Big Beat Steve

I have no concrete or up-to-date info but it seems like the tapes must have gone somewhere after the demise of Tampa. A few Tampa LPs were reissued in the 70s/80s on a U.S. budget label (with pretty garish covers, BTW) called "AJ Records" (subtitle: Archives of Jazz) which still said "Supervised by Robert Scherman" on the record labels. So if ex-Tampa boss Robert Scherman had a hand in these later reissues he certainly did not work with needledrops.

Exactly. Same experience here. And then there were both the similarly-produced ONYX LPs on early 40s swing and the 50s live recordings (Bob Andrews! The Jerry Newman of the 50s!!) on Xanadu that added importantly to the discographies of the key artists and leaders. Compared to that - sorry to say - those latter-day recordings (70s onwards) on Xanadu always appeared a bit like fillers to me. They may have been (and are) nice to ALSO have, but the essentials dated farther back and were milestones in the appreciation of the music from the bebop era by a wider audience who had not been around when the 78s were current and accessible.

Yes it IS the same logo. As for "Vogue", the French and UK record labels were sort of brothers. Don't know about the Vogue mag, though. That may may well have been "legit", but as we all know by 1960 the nipponese were well under way raiding everything copyable (and sellable) in the world for copying and plagiarizing, so why would they stop short of a mag that looked promising?

Interesting discovery. I didn't know DB ran a Japanese spinoff. Was this "legit" and endorsed (maybe even co-published) by DB or a ripoff/freeloader trying to cash in on the famous name?

Same here. But wheras in the past the old search function at least was a hit and miss affair (sometimes it did work - which was tedious because I could not detect a pattern whwn it would work and when not ... I therefore switched to Google too, as recommended by others a long time ago in a thread on this matter) the search function as it is now really is bunk and useless.

Hopefully. Forever.

Thanks for making my point so eloquently. Different strokes ... clash of cultures ... whatever. I remember my first experience of watching "Mon Oncle" was slightly unsettling due to the seemingly unfocused, confused, blurred dialogues - but that was when I was aged about 15. A bit later on I caught up with what he was all about, and all the finer points of his wit. And I have LOVED Jacques Tati ever since. Though that's a different part of the spectrum away from Louis Malle (including Zazie) again. And - yes, I find neither Al Bundy nor Seinfeld (what I've seen of them) all that funny, for example. Nor a host of others I am just too lazy to look up now.

Clearly a clash of cultures. Firstly, "Ascenseur pour l'echafaud" was not about Miles Davis in the first place but Miles Davis was subordinate to the plot and contents, and I feel there is a lot of him in there to create the atmosphere that pervades the entire film in a very fitting way. It should be remembered in what era the movie was made and what extent of "specialist" soundtrack was current or feasible then at all. Louis Malle did go very far there. And that "silent" Jeanne Moreau just is part of the plot as it unravels so those longish silent periods certainly are not a fault. I like the film and its atmosphere very much, including in the somewhat subdued plot of the film that the spectator pieces together as the movie proceeds. BTW, I'd also disagree with Tom Perchard's view on the film in his recent book "After Django". IMO it has less loose ends or doubtful intentions than is claimed there. Secondly, considering what Hollywood had foisted on the movie-going world through the decades in the way of blatantly unfunny "comedies", "Zazie" IS funny (OK, some speeded-up segments in the latter part of the film are a bit over the top but that's a minor point overall). At least by (Continental?) European sensitivities, particularly to those who have a feeling for that particular French way of portraying their own temperament as it manifests itself in certain everyday situations (give or take some exaggeration for effect), plus that "period" feel, of course. So I do disagree here too. But then again I rather am one to immerse myself in the setting and mood of such films (both "Ascenseur" and "Zazie" and others) and am not one to dissect their elements out of context.

97 years. Wow ... RIP. He was a musical catalyst who made things happen.

But did he regress back beyond his bebop style later on and went back to swing and R&B? Honestly, can you really say somebody REGRESSED if he stuck to his guns throughout his career and did not feel like jumping on the free or electro-jazz or fusion or post-whatever bandwagon that came (and went, BTW) after the hard bop era? He may have stagnated (at most) - but regressed? IMO "modernity" is not an end in itself (in jazz, in particular) to be judged by what is just the current and most "modern" fad, or else any modernity would be just a gimmick. The tree of jazz branches out in many different directions and these stylistic branches can and should coexist. And actually, I find his remark about and to Ornette Coleman about the pointlessness (for HIM) of playing "free" quite to the mark, given the niche character of jazz and the problems of making a living there. Besides, who was Ornette Coleman to tell Lou Donaldson he (quote) "needed" to play "some of this free music"? Why venturing out into something that you don't wholeheartedly believe in? And if you played something just because you felt (or were told) you "needed" to play this, then doesn't this sound like trying to follow a fad again? Yes I am nitpicking a bit, but I find this automatically taking swipes at those who have their own take on the "holy cows" of jazz a bit over the top. There is no "right" or "wrong" in this, just opinions. Particularly if it's the musicians among themselves.

Somehow I have always been under the impression that Lou Donaldson constantly played in a style of jazz that went BEYOND that, so .... ? Besides, just looking at the excerpt in the opening post: If you just take the core of one man's opinion and observations from his presence on the scene and even take them with a bit of salt, there STILL is a grain of "emperor's clothes" truth to it after all. Acquired wisdom (of what one - at large - is supposed NOT to disagree on) isn't always where wisdom really is.

Ronnell Bright.

Very interesting. But wouldn't it have been quite appropriate to give a BIT of airplay to EARLY African-American residents in France too? E.g. Big Boy Goudie, Garnet Clark, Willie Lewis ? After all they played an important role in setting the stage for the jazz climate that attracted Americans after the war.

I have it (released on Roulette, rec. July 7, 1961). The solo is there alright - a sort of "trading fours" with the band (or sections of it). Nice and effectful but not all that spectacular. It might well have been a sort of prearranged and written-out part for Green IMO.

"Tilt", right? (Swing 30.058)

According to the index. both are mentioned in the introductory chapter, Guralnick is mentioned 4 times elsehwhere throughout the book, but only with brief quotations form what he worte no Johnson, really just passing quotes, and Charters is mentioned on two pages a bit more in depth relating to his Folkways activities. Both do not figure prominently in the book, though. I read that book (and the one by Marybeth Hamlton) a few years ago but think I will need to re-read it now. What you wrote in an earlier post in reply to Larry Kart ... "f Columbia deigned to put out two 16 cut albums of Tampa Red in 1961, the world of music, sound, lyrics as poety etc would not in any way be diminished and arguably it would rather more interesting. ... got me thinking, though. From all I have observed (later on, admittedly, in mags and record catalogs from those years) about the reissue market of that period, select and limited availability no doubt shaped the perception of this music from much earlier periods to a large extent. This select and limited access to long-OOP music no doubt could make or break a myth of any given performer beyond what widespread access to the entire scope of recordings and artists (as we enjoy it today) would really have warranted. At least over here in Europe (including the UK, I'd guess). And sometimes it can only help re-reading period reviews and praises with the benefit of hindsight and the inevitable grain of salt IMO.

So .... what is this jury's current verdict on "Escaping the Delta" by Elijah Wald, then? (Just curious, really ...)

But how likely is Ray's to sell them SOON at that price?

Exactly. That's the one. But that series - desite its awkward covers - was just great. I cannot recall having ever been disappointed with the ones I bought from that series untried, untested.

It would be a pity if it went belly up. I have bought quite a few CDs from this series a couple of years ago and found them very nice as they do add to some artists' discographies in a very interesting way.

Are you referring to Savoy 12084 recorded on July 9, Aug 8 and Aug.20, 1956?

People who don't know better will think there are LPs in there, so you're actually very hip with these around. You could even discuss the latest newspaper article about the thrill of collecting old cheap vinyl over a cup of tea. One reason I like my Bear Family boxes (and my not all that numerous Mosaic boxes too). They actually sit on my vinyl racks in between all the vinyl where they belong style-wise or in the A-Z run of leaders' LPs. And in some cases they make nice "section dividers" between the LPs of two different styles of music that are filed separately on the shelves.

Yes, great news about that second box. Though I sincerely hope this box won't duplicate the rest of those early 2000s black Vogue CDs I already have. The first box had a fair share of overlaps with the ones from that series (but was still worth the money) but the more I browse through 50s copies of JAZZ HOT the more I see there is so much out there on that label that has NOT been reissued. So I hope the second box will cover some of that ground ...

Yes, great news about that second box. Though I sincerely hope this box won't duplicate the rest of those early 2000s black Vogue CDs I already have. The first box had a fair share of overlaps with the ones from that series (but was still worth the money) but the more I browse through 50s copies of JAZZ HOT the more I see there is so much out there on that label that has NOT been reissued. So I hope the second box will covber some of that ground ...

Am now into reading this book. VERY interesting and I am devouring it for the subject matter's sake, but ... whew ... heavy stuff and rough going ... this IS scholarly indeed, and there is a lot in there where the musical contents (and the alleged focus on same) really (and unfortunately IMO) get crowded out by an onslaught of academic (or should I say "high-brow"?) prose. And I don't quite buy into the all-out emphasis on religious aspects evoked as the overwhelming motivations throughout when it comes to Panassié's stance on what he considered "real" jazz either. (No definite judgment here yet, just a case of fairly advanced bewilderment ... ) More probably in due course ...