Ah, those were the days ...

It depends ... do you want alternates or can you do without them? And are you dead set on CDs or would vinyl be an option too?

Some of it comes through here, it seems: http://www.jazzwax.com/2010/04/interview-herb-geller-part-4.html

My UK original (RD-27018, black label) plays at quite a full and enjoyable level at "room volume" in my not so large music room without upsetting my better half next door in the living room.

Agreed. Such reminders often are inspiring. I played "Rogers plays Rodgers" as well as the album with "Blues from Neither Coast" and then (on a whim, for added input but also because it was next door on the shelf ;)) Tony Aless' "Long Island Suite" yesterday evening and regardless of which session emanated from which coast did get quite some continuity out of it (aside from all the listening fun, of course ). As for the "West Coast Jazz" angle, praise for Shorty Rogers rings an alarm bell sometimes - knowing how often he gets blamed for his alleged westcoastish heavyhandedness (often open to dispute IMHO).

Maybe it's just that there were more facets to WCJ than some would think at first sight (or hearing) and some attempts at pigeonholing what makes the music "west-coastish" really fall short of the target? Because there were enough WCJ artists and records that were very much part of the West Coast scene and still were not that far removed from souds also heard elsewhere. Particularly when looking at Eastern schools like that of Al Cohn, or what about Gerry Mulligan who was lumnped in with WCJ but hated it and distanced himself vehemently. Arguments along the lines of "If it comes from the West and I don't like it because it's too arranged or too airy or too "effeminate" for my TASTE then it's West Coast Jazz and if it comes from the West and I like it because it is more "muscular" or more "blowing music" then it is an Eastern sound gone West by accident" don't hold that much water IMO. Maybe time to play some "Blues From Neither Coast" too?

Yes, time to wear this one out some more (it's one of those I mistakenly bought twice - picked up a mint Fresh Sound facsimile reissue some years ago, knowing I had not bought that reissue before but not remembering I already had a U.K. original (very clean vinyl, though somewhat scruffy cover). Actually IMO this is just just what very, very many West Coast sessions and records are all about -. no angry young men posing, no messianic zeal, no stubborn searching for unplayed tones ending up with "far out" sounds, no inner anguish screaming inside yourself that comes out screeching through your horn, no personal demons (well, most of the time ) riding on your back and clouding your senses ... Though it may be cliché-laden, picturing yourself lazing on some sunny day at the beach or by the seaside (or out in an easy chair in your back garden with some cool drink by your side, in fact ) helps quite a bit in enjoying the music for what it is and not projecting more into it than you need to if you just want to take in some easy swing in a relaxed mood ...

Sounds a BIT less crackly on my Metronome reissue, though ... Otherwise, fine sessions ...

At the risk of sounding "moldy fig", maybe my no. 1 favorite Getz session still is "At Storyville". Other favorites are the Jimmy Raney session mentioned earlier and "Hamp and Getz" as well as his Stockholm sessions of 1958. I am less familiar with his later work (some of what I have heard sort of put me off, have never really got into "Children Of The World", for example, and sold it off - a rare occurrence I part with records I do not have in duplicate ;)) but will definitely have to explore his bossa period a bit more.