Big Beat Steve

What you do you mean "Peeling? An orange?"? You dont peel oranges? You never eat them? Just squeeze them to drink the juice? Or cut them in half and suck them out like they are wont to do in certain parts of South America? Cultural clashes ...?

They are now at CD 468 so that gives you an idea ... I have a hunch I know which ones you are talking about and they are not that recent. Uh oh ... doesn't bode well, though I find lots of others (more recnet ones) quite OK, even when comparing them to other reissue labels with that kind of material, but of course have no 78s to compare with. Yes, I'd know one or two where the thrill of finding THOSE would be as intense as when I first learned of the existence of these records in 1975 or 76 or so ... Just like with others that took me some 20 years of searching to find.

I did understand that and just wanted to point out this your reaction was not an isolated one - I had the same reaction, though with a different photo, and upon checking others of JMcL I found there are quite a few where you can be misled.

There are MANY photographs in circulation that make you think so. OTOH, if a young Earle Warren and, above all, Lena Horne, are found to be African American when looking at their pictures, then there is no reason why Jackie McLean isn't.

Yes I do see what you mean, and I agree. The thrill of discoveries is gone in some respects and sometimes buying what you are looking for has become too easy (funds permitting ... ). But please step back for a minute and take a look at the OVERALL situation of what you can reasonably find AT ALL from a NON-U.S. perspective: As for originals, apart from the question of "where do you start and where do you finish" when you have tastes that are not too narrow, a) no matter how much you search, a lot of stuff just is inacessible to anybody outside the country where the records were first issued (and often probably outside the state/county where they were pressed and sold off at gigs), and b) I simply am not crazy enough to go on 45rpm hunting sprees through the U.S., shelling out 500 or 1500 $ for some obscure original 45 as many country/rockabilly fanatics from Europe have done, nor c) do I (nor hardly anybody else) have the funds to keep up with those insane Asians who have pillaged European sources for "Eurojazz" for years and decades and have driven the price of those records that remain to totally sick levels. Beyond that, I certainly do search for vinyl, including originals, and I have paid quite a sum through the years, but prices being what they are I'd just as much settle for a decent reissue (particularly one of these facsimile reissues reproducing the original cover artwork etc. and NOT one of those garish contrivedly modernized 70s covers). And even though I still do prefer vinyl and have been known to sell off a CD as soon as I was able to find the same material (at last) on some LP there are many cases where you just cannot find anything except CDs if at all (because originals are just inaccessbiel for the above reasons). Realism just has to prevail sometimes, even in "Collectingland". And this is where reissues (including and above all CDs these days) come in. Of course, if heirs of record collection estates dating back to periods when there would be interesting originals from the 40s, 50s or 60s (bought by the only owner new back then) to be found would make an effort to sell these records one by one or in small lots at prices decent for both sides instead of unloading even those collections in one swift go with dealers who'd pay far less (than what private buyers would pay for items of their choice) but will of course charge top money when THEY resell or (in most cases) auction these items to the next round of prospective owners, then overall accessibility would be a bit better too. But ... as shown in other discussions this seems to have become unrealistic too. So unless you are REALLY rich you are off to the reissue market again ...

Just to get this right: Where would you say the "recent" reissues start? For a while I have participated in their "subscription" program (getting their new 3 CD releases each month) until about 1 1/2 or 2 years ago when I abandoned this because there was not enough overall to REALLY hold my lasting interest (I don't like "country weepers" - different strokes ... ). Before that date when I quit I found some of these releases indeed a bit "clean" but attributed this to the source material (50s recordings, some of them on major labels where good original copies might be easy to clean up). But my main quibble with some (somewhat older and basically very interesting) reissues unfortunately was that while they had to rely on whatever source material they were provided with from collectors, the sources in these cases did not even sound like sub-par digital copies to me but more like 2nd or 3rd-generation tape copies with a noticeable amount of loudness and brightness variation that seemed to oscillate in regular intervals (as a function of the speed of the rotating tape?), like it can happen with older or worn tapes. These were very isolated instances but still a real pity ...

So I suppose people don't get too enthusiastic about his dates for Jubilee (particularly "Fat Jazz") either? I heard it first before finding out about its place in McLean's opus but found it very nice to listen to. Surprisingly, "Fat Jazz" wasn't rated too badly in contemporary reviews either. OTOH, I understand Jackie McLean tendend to distance himself from his Prestige dates (not enough/fair payment, in particular), and it sems to be "common wisdom" that the Prestige hard bop sessions from that period (not just McLean's) were regarded as thrown-together blowing sessions whereas the Blue Notes sessions allowed the musicians much more preparation time, better worked-out dates, etc. Could this - which most will have heard about - have had an unintended influence on the way these sessions are generally perceived today? Whereas contemporary reviews of the latest LPs from labels such as BN, Prestige and others would not so rarely end in some lukewarm "oh, not another blowing session that stretches out too much while the artist hasn't enough of substance to say to fill an entire LP", etc. Regardless of what label this was on. BN might be hit just as much as Prestige or others. And given that recent BN history book (see that other thread), the dividing lines might be revised again. From "thrown-together Prestige blowing sessions with not enough pay vs well worked-out BN sessions with better pay" to "thrown-together Prestige blowing sessions with not enough pay vs BN sessions where the artists were paid in advance to finance their habit and hold them in "bondage" for more sessions of the same to work off their debts"? Might cause some interesting debate. Not that I would claim that there is invariably too much a tendency to listen to often-discussed recordings with that "common knowledge" in the back of one's minds but can and do we all go totally unaffected by all that has been said so often and approach the recordings from a really "tabula rasa" point of departure?

Agreed....... but let's face it none of his recordings from this period are the hi-est of fi..... Wouldn't that tie in nicely what contemporaries of JLH (professional blues/R&B musicians from Detroit) had to say about him at the time in those early post-war years? " He couldn't play shit!" Not hold a meter, not carry a tune, etc. etc. See the "Before Motown" book. Later this would no doubt be called "idiosyncratic" and of course once the blues boom was in full swing this would have been pure heresy to say!

I am not so sure everything has been reissued. Looking randomly through discographies of early post-war R&B yields a LOT that has NOT been reissued ever. Same when browsing through the Cary Ginell's (pre-war) Western Swing & Hot String Band discography. BTW, @Paul Secor, sorry but your statements really are far too black-and-whitish. Your statements give short shrift to a LOT of labels beyond BF and Ace that, if you look closer, do cover new ground, though they do take advantage of the P.D. rule. Fresh Sound (yes, THEM!) don't just rehash, they also have reissued stuff from minor labels or oddball artists in modern jazz that no majors (including major reissuers) would EVER care about (or can you name me a recent major reissuer (who'd pay artist royalties to boot) from whom they have snitched away that Vinnie Riccitelli LP reissue, for example? ). And their R&B subsidiary BLUE MOON has done so with R&B artists from the 78rpm era too. Some of them do make use of previous reissues but CDs on specific artists do resurrect items that have not been around before (at best been some of them have been OOP for decades after having been very, very briefly available on some ultra-obscure Japanese label which to the majority of collectors amounts to "having never been reissued"). So they do put in a lot of work of their own in presenting the music in some coherent fashion for the FIRST time ever. Same in the field of Public Domain-era Country music on the B.A.C.M. label from the UK. Their CDs actually are more like CD-Rs and the source material sometimes is not quite up to snuff soundwise but with the idealistic 2-man almost no-profit operation that is behind it, all I can say is Hats Off to people like them. Never mind if they step on some major's toes because they do milk the P.D. catalog in Europe. Too bad if the majors never bothered to keep all that stuff in print or run their own reissue series in the first place (and claims that they don't because the P.D. labels are there to grab what they do are totally beside the point because they never did any such reissues on these artists even at times when there were no P.D. labels yet). Also, even if all of Allen's tracks intended for including in that 12-CD (?) project had been reissued before (which I strongly doubt), compiling them in a manner that opens up totally new perspectives and insights and adding some insightful liner notes/booklets DOES add something new and important to the overall product IMO. As for OJL reissues having become redundant, are you sure?? What other reissues have superseded their not-so-old Ocie Stockard or Leon Chappell CDs, for example? Finally, as for that scene of niche reissuers being highly cliquish, I'd believe that without hesitation ... Happens in other circles of niche collectabilia (fit for repressing/reprinting) too where nobody will others (who try to do something, if only to breathe some fresh air in) even give the time of day. They'd rather sit and cluck on what they've got, even if in the end they never do anything with it ...

Yes, but this effort has already been taken. Check it out. http://www.angelfire.com/mn/coasters/HookerSessionDiscography.pdf Sure, but that's not what I meant. Even checking out specific records/reissues and finding a pattern of how they were compiled (as in the case of the two UA LPs mentioned initially) is not the easiest of tasks due to the nature of this man's recording and issuing history. Daunting enought if you just want to check something out at a glance. The discography done by SOUL BAG for their 2001 "special" on JLH, btw, may not be as up to date as the one you linked (thanks!) but ain't half bad either.

I'd agree if it wasn't so that most the dealers (that could be approached) are just so greedy. And if it wasn't so that I have quite a huge circle of friends/acquaintances/contacts who share my interests (none share all of my interests but I'd know some trustworthy ones for each of these areas) and, provided I don't outlive them all (unlikely) would be more than willing to acquire this or that of my items at a price that is more than what a dealer would pay but significantly less than what a dealer would charge them (classical win-win situation without the middleman) and/or could provide contacts to others who'd be interested. I am fairly sure I could even get some to act as executors/tristees for specific parts of my "estate" (hey, am I getting ahead of things?? ) that coincide with their specific areas of knowledge (and what remains after those targeted sales could still be unloaded wholesale ). Should it really be so that I am one of only very few who are in such a situation? Not all collectors do their collecting in ivory towers, do they? Laurie certainly did an excellent thing with that public sale she held. Exemplary!

An excellent way of making sure things go directly to the next generation of owners/collectors. And a variation of what I have been wondering about when it comes to how to make sure that at least part of the items go directly where they will be enjoyed. $5 on average certainly isn't bad, BTW. All in all, you did the right thing all the way through IMHO.

Trying to understand ... you mean 20s bands like those you named might be lumped in too rapidly with 20s (Country) string bands? Or trying not to include too many 20s string bands as they all sound alike? Personally I find a lot of those early vocalists with sparse insturmentation to sound a bit alike when taken in CD doses - many of them were (and still are) meant to be listened to in pairs of 78s A- and B-sides at a time only - the way they were listened to back then. Whereas 20s string bands to me for the most part just is good-time music that can sometimes be taken in larger doses (though I admit I have a hard time listening to the full box set of Charlie Poole's North Carolina Ramblers in one go too ) As for where to draw the line ... I can understand some may frown at the inclusion of Bennie Moten or the Missourians, though no doubt it can only be enlightening if Country music fans (who don't happen to be into early jazz too) get a chance to listen to the ORIGINAL of Moten's "South" and THEN compare it to Spade Cooley's or other (Country) versions.

Untangling the discography of John Lee Hooker (particularly his early recordings) is a MAJOR effort but according to the John Lee Hooker special issue of the (French) SOUL BAG magazine, "Coast to Coast Blues Band" is United Artists 5512 and "John Lee Hooker's Detroit" is United Artists 3-127. Glancing quickly through the discography in that mag, both LPs seem to consist of originally unissued alternate takes of his recordings from 1948 onwards, mostly for Modern, some for Sensation. They have all been re-reissued on Capitol CD 33912 (Alternative Boogie - Early Studio Recordings 1948-52) and one or the other volume of the "Complete John Lee Hooker - Detroit 1948-1950" CD series on Body & Soul.

In a way I agree with you, and in a way I don't. I agree in that I have been through this "getting rid of" thing too after my father died (and even before that when he scaled down). He had huge masses of books, not only fiction (all the classics) but also architecture, art, history, etc. Hard, very hard to shift for many items because those who value that kind of coffee table art and history books either have them all themselves or are approaching an age where they'd better start downsizing fast too. Though the receipts often were less than anticipated I was able to make quite a few buyers happy at fleamarkets, etc. (and had no regrets unloading others at charity insittutions). And YET - there were some ((older) architecture books (that he himself had inherited from an older colleague) that went for BIG money (though I did not auction them). And when I sold off the final ones of those better ones (at a quite OK price ) they went to a professional dealer who evidently was totally dumbfounded finding items like this at a FLEAMARKET, and on sale by somebody who knew what he had! Her recurrent question while we negotiated was "What estate did those books come from?" - as if she was dead set that private libraries coming from estates of professionals like this were AUTOMATICALLY meant to go to professional antiquarians and not onto the free market for DIRECT sale to the next generation of FINAL customers who'd value them for the years to come. ("Avoid the middleman" - remember? ) One more experience that spurred me into cautioning my loved ones (against being too blue-eyed when dealing with professionals after I've bowed out). I don't agree, though, when I look at my own collections. Should I really let my collections of 40s/50s jazz magazines or that relatively full run of all the major pocket-size U.S. hot rod and custom car magazines from the 50s (I must have some 300 or 400 of them - anybody out there among you from the US who remembers them first hand?) go to dealers who'd pay just peanuts (pretending they are too "obscure" over here to create much demand) or shouldn't I rather make an effort making lists of the more interesting items and of potentially interested parties beforehand who are into these fields of collecting themselves and are able to VALUE them at a fair price to both sides? It's not just a matter of antique items, BTW. I'd try the same with part of my LPS and CDs which at first sight might be just LPs and CDs but cover a variety of "niche segments" of collectible music (jazz and non-jazz) so I'd know where others who are into that but don't necessarily have them all can be found and who might be candidates for "first pick" if interested. Many of these are from genres and labels that you hardly ever find in secondhand record shops (at least over here) ... there msut be a cause for this ... Not least of all to make sure my heirs at least make some decent money out if it all, even if it is going to be less than what I once paid. That's what I was getting at - but of course that is a field that is for us collectors to prepare and we cannot leave all that work to our heirs. And if the "mass items" remaining at the end then go to garage sales or to charity, then so be it ...

I see your points mjazzg and ejp626 - totally so. And yet it is something where you cannot generalize. I too am glad to hear Laurie found a solution that suits her well. I just wanted to point out this is not something for everybody, least of all for those at the buyers' end who might have been quite interested in taking specific items off her hands. At prices no doubt higher than what any dealer would pay. I for one am glad I was able to buy select items from such Excel lists (at prices which were very decent to the sellers too) when collections came up for sale here in collectors's circles, either due to death or due to massive downsizing. Not likely I would have been able to get these items at the same prices once they had ended in the stocks of professional dealers. I hope I still have some mileage left until I have to give all this serious and final thoughts and in the end (after I've left the building) I cannot definitely steer things in the direction I prefer anyway, that's for sure. But this matter has been given some thought here and it seems like I would be able to nominate one or several trustworthy persons (friends or very good acquaintances, in fact) for EACH part of my collections (which do go beyond records) who know their way around in these fields (not least of all because they are collectors themselves) and either would be honest enough (so I firmly believe ) to offer fair prices for items THEY want or would be able to advise on what pitfalls to avoid in order not to be shortchanged when selling part of the collection elsewhere before hauling off the remainder (or should I say remnants?) to some dealer. Am I such an isolated case?

To put it in a somewhat simplified manner: Bear Family reissue records of labels that they have bought the rights to lock stock and barrel - regardless of the European copyright cutoff date of 50+ years (which CONTINUES to apply to pre-1962 records here because the cutoff dates do not shift retroactively even after the new 70+ year cutoff date to protect Cliff, the Beatles etc. became applicable in 2012). Noble though Bear Family's attitude may be (not mentioning the fact that this has been their policy since way back when Public Domain was no topic yet so it rather seems to be company policy, not some specific anti-P.D. policy), it is a two-sided affair to collectors and buyers: Sometimes they tend to milk the cow until it's bone dry by reissuing any dross that there ever was (you CAN overdo reissuing each and every note when you pack in ANYTHING that was churned out by Nashville on a given artist or label). Scraping the barrel anyone? And sometimes you have to stretch your packaging immensely in order to keep your marketing gag running, e.g. in the "Gonna Shake Thist Shack" series allegedly compiled to market the uptempo, rather more rocking side of 50s country artists you unfortunately sometimes get CDs where 3 or 4 of the tracks might actually fall into that bracket whereas the rest (i.e. the majority!) is either country tearjerkers of the more unbearable sort (that has NOT stood the test of the decades with most of today's collectors) or syrupy teen nonsense where those country artists have tried (and failed) to grab a slice of the late 50s teen market. Lame stuff and nothing to shake a shack. The plight of having (or wanting) to market everything that you hold the rights to, though the packaging invariably is excellent. With all due respect and admiration for most of Bear Family's products (discounting the above letdowns that ARE out there), I therefore agree all the way with Allen's statement above: "I just think that if this were left up to the majors we would know virtually nothing about our musical history. And it is not as though Sony/BMG or Bear Family are paying the Ma Rainey and Charley Patton estates. and, as I said, it is the little reissue labels - the OJLs, collectors classics, Arhoolie. Yazoo, et al, who have kept the market alive. There is no doubt of that." BTW, referring to the above hits at royalties to the Rainey/Patton estates, and as for obtaining the rights to the labels they reissue, I do wonder a little if BF have actually BOUGHT the rights to the recordings by Clff Bruner on the AYO label that they processed in their Cliff Bruner box. AYO is pretty obscure anyway, and if there had been rights to buy we would have seen other compilations of the AYO label recordings (gotta market what you paid for, don'tcha?). But have we? Allen, I cannot offer any concrete pointer towards European PD labels unfortunately, but please do keep me posted on the progress of that project too. I might even be able to round up one or two other (diehard country/rockabilly) collectors who might be interested too.

Congratulations to you for being able to get this off your soul with a minimum of fuss. Just one final note, though: If you sell to a professional dealer he will give you only a fraction of the actual value of the collection and ALSO only a (somewhat larger only) fraction of what you would have been able to get from "end customers" to whom you might have sold the discs directly at a price that would have been quite attractive to them (i.e. less than what a dealer would charge) and still would have netted you substantially more than what the professional pays you. It's a tradeoff between getting less money and having no fuss to worry about and getting more money but having to invest quite a bit more work to get the goods sold. So if it works OK for you, perfect! The dealer, OTOH, will have no qualms about charging whatever he can get (i.e. not too little) out of that bulk and turn a buck. Sure, he is in the business to make money and gotta make money but in the end the collectors will not necessarily profit from such collections that beocme available after the death of their owners. So to the collectors this may not be the best deal overall. In short: Remembe the age-old principle in any such transaction: "AVOID THE MIDDLEMAN!" We all will have to face up to that problem of how to prepare the field for those who will still be around to clear out all our hoarding mess (aka "collections" of this'n that) when we have bowed out. And I've already taken some ribbing form my better half about that too. But I know for sure that when the time approaches I will stipulate that the "records/music" part of my collections will under ABSOLUTELY NO circumstances be sold to the local second hand platter shop! I've bought quite a bit from them through the years but they certainly won't give you top money when they purchase collections and I don't see why I should grease their palms by providing them with the opportunity of selling the same goods over and over again. After all, that would be too easy for them ...

I know what you mean and agree... nevertheless, there's a nice contrast between the image of DeArango conveyed by your post and the 1973 trio live date which can be streamed on the page medjuck liked to... here is another discography btw which looks better on first sight: https://www.staff.uni-giessen.de/~g51092/DeArango.html I know what YOU mean too ... but look at De Arango's leader and sideman discography from before and up to his EmArcy date. There is a HUGE gap, so wherever you find his name in a pretty long period of jazz you automatically know where these recordings belong to, even if no rcording dates are given, and I must admit his later recordings have been totally off my radar. In fact we probably are talking about two different "Bill de Arangos" altogether.

Don't know, really. Apart from some of his sideman dates such as those you mention I've had his EmArcy LP for a long time and like it a lot. He is one of those characters from the history of jazz (particularly form the bebop era) who AUTOMATICALLy conjure up images of music from a VERY specific era to me because most of their commonly accessible recorded output is limited to a specific period, such as in the cases of musicians such as Dodo Marmarosa, Al Haig, George Wallington, Margie Hyams, Mary Osborne, etc. so I'd grab anything by them I'd come across (though I'd not been able to listen in beforehand) and I'd very, very seldom be disappointed.

Euhhh ... one question: Why can't I, even when connected with my Org. nick, view the jpg attachments (i.e. open the files)? Something I missed there or is this a glitch in the file linking? Please advise.

@Luciano: See Michael Fitzgerald's post of 10 March 2003 above. He answers it all.

GA, I was in no bad mood at all until I read your initial post (and not even then ... just a little taken aback by such sweeping generalizations). Your one-sided slant against "scammers" specifically outside of N.A. (of all places) was uncalled for and unfair. Talk about impertinence ... If you are THAT worried about shady characters, would it have been totally unfathomable going for some sort of balanced statement to the effect that "scammers may be everywhere in this business, so beware"? (No, I am not trying to write your posts, just trying to get some common sense across ...) BTW, I have been on eBay since the middle of 2000, and the ONLY occasions (two in total) I have been scammed were by U.S. sellers. Taking yer money but no goods, and clearly not a matter of postal screw-up. Am I now holding all those from the US responsible who do business either way on eBay or similar platforms? Of course not. You cannot generalize, and shit happens. So all I was really asking was to be at least halfway balanced when making statements like that. Particularly when trying to give advice to the uninitiated. Finally, I admit I did have to look up "exceptionalism" (a term I had not heard before) but at any rate, that very notion is ... oh well ... why bother ... Oh yes, as for beer ... no dice. But some other brew might be quite feasible. @Laurie/jazzkats: My sincerest apologies but maybe you will understand such generalizations need at least SOME straightening out. Whatever you do with that collection and wherever you want to sell them IF you want to sell at least part of the collection item by item, please remember the prices you might fetch will be higher in other regins of the world. Though today's postal shipping rates don't help at all. It might be worth a try not ruling out buyers from outside the US from the outset. (No, I have no personal interest in this but am dead sure others would be more than interested in what would be the right items to THEM)

I like a good snaggle tooth.

Are you sure there are no scammers IN North America? Or if you want to advise against SPECIFIC regions of the world to deal with, then please say so and be specific. Otherwise you might do a huge and unfair disservice to honest collectors from outside the US of A (remember there IS a world of decent people and jazz fans out there) who might even be prepared to bear the huge shipping costs for the right item, and/or you might unnecessarily discourage newbie sellers on the forum who maybe have not dealt with buyers from abroad (or maybe even people from abroad at all) before. In short, please let's be fair.