Big Beat Steve

Bought two copies from 1951 and 1952 at a local fleamarket eons ago (mostly for the ads and some of the photographs, I admit). Looked like a sort of traveler's Saturday Evening Post to me (and somehow still do - I just pulled them out again).

So true ... Speaking of which ... talking about mens' magazines from that era, anybody remember TRUE - The Man's Magazine? I have a couple of their "Automobile Yearbooks" from the 50s (who knows what other annual specials they did) - nice selections of VERY "period-flavored" articles probably geared to those who considered themselves "discerning" car buyers or car lovers - features on classics and racing, Tom McCahill readalikes, Consumer Guide-like topics, and lots of name automotive authors.

The very same one? Or just an identical model?

All four Esquire Books of Jazz (1944 to 1947) are very nice to have and peruse today IMO if you do not take the moldy fig/bop schism too seriously. The 1947 yearbook had such a heavy bias in favor towards the Condonites that the series was abandoned (rightfully so by the criteria of the time) but if you just take the yearbooks as PART of what the history and legacy of jazz were all about then they all are fine. My understanding also is that Esquire was seriously into jazz for quite a while in the late 30s and the 40s (cf. the musician polls etc, like Medjuck mentioned) and no doubt played a similar role to what Playboy did later on in spreading the image of jazz among a certain spectrum of those who saw themselves as particularly hip (for better or worse). And they must have had some coverage because the 1944 Book of Jazz edition was also produced as a pocket-sized paperback edition for the G.I.s (so there must have been some out there who did not just listen to hillbilly or crooners, it seems ). As for how long the flirt of Esquire with jazz lasted, those in the US will know but at any rate Esquire did a nice book with various essays on jazz about 1960 - "Esquire's World of Jazz". Still an interesting read today.

It all depends on what kind of Spedding you want IMO. Back in the late 70s when (neo-)rockabilly Robert Gordon all of a sudden hit the charts and had some relatively successful albums, Chris Spedding worked a lot with him and there were quite a few bootleggish cassette dubs of Robert Gordon concerts around that feature quite amazing, straightforward, no-frills Chris Spedding playing. No idea if any of these have made it to more regular releases since.

Yes this comes as a surprise to us "outsiders" so soon after his retirement announcement. R.I.P. I wonder, though, if maybe he knew that his days were (very) numbered and chose to bow out in style this way by formally announcing his retirement the way he did.

Google still is your friend ... So it was THAT Teddy Powell (before his big band-leading days) ...

@MG: About the authors of "Spring Cleaning": On the reissue LP where I have that song it says "Samuels-Powell-Whitcup" (whoever those may have been).

There's a whole industry of "cultural ownership" that has variously vested interests in keeping this general repertoire in some version of the public eye. You'll be hearing them in movies, commercials, "projects", reading about them in books, etc. for as long as the profit incentive is working. It often has nothing to do with the song itself, much more to do with "cache", "culture", etc. Plant the seed, water the dirt, reap the harvest. Lather, rinse, repeat. As with most things, follow the money. Not that it ever was much of a standard even in its time, but I wonder to what extent this "keeping it in the public eye" played any role at all rather than this just being a gimmick by someone who stumbled across the tune when Fats Waller's 1937 recording "Spring Cleaning" recently made it into all the TV ads over here as the music for an ad for a manufacturer of cleaning equipment (for industry, garages and homes). But to anybody halfway in the know the artist was unmistakeable and I wonder what this will lead to.

"Time After Time" must have become some sort of standard beyond its original musical genre. It appeared in a rockabilly/rock'n'roll version (FIFTIES-style r'n'r - the real thing) in the UK close to 20 years ago.

Good idea.

In (not so) good company with a lot of "industry and business leaders" worldwide, unfortunately ...

Not that new, all this. Among halfway knowledgeable (and THINKING) people interested in cars it has been discussed quite openly that Common Rail technology and indirect injection are a VERY mixed "blessing" when it comes to really reducing health risks and engineering advances aren't always where you THINK they are. Those ever finer, ever tinier particles are still there and they will penetrate where the diesel smoke emitted by "daddy's diesel" did not pass. Like someone characterized it fittingly here when the "clean diesel" vs old diesel debate raged here several years ago, exaggerating only for illustration's' sake: "What those old diesels emitted were bricks of coal that would never pass the hairs and surfaces of your nostrils (which is why your handkerchief ended up black once you sneezed afterwards). But those minute particles (that won't even leave black traces) are there anyway and will go right through inside." But this problem is a general one and not limited to VW.

THIS I would not have doubted ...

It does (and it irks me in a way). And they cannot count on much compassion from me. They've had it coming to them, given the way they acted. But all those sideswipes from U.S. would-be jokers reek a lot like trying to regain lost ground now, though overall they are set to be on their way out, even if VW were to take a serious blow. The US automotive industry won't survive on Tesla alone when it comes to smart automotive concepts for tomorrow. SUVs are and remain the plague in traffic over here so credit for the original idea to whom credit is due. And who knows who else among those crying out loud for action now is actually just trying to find added power or leverage now to get that TTIP can of worms (that is facing increasingly stiff opposition in Europe, particularly in Germany) across.

Uh oh ... this might backfire. It would take only insignificantly more imagination and historical awareness to do EXACTLY the same fake ad with the FORD plum instead of the VW logo.

VW screwed this up big time and ought to clean up that mess FAST. And some MORE heads wil have to roll. But it makes me snicker seeing how - of all places - the US of A drool about all this and pull all sorts of stunts in rubbing it in against VW. Is what's left of the US automotive industry in that much of a horror vs. their competitors that they now see some last chance of regaining some ground? Nothing more to offer beyond bloated SUVs? OTOH, must hurt badly seeing the Chevrolet bowtie being attached to some laughable Korean baby shoe box. Badge engineering at its very worst and not even the most ergonomical way of designing a city runabout.

"I Thought I Heard Robert Johnson say" ... He must have been aware of a lot of things in various directions.

Interesting ... Looks like most of the Samoan team is made up of "legionnaires" earning their pay far abroad in more renowned leagues. As a strict outsider to this sport, what I meant to say in my initial post is just that at first sight it is baffling to see a huge country well-established in many areas of sport being beaten by a small (tiny?) one like this. And this can only be due to the fact that rugby is not a major sport in the USA. I was surprised to see rugby has a following there at all. I wonder what playing rugby is like to an American (considering the position of (American) football there). Maybe a bit like college football as it was being played in the 20s, with no headgear, no body protection, nothing ...? In case Samoa should be playing France later on in the course of this championship I hope to catch the French radio broadcast. And of course "established" hierarchies in any sport are no longer what they used to be. As can be seen in the European soccer championship where the Netherlands look like they might not make it whereas Iceland does.

Listened to some rugby coverage casually on French radio here and there these past few days when working on my cars (my radio in the garage is permanently tuned in to Europe 1) and caught something amazing: The US of A actually are in that World Championship and lost their first match to, of all countries, SAMOA?? Says a lot about its ranking compared to (American) Football on the domestic sports scene, doesn't it?

1954 Vogue Paris date recorded for them in NYC. I have a lovely 10inch UK edition . Music is great Formerly reissued here and also on a Prestige LP:

Some PERSONAL favorites (in no particular order) that immediately come to mind that I keep revisiting relatively regularly : Al Haig George Wallington (my Prestige twofer is not a million spins away from being worn out ;)) Claude Williamson Ronnell Bright Hank Jones Hampton Hawes Marian McPartland Pete Jolly Lou Levy

You got me right, MG. Not that I would want to dismiss this series (after all I have heard most but not all so on some I cannot comment), and I do understand the intentions behind that series. In general I just find these remakes a bit puzzling - you wonder where this sort of "updating" is to lead, and OTOH the updating is not different enough either to indicate a desire to really cover new ground. To anybody not being aware of the story behind these LPs, listening to a well-known R&B tune in a version from these albums would result in something like "Hey, but that's not the original version, not the real thing - so what's this???" By comparison, I found the recordings many earlier R&B greats made at roughly the same time for (French) Black & Blue a bit more sympathetic.

Not wanting to discourage you, Dan, particularly since you already have picked up a couple of those Blues Spectrum LPs, but I always found this series a kind of mixed bag. I've listened to several of them way back but shunned them when they were in the shops - mainly because in general I've never liked those latter-day recreations of the original recordings (I'd been bitten a couple of times in my very early record buying days), and in the case of those late 40s/early 50s R&B heroes there is quite a gap between their original recordings (which I always preferred as the "real thing") and those remakes. Some time ago I picked up a dirt-cheap copy of the Joe Turner LP (and based on the comments here will certainly look out for the Joe Liggins LPto see how i feel about it now) but in general the series doesn't overwhem me. I've never been a fan of Shuggie Otis' busybodying on those recordings, nor of the bass guitar (which I always found out of place on jump R&B), and those horns certainly did what they could to get in a jump blues groove but if you are familiar with the original items they always sound a bit awkward like "Are we in a funk groove or are we going to try to do what our fathers and uncles did?" Others may feel differently about it but though I see what Johnny Otis tried to do to give the old masters some credit in the twilight of their careers, compared to the recordings from their prime they certainly are not essential.

MG, you don't have the full story there. By the time that album was recorded Amos Milburn had had a stroke and was unable to use his left hand (which would leave anybody just a shadow of his former self). At the recording session Amos Milburn played the right hand and Johnny Otis played the left-hand part. Trying to make with what they were able to do but for a noble cause, considering the circumstances.