Big Beat Steve

Google is your friend: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_Jazz_Ramwong

Your "stated" intent is and remains ridiculous the way you put down others for allegedly buying too much music (that IS what you do - re-read your post). And who are you to judge if those others are able to digest the music thoroughly enough before moving on to the next one? As if your way of listening was the only one. Besides, nobody put you down for taking in the music the way you do. It just is that preferences differ widely, and why not say so in an open discussion? Like it or not, but it was rather pointless focusing that way on Ligeti. He stated his opinion, that's all. BTW, thin skins are were there are those who feel they by all means need to defend their own modus operandi (like with that initial "cutting edge rebel" retort that comes acorss very much as an underhanded put-down, just because there is somebody who states his opinion that these Spotify gadgets are just "Emperor's clothes" to hin - understandably so IMHO)

Aweigh!! You might need that anchor some other time again!

Who says you immediately have to move from one to the next just because you bought several in one go? What would be keeping you from buying a load at one time (if only to take advantage of shipping all in one go or of special offers available for a limited time only? There may be a dozen reasons to group purchases) and yet listening to them one after another, keeping the "next ones" on hold until you've really digested the one before? From what I've witnessed with others who do streaming I can fully understand what Ligeti says about becoming less discerning and finding almost anything worth a partial listen. Listen in here, listen in there, and out the window goes the tune after some consumptive listening ... on to the next ... it happens too easily if you are flooded with items and don't even have to make an effort to select. About all this being detrimental to one's overall appreciation, maybe streaming is the final step in everything in music being at your fingertips indiscriminately. It a way it is the "culmination" of an evolution that in some pensive moment I've been wondering about every now and then ever since CD reissue (and issue) programs have mushroomed to the extent they have now: It is nice and convenient for music lovers and collectors to be able to access their wishes much more easily but do we really get that deeply into the music anymore? As deeply as, say, in the 60s when you were oh so happy to find a reissue LP of your favorite artist with 16 tunes that had been unavailable for years and years, with everything else by that artist being OOP, or one import LP of a contemporary artist out of 5 or 6 LPs he had already out? I believe those LPs were "ingested" with much more intensity (because they were all there was to the avid listener) than later "complete works" series that you can buy at the click of a button somewhere and hop from one to aniother at will when listening ... And now streaming has taken this accessibility to yet another level and you might take much too much for granted and lose your ability (or willingness??) to discern?.

I for one just wasn't aware of that side of him up to that point. And his spoofy antics just need to be taken piecemeal, lest the novelty effect wears prematurely thin. As for Prima, Scott and all the other "rest", as far as I am concerned you're preaching to the (long-)converted! Nothing academic here. After all I can find some enjoyable swing interest in Fred Schnicklefritz Fisher too!

Search out the "Murders Them All", ""Murders Again" and "Can't Stop Murdering" 2-LP sets from the same period if you like that and come across these records cheaply. I can only take Spike Jones in small doses and until I came across the above sets very cheaply I was firmly in MG's camp (see above) Yet Spike Jones is an intriguing character and as hinted at above, must have been quite jazz savvy - in more ways than one: I remember a record hop at some rockabilly concert almost 20 years ago where the DJ spun a catchy big band swing tune that had everybody up and jiving. I asked him who exactly that was and to my surprise that tune came from the Spike Jones LP released in that "The Uncollected..." series on Hindsight. Can't recall the name of the tune and needless to say so far I have been unable to find a copy of that particular LP from that series at a nice price but anyway, there you are ...

Label? Record number? This has me stumped too ... the edition of Bruyninckx' discography I have does not list anything like that by him either.

Very pertinent question. :tup

I am far from being sufficiently famliar with that stream of jazz to make profound assessments but I do think I see what you mean. A bit like what had been said in arecent thread about many jazz recordings that came after KOB and quite obviosuly trie4d to recreate a KOB mood throughout. If you talk about "quotes" found in latter-day recordings that clearly refer to earlier ones then you might find such examples wherever you look closer. I remember quite a few years ago I caught a lengthy piano concert recording of Michel Petrucciani on TV and by coincidence not long afterwards I spun some 50s hard bop records and upon listening to the piano player's comping and soloing my immediate thoughts were "you heard this just the other day", and sure enough when I closed my eyes the TV images of Petrucciani came floating back. And now certainly nobody will question Petrucciani's place in the annals of jazz ... Just personal influences coming through? Or is a lot just much closer together stylistically than you'd imagine upon first hearing? I'd vehemently disagre with THIS statement of yours, though: It's almost a deliberate (maybe it is deliberate) attempt to make a statement that anything even associate with the "out" or "avant-garde" never existed or doesn't exist and us somehow outside of that "mainstream". I think I know what you mean but I'd see this rather as a statement that DESPITE "far out" or "avantgarde" there is a place for a continuum of other (non-free, more "traditional", relatively speaking) forms of jazz to go on after all. Not to pretend avantgarde had never existed but to insist that avantgarde is not the only and mandatory course of jazz once avantgarde had started. And IMHO they got a point ... (but OTOH this does NOT detract from avantgarde, it just says avantgarde isn't all) There's more than one way to skin a cat, as they say ...

Thanks for that info, Larry ... apart from the solos you mentioned,this must be some of the fastest baritone sax playing on record in more recent decades ... will certainly be on the lookout, though I had not intended to go that far back style-wise. And if so, then that recent thread on the Anachronic Jazz band has aroused my curiosity from a different angle and made me purchase their 2-CD reissue. Amazing ... but that will be a matter for that "'other" thread ...

Thanks very much for taking the trouble to reply in detail, and I will hand it to you anytime that you in your position and with your background have a more in-depth perception of the finer points of all these artists so if I may explain ... I mentioned Hamilton and Vaché only as two examples of jazzmen who played throughout their jazz careers in a jazz style that was no longer at the modernist forefront of the evolution. Pars pro toto ... Other jazzmen could have been named as examples for the same purpose ... Bob Wilber/Kenny Davern, maybe? Also, "legitimate" (due to its multiple meanings) was maybe not the most fitting term I used to hint at the "rightful" place (IMHO) of this group of musicians in the evolution of jazz. No connotations at all meant with classical music ... As for "mainstream" jazz, I understood this always to refer to jazz that was neither among the most progressive forms of jazz of the 50s (when the term was coined) nor among the most nostalgic forms (traditional jazz) but somewhere in between to describe the style of those who still were around from the swing era but had not jumped on the bop bandwagon (nor gone all "trad"). "Mainstream" in the sense of NOT being part of the stylistic extremes in either direction therefore appeared quite fitting to me but maybe "MIDDLE JAZZ" would have been more apt if that term had been used more widely? (Some have doubted that term here when I mentioned it in an earlier debate but that term WAS used to describe this jazz in many FRENCH publications throughout the 50s and certainly beyond so must have had some background in jazz circles). As for the "tradition huggers" and their preference for the warmer, mellower side of the swing era, this is something I cannot judge and cannot confirm from my own experience (which may not be representative one bit), but in TODAY's discussion of whether one wants to embrace the "far out" styles of jazz, I feel that a lot more than just "mellow swing" is relegated to the traditionalist camp. Looking back over my close of 40 years of involvement in jazz, there have been those to whom jazz rock and/or fusion was all that jazz (ALL jazz!) was all about, then there were and are those to whom anything free and "avantgarde" is the epitome to the exclusion of most everythign that came before, and of course there is a larger group of jazz fans (including today) whose own STYLISTIC jazz preferences by their own admission seem to START with hard bop (maybe even the end of hard bop, who knows ...). Mention Fats Navarro or early Howard McGhee (or even early Chet or Jack Sheldon) to those hardbop-and-beyond fans and you draw a comparative blank. Stylistically it is all Lee Morgan and onwards to them ... This leaves out a LOT more than just "mellow swing" (and what was around before swing) in the "tradition hugging" camp. Which IMO is quite a lot of blind spots when it comes to appreciating where one's (chronologically more recent) idols came from. Anyway ... all I meant to point out is that when it comes to belittling certain styles of jazz one doesn't like in an attempt to justify one's limits of taste then this is a door that swings both ways ... because for each traditionalist who denigrates avantgarde there is one avantgardist (or "post-whatever-ist") who denigrates, say, most of what happened before Hard Bop or Trane or KOB or whatever. Not ideal, either way ...

What he said. This is the sort of discussion that runs in circles and does not really lead anywhere anymore. I can understand the above statement (certainly also aimed at the Marsalis faction ) but (admittedly because I certainly am far from "all avantgarde" in my own tastes ) it seems to me there is another side of this very coin: For every one at whom the above statement is aimed there has been at least another one who goes all overboard when it comes to free, avantgarde, post-"you name it" and considers this beginning and end of ALL jazz in a kind of "If you don't dig avantgarde you are nowhere in jazz" attitude to justify the limits of HIS taste. No, I am not referring to key forumists here, but if you look around and observe closely, those of you who feel concerned by my assertion, isn't it so that in all the decades since the avantgardish late 60s/early 70s there have also been more than enough of those to whom anything that came before hard bop is old hat (there even was a time when even anything that came before fusion, etc. was lumped into that bag, with the possible exception of some fashionable Trane etc.). To this circle of the jazz audience Bird generates maybe some fleeting interest but is not in the center of their radar at all, and whatever styles of jazz existed before bop were definitely considered "moldy figs", and even some listening to Pops or Duke could hardly offset their somewhat unbalanced perception of jazz and their lack of interest in the wider fields of the more "traditional" styles of jazz, regardless of the fact that the evolution of jazz has not only progressed towards free, avantgarde, post-whatever but has evolved concurrently in different directions ever since. In short, Scott Hamilton and Warren Vaché etc. have always been just as much a legitimate part of a LIVING evolution of jazz as Ayler, Brötzmann et al. It takes both streams to jazz to form a whole, and while it is understandable that not everybody can and wishes to embrace ALL forms of jazz, each faction ought to be very, very careful when it comes to dismissing as irrelevant or inexistent whatever one doesn't like. Just my 2c.

A side question to those familiar with production matters of this book and/or living in Germany: Does anybody happen to know if a German translation of this "Uncompromising Expression'" history of BN has already been done and published? The other day I came across a stack of this one ... http://sieveking-verlag.de/novitaeten/blue-note/ (published by Sieveking Verlag) ... though all of them shrink-wrapped and no browsing copy available so was not able to leaf through it and therefore really am not sure. Anybody had a look inside to see what is given as the "original" of that book? Richard Havers seems to be a sort of real Jack-in-the-box when it comes to churning out books on musical styles and label biographies (not necessarily a bad thing or sign of superficiality, it seems ... will get his Verve book shortly) but TWO different Blue Note books simultaneously in the offing by the same author or a German translation of that book available as early as the publication of the original edition (or even a bit before)? This is VERY unusual, particularly since German editors are notoriously reticent when it comes to publishing German editions of US/UK coffee table books (as opposed to French ones where mastery of the English language is sort of NOT taken for granted, hence a larger domestic demand is anticipated there ).

This is a somewhat puzzling piece to Continental European jazz fans. I suppose this is just an introduction to the subject for neophytes/outsiders and does not come from a feeling of having to make up for a blind spot of this part of jazz from an Anglo-centric perspective? Because Polish jazz (particularly its more advanced forms) has always been very much part of jazz awareness over here from sometime in the 60s and at least all through the 70s and onwards. Komeda and Kurylewicz were among the early ones, then Traszkowski, Namyslowski, Urbaniak, Dylag, Niemen, etc. They were present not only in East Germany (where of course touring bands were more frequent - due to the ease of cultural exchange between the two Communist countries) but also in West Germany where, in addition to live appearances, records of Polish jazz were nothing rare in the better jazz sections of record shops, either Polish imports on Muza etc. or German pressings/relases on insider labels such as Spiegelei as well as some majors here and there. Anf of course the Japanese collecting nerds have been aware of Polish jazz as part of that "Eurojazz collecting mania" for a long time too (pushing prices for some collectible records to sky-high levels!).

Escaped me at the time. It was interesting (and fun) reading it now. BTW, the online edition of a German weekly has a story on Pink Floyd drummer NICK MASON today. Headline: "My drumming is brilliant. Always has been." Any opinions? For each of the more insipid flash-in-the-pan British 60s bands there were dozens of sugary American "boy next door" schmaltzies who could (then) and still can (now) cause similar nightmares to those who like their (pop/rock) music with a bit of substance. Avalon, Clanton, Vinton, Vee, Rydell, plus all the lesser lights, you name them .. About time the British bands blew them off the stages back then and changed the course of pop/rock music for good ...

Talking about records with autographs you picked up, arund the year 2000/2001 I picked up a relatively early Verve pressing of "The Tal Farlow Album" that had Tal Farlow's autograph on the front cover and despite this extra bonus wasn't even priced excessively. And where did I pick it up? At PARIS JAZZ CORNER, of all places - the very same place that recently published the biography of Tal Farlow as their first book venture (great book, BTW).

Sounds fairly appropriate.

(Though no doubt you have googled all this by now) Bent Fabricius Bjerre. Notable among Danish studio and band musicians and jack-of-all-trades in jazz and other circles since the early postwar years. I found his "Alley Cat" (of his Bent Fabric period) rather inane, though. Like a lot of other stuff from that period where somebody who had been around for some time suddely came up with a marketable pop hit after trying all sorts of musical directions. As for the name, Bent is a common first name in Denmark (not unlike English Bernard/Bernie or whatever), so not any stranger than the names of gazillions of American acts overall before, during and after that period. BTW, looking at Atco/Atlantic inner sleeves during that period, have you never wondered about other odd names such as HUTCH DAVIE?

I'm still not too proud to turn down occasional gigs from a retired school teacher, who should probably be arrested each time he plays a woodwind instrument in public. As soon as he reaches for his clarinet, I know he's about to inflict SOTS on the poor, unsuspecting audience. It's pretty difficult to screw that one up, but this 'artiste' makes it sound like Albert Ayler! Mezz Mezzrow and, above all, Ted Lewis come to mind when this sort of quip is being heard.

I agree. (But of course, less information is available about any kind of people/activity a hundred years ago than this year.) MG Of course. But you can keep the imbalance within limits if you make an effort and do not yield to turning a history book into a fanzine for some quick sales. That was my main point.

Ah! Glad to see I haven't come across such books. BTW, even coverage doesn't do it. Importance has to be taken into account. But not to focus on one bit to render the other bits unnoticeable, of course. MG Yes, you are right, even coverage doesn't necessarily do it. But to give you one example in a totally different field (that touched me in my younger days, but not much anymore). Imagine a book about "100 Years of F.A. Cup Finals" where such an even coverage approach is imaginable. A fairly even number of pages for each year's final, right? Each final was as important as next year's in its own day, right, and ought to be so from a historian's perspective too? But how do these bookas look? About 1 page per year at most for the first 30 or 40 or 50 years or so, and for the MOST RECENT years you get 6 or 8 pages PER YEAR in full color and whatnot ... A bit skewed overall ... Or, for example, an imaginary book about the greatest stars of black music of all times. No doubt Charles Brown or Arthur Prysock were BIG in their day but would they be given nearly as much coverage as the most recent chart acts that happen to make the headlines NOW, though it is still unclear if the recent "stars" will be remembered anywhere 5 or 10 years from now? In order to get into such books that cover periods from the past up to the current present you would have to be an undisputed all-time legend if your heyday was, say, 40 or 50 or 60 years ago, whereas it would be sufficient to be a chart flash in the pan (who is long from proving enduring star status) if you are a CURRENT or very recent act. That's what I was alluding to about giving even coverage. "Greatest stars of ALL times" is not necessarily about those who are still considered great stars today after all those decades but about those who were the greatest stars in THEIR respective times. Which might be an aspect relevant to a book on BN too.

Sure, MG, but it all depends on the approach of the publishers. You see, I've come across history books that purported to show the ultimate "100-year history of ... (put in whatever subject comes to mind)", and where, on the face of it, this history ought to give exactly even coverage to each of these 100 years (or at least to each of the 10 decades of that century) but on looking closer you find that the "first" 70 or 80 years are glossed over on the first 30 percent of the book and then the most recent 20 or 30 years take up the other 70 percent of the book, including a large part devoted to whatever the most recent events or stars or celebs are, i.e. those that make headlines TODAY and are what such a books sells for to the superficially interested. Not what somebody interested in the ACTUAL history would want to go for.

Tell them to have a look at any TOP RANK 45. A Google picture search for Top Rank Record Label will yield about a million examples.

Done.

Now THAT sounds like an original way of adapting tunes. Why limit yourself to hearing "King Porter Stomp" played by Westcoast jazz musicians, for example, or Steve Lacy's first recordings for Jaguar? Why not the other way round, for once, too? Cannot recall having heard about them "at the time" (but probaby I just did not pay attention). Time to make up for that oversight.