Big Beat Steve

'Bout time for an UPTOWN release of all this material!

I learned a lot from it too but isn't it overdoing that "oral history" bit somewhat if you ramble on about this or that musician who "got in a nice say too" (or something like that) when you refer to his solos on recordings or at other shows over and over and over again? Doesn't it blur the focus on the contents if the reader has to wade through repetitive statements like this that don't do much to sustain the story which could well be an exceedingly colorful one? And there are lots of spots like that. A bit of a pity IMO for such a highly interesting subject matter. Oral histories are all very well and do have their merits but are they the optimum way of presenting a full book-length topic if the narrator is not the most outgoing, extrovert, dynamic person in the world? Nothing wrong with not being all that, but how do you get the story across in a manner across that sustains its momentum all by itself throughout instead of making the reader DIG for the nuggets that certainly are there? The very early years were quite colorful to read indeed but somehow I felt that the momentum fizzled out a bit in that story after the Kansas City period, i.e. even before the chronology had reached the post-war period.

Sure, anyhting is possible. But let's picture this for a second: There goes that guy thinking "Hey, me and my huuuuuge colection, they want to take a picture of me in front of my collection showing a sample of my huuuuuge, unique, extraordinary collection.... So what do I pick to hold in front of that camera?" Dou you realy think he couldn't care less about the record he chooses to pull out? When STAGING this pic for everyone to see? Would that be likely? So I don't find it totally unlikely that JSangrey's hunch is right with this being a sort of put-on.

I think the "problem" with the Chambers/Twardzik bio (which I enjoyed reading, BTW) is - Who ELSE would have been out there to tackle the subject and come up with the same amount of findings and "hits"? And no doubt some "misses" such as the ones quoted above will inevitably find their way in along the way. And there is BOUND to be someone out there who will be diligent and/or knowledgeable and/or sensitive enough to single them out. But does this invalidate the (overwhelming) "rest" of the book? What would be the quota of errors that would be accepted before the majority of the readers with average "jazz fan" knowledge would - like a man - discard a book as unusable? And would the errors be seen as equally important by everyone in the wider field of the targe readers' audience? I remember the bio on Tommy Dorsey by Peter J. Levinson which I read a couple of years ago (not my no. 1 favorite swing-era jazzman for sure, but the bio was available really dirt cheap at the local Zweitausendeins shop so you just couldn't go wrong at that price). Well-written and insightful IMO and a good read. But then there came that swing-era expert (probably one who had witnessed the era, at last its tail end, in person) who - on some big band forum - gave a scathing listing of factual and interpretational errors in that book that really left little room for counterarguments. Not that the book was faulted in its entirety but it was good to see somebody did some fine-combing there to make you aware of those errors or oversights. But it just shows you always have to use a grain of salt. (Wish I had that listing of errors - for future reference - but unfortunately I did not copy it at the time and that post is long gone) Yet I wonder how many of those who would have picked every sore spot of any Miles or Trane (or Twardzik, for that matter) bio would have bothered to take note of those errors in that Dorsey bio at all - or would they just shrug things off as being not that important (because TD wasn't that important to them anyway) ... Which IMO only goes to show that if you look closely enough you will always find room for improvement, and depending on the importance of the subject to you these errors found are considered either more or less severe and this invariably has an impact on your final judgment. BTW, about that Chet/ballad wuote, I agree it is misleading. But what about the way Chet Baker appeared to the public at large for quite a bit of time? Did they associate ballads or even his singing with him in the first place, or did they judge him primarily by his "Crew" album, for instance? Maybe some of those Zieff charts would have shifted his "public image" and maybe this was what Chambers hinted at

Indeed ... just thinking of it one really couldn't disagree with you ... There must be hundreds of records that an obsessive hoarder must own and KNOW that thousands of savvy collectors out there would be frothing at their mouths if he held one of THOSE in front of the camera ...

Uh oh .... So whenever the better half of any of you starts complaining about all them records taking up all that wall space then go ahead and show them the above statement as well as the page linked initially - just to prove once and for all you "could be doing much, much worse and much, much more obsessively!"

A minor point but what struck me about the picture above is the typical look of the spines in his record racks. Looks very much like a 70s (and post-70s) album collection. Those albums where the colors/artwork runs right across the spine from the front to the back cover (often as part of gatefold covers), and all this in typical 70s U.S. pressing cardboard covers that got ring-worn, dinged and flaky round the edges pretty fast. I remember a lot of the (comparatively modest) record collections of my 70s buddies (who were into the then-current bands) looked just as colorful but also just as dinged, worn and flaking as this one - even back then. Quite a difference to the 50s/60s albums (or reissues) where the spines usually are white and the arrays of album spines provide a quite different look.

Yes it's a nice book but I must admit one single protagonist's "conversational" autobiography can wear you out a bit if that protagonist is not THAT consistently articulate (no, I DON'T expect an autobiography to be as full of wit and entertainment as Terry Gibbs' "Good Vibes"; for example ). Though I am a huge fan of Basie's music I found this "conversational" style sometimes a bit distracting in the way it apparently has NOT been edited/honed out a bit for printing here because some phrases that Basie seems to like to fall back on make the contents sound a bit vague and repetitive more than once and the story at times just rambles on. And this although the contents MUST have seen some editing - by Mr Murray? - considering how little balance there is between the various phases of Basie's career. While the details of the early years are interesting I was a bit disappointed in the way part of his post-war story was rushed through, as if in an afterthought

Also in the Jazz Masters series, Martin Williams' "Jazz Masters of New Orleans" and Richard Hadlock's "Jazz Masters of the Twenties." Could it be that the "Jazz Masters of the 40s" volume by Ira Gitler is being given short shrift here? Why? I may be biased because this was the first I read from that series (haven't read all of them yet anyway) and this was in my "formative years" so it had an impact but at any rate I Iike to revisit it from time to time, even though some of its findings may not reflect the latest state of the art anymore.B BTW, @Larry Kart: What exactly is it that you find faulty with Gunther Schuller's "The Swing Era", apart from the fact that he doesn't seem to appreaciate Art Tatum correctly, as you say? Really curious ...

Don't have the BN one, but had the Verve one given to me for x-mas and while it's certainly not a thrilling read or anything, I find it quite interesting, regarding the entire story of JATP, Clef, Norgran etc. The Granz book might be a better read, who knows, but the photos and stuff in the Verve book is pretty amazing, too - and different from BN, there were so many Verve covers around (so much stuff got re-packaged and re-compiled) that I really feel like I don't even know half of 'em. "I want to fight against racism, to give listeners a good product, and to earn money from good music." Fair enough, I'd think. I have both (though I am only partially through the books by now), and I think they complement each other well. I agree that the Verve coffee-table book is not the best read in the world but it is quite OK anyway IMO. I have seen others that were written much more badly yet had much higher pretenses. The capsule bios in the Verve book are quite OK for the primary target audience, and the illustrations (and their layout) and sheer amount of data are stimulating enough, though I would have appreciated a bit more detail on the often-overlooked artists (who also were part of the Verve LABLE history) outside the trodden paths of the biggies but then I suppose you could not have marketed that book that easily to the more casual listeners who have a handful of Ella and Oscar records and now want to get something to look at while listening ... As for the Granz bio, I agree about the fair enough "making money from a good cause" angle, and in the way he acted on numerous occasions Granz certainly proved that he did stand up for the rights of the artists he worked with. Remember the times most of this took place in. Like or face it or not, but from today's state of society a lot of this was the "dark age" and those who did not live through those times sometimes are a bit rash in faulting people like Granz for not going farther than they did or for not being more radical in their actions. And I have a feeling any bio of Granz by necessity falls short on what it could have accomplished simply due to the fact that Normal Granz went out of his way to destroy documents and evidence from his life and his business so a lot that would have been of immense interested for the evaluation by historians just isn't there anymore. What I don't like about the Verve coffee-table book, though, is that tendency (by THIS author??) to milk over and over again those William Gottlieb photo files at the LOC. The Gottlieb pictures ARE geat but as they have been used before in many cases and are publicly accessible on the LOC site they must be pretty well-known to anyone seriously interested in the music from that era by now, and besides, how many devades of jazz can you illustrate with photos from 1947 exclusively?? IMO this way of rounding up pictures from the same source over and over again is an wasy way out for the author and editor to save them the effort of doing some real searching for views from that era not seen too often before (which no doubt MUST be out there ...).

This must be more or less the equivalent what I don't like about a certain type of books about music usually written by the sociologically inclined ... They've got an agenda and stipulate their "findings" (in accordance with their personal agenda) FIRST and THEN present the facts and evidence in a way that reeks very much like they go out of their way to make that evidence fit their intended "findings". Not very convincing and certainly awkward to read in many cases ...

Well, I would very much like to read the memoirs of "jazz hustler" Teddy Reig (however short they may be) but the copies I have seen were really priced out of this world.

- "Pittsburgh Jazz", John M. Brewer, Jr., Images of America Series - Arcadia Publishing - "New Orleans Jazz - A Family Album", Al Rose, Edmond Souchon, Louisiana State Univ. Press - "Goin' To Kansas City"; Nathan W. Pearson Jr., University of Illinois Press And here's one I just came across while checking some of the books from that Night Lights site (thanks for that list! Some interesting items new to me!) linked in the starting post: Minneapolis/St. Paul: - "Joined at the Hip: A History of Jazz in the Twin Cities", Jay Goetting, Minnesota Historical Society Press

I'm planning to get this one along with the next round of Uptowns (have 1 or 2 others where a decently priced source has so far been lacking).

Anyway, thanks to the thread starter for reminding everyone of this Tampa album. Had lined up the Rogers/Pepper "Popo" album on Xanadu for some listening and will now add the Tampa LP too.

Yes in a way you seem to be right. Those book threads I have now found in a Google search related to specific subcategories of jazz or authors, and the only generic "book recommendation" thread I was able to find is one on blues books. Surprising ... So a more general recommendation thread seems to be overdue indeed. Though it would probably run the course of many "favorite xxx instrument musician" recommendation threads: Pretty soon most every book would be mentioned by someone somewhere at least once as being a recommended read

This one here is interesting, but personally, I'd rather read about the good books. I could always use some guidance. Why not both together? Though, of course, opinions do differ, and some may definitely appreciate a book that is blasted by others. There are moments when I almost feel like "likes" and "dislikes" ought to be classified by assessments by mere readers/music listeners/fans/colectors on the one hand and by "scribes" on the other. Their approaches sometimes differ widely and this sometimes also has an impact on what one expects from how a given subject is treated. Not a matter of which one of those divergent approaches is universally better or more suitable, just different angles, I guess ... BTW, I distinctly sem to remember there is at least one lengthy thread about recomended jazz books around here. Not sure how long it has been dormant, though ...

Ok, since we're at it about "Chicago": The book I was primarily thinking of is "Come In and Hear The Truth - Jazz and Race on 52nd Street" by Patrick Burke. Not bad per se, but it took me a long time to gather enough stamina to plow ahead past the 30 or so first pages. It got more acceptable as I read on but yet: This writing style often is fairly dry and lecturingly IMO for that subject, the musical and musico-historical facts are told in a way that makes the jazz listener/fan say "stating the obvious and just scratchign the surface", the facts often are presented in a way that I feel relies a bit too much on secondary instead of on primary (contemporary) sources (though the sources cited show that enough primary sources were used indeed - or is it just a case of scholars citing each other liberally in an "Il scratch your back if you scratch mine" attitude? ), and above all, something that bugs me about quite a few books that approach this subject of music and society where the author obviously has an "agenda" of his own: Somehow a lot of the findings are highlighted such that the "finding" is presented first and the evidence to support this "finding" comes afterweard and appears to have been arranged until it corroborates the findings by all means instead of developing the history in detail first and then showing the conclusions that can be drawn from the historical facts - which (to me anyway) comes across as a bit a case of '"making the history fit the lessons I want to learn from that history". Not that this must have been intentional or that facts are skewed badly but this writing style makes for somewhat awkward reading.

I beg to disagree (at least somewhat) about the "University" publishing angle. I am not going to toot the horn of the individual books (this thread is about the opposite of that, after all) but I do have quite a few books by the University of Illinois Press and the University of Texas Press publishers which I find quite well to very well done (in some cases even teh definite word on the subject IMHO). Though I must admit there are one or two from the University of Chicago Press that I am a bit ambivalent about (though I would not say they are to be avoided).

I'd agree about the secular aspect too. This is how I understood it form the start. And no, to the best of my knowledge there indeed weren't many live R&B vocal group recordings "made" at the time at all. I've checked a few compilations where I figured something might be on there, but no - "just" single vocalists, instrumentalists, band features. What I figure was meant that it is surprising that no privately taped/acetate-cut live "on location" recordings, airshots or other non-official documents of live performances by vocal groups have surfaced in the decades since. An interesting field to plow, anyway ... BTW, do movie appearances of doo-wop groups in front of "live" audiences count, and are the Treniers a "vocal" group (in a way)?

Thanks. Will get on my "To do" list.

Crow Jim at work? Little doubt that happened too.

What are you getting at? At the pet word used by Down Beat reviewers when it came to putting down a record, particularly if non-U.S.: "DERIVATIVE"? Well, which U.S. records apart from the top and groundbreaking ones weren't too , strictly speaking, when playing in a given idiom and within a given substyle of music (here: jazz)? They all build on the influences/models that other people/forerunners have had on them. And in case this wasn't the case anymore in later decades when jazz started branching out in all directions and working in all sorts of (non-jazz) influences and more jazzmen acquired a sort of more "individual voice" (but under the umbrella of an "anything goes" atitude within what became to be considered jazz) and if they neverthelesse did not find wider acclaim (even in retrospect from today) then doesn't this raise the question if this "anything goes" approach managed to widen the appeal of jazz with the listening audience at large of if this didn't rather reduce the appeal to an even smaller audience who'd be capable of following this (potentially more demanding) styles of newer jazz?

Wasn't that a major problem with a ton of jazz LPs released through the decades for many, many artists, regardless of location? @Paul Secor: I wouldn't disagree with you about Dootone. The aspect I was getting at was "Was there an opportunity of getting a record out there at all, even if not on PJ"? And still I wonder ... considering the other black Westcoast jazzmen who DID get on record in the 50s - was it maybe also a case of the SOUND the A&R men were after (and horn-led, hard bop-tinged blowing jazz not being their primary aim, certainly not before 1957/58)? Chico Hamilton, The Mastersounds, etc., and even Hampton Hawes (who did get a lot on record) were a bit different after all.

I would not doubt that some of this problem was at work there but to what extent overall? It will probably be for others with more facts on hand or insiders' knowledge to say if the West Coast of the 50s was that much more dominated by race issues than the East Coast of the same period and if the same was true for PJ, in particular (if so, they certainly made amends as the 50s turned into the 60s). Was Chico Hamilton then an alibi black bandleader for them on his numerous leader dates? Or was this a case of the sound they were after (which up to 1957 or so certainly may NOT have been hard bop and its typical exponents)? Like it had been said here before, what about overall recording opportunities there? Naming just one example, what about Dootone, for example? Dootsie Williams was the archetypical black record business entrepreneur, after all, and certainly not one affected by white sensibilities. Among the few jazz albums there, Dexter Gordon recorded for the label as a leader, and so did Carl Perkins, Buddy Collette and Curtis Counce (who all were present on other WCJ sessions on other labels in the 50s as well). Wouldn't Teddy Edwards have fitted right in there on Dootone? Or was this also a "Teddy Edwards thing" that may have led to him being bypassed, for whatever reason (that may have made him less of a choice artist for the record producers)? Just wondering ...