Big Beat Steve

To start with Pops Foster, his SLAP BASS workout with the Luis Russell Orchestra is stellar anytime IMO and has certainly set the framework for many others who followed in that playing style (regardless of the fact that there have been some (critics??) who considered slap bass the ultimate in technical NON-proficiency in playing the "bass fiddle" ) (Different strokes for different folks again ...) As for King Ubu's above list - hey, where's Scott La Faro? (Hey, you don't mean to say ... ?? )

Interesting to read you confirm my impressions, Larry. So it's not "only me".

Happens often in circles of the "learned" who are all out to publish, publish, publish ... Use specific buzzwords that will get you (fairly easily calculable) write-ups and acclaim from a certain circle of critics who will then acknowledge your intellectual insight ...

Well, if you insist ... With all due respect, I beg to disagree about Jamil Nasser. He is one of those who have managed to mar my listening experience here and there, specifically as an accompanist to Al Haig ("Strings Attached"). What's all that droning, booming, resonating bass background that distracts from the lead voices and at times even tends to collide with Jimmy Raney's guitar lines? Not always very sympathetic IMO. Granted that times and styles have evolved since the 50s but what's all that busybody bassing around when, as an accompanist, a somewhat more subordinate role is called for. Where are Ray Brown, Red Callender, etc. when it is all about getting a steady pulse and swing going? There is a time and place for everything and all this droning and resonating may be fine and quite appropriate in other settings, but there?? Or is it all the fault of what recording mix was fashionable in those days? No doubt Al Haig himself felt differently as he used Jamil Nasser often, but still ... Gary Mazzaroppi (with Tal Farlow) is another one in the very same vein (even more so, sometimes crowding out the guitarist) who makes it a bit of a displeasure searching out latter-day recordings by artists who I like immensely. No harm and insult meant, but the way they play there, those bass players just "get in the way" IMO. BTW, talking about dropping names - no interest in Curtis Counce?

OK, thanks. Suits me fine anyway. Following up a full title (if really interested) on your own instead of just relying on the convenience of a clickable link should not be too much of an effort for anybody.

I wouldn't have bypassed that either. Congrats!

"Late life" is a very relative concept anyway. Some reach a phase of maturity (or of an urge to "move on") earlier, some later. And evolution in one's overall works therefore differs. However, the above rattling off of names of clasical composers from the 18th/19th century misses the point considerably IMO when they are supposed to be compared to the relatively early death of John Coltrane. Please have a look at the average life expectancy of the overall population in the respective countries/regions first before comparing the "early" deaths of those composers to the early death of someone living in the midst of the 20th century. Not sure if all this was always seen as that "desperately short" by all of the contemporaries of those composers to the same degree that later generations of lovers of the music mourn the short lives these celebrities led. Times WERE different ...

Of course. And I did. But it still remains that what is best to one fan of the music isn't necessarily best to another one. Preferences do differ so if you don't know somebody else's precise preferences ... ? That was (and still is) my point. Particularly in this case where the style and quality of the sessions are so close together in every respect. In short, IMHO the only appropriate answer to such a question is: If you have not only gone to the trouble of getting all the Bird on Dial for BIrd's sake but if you have got it because you truly are into bebop, then get ALL the other bebop sessins on Dial too. They merit it all. Of course I realize there may be some inadvertent Crow Jim going on in such discussions or recommendations, based on the premise of "bebop is black music so McGhee got to be vastly superior to Berman", but honestly, I for one don't buy into this.

Not wanting to stir up an age-old discussion, but just to understand this policy: Assuming we are talking about this kind of releases, would it be OK by the board policy, for example, to crearly write the artists, the entire disc title and the label name and catalog number but no link and then possibly indicating which mail order/online seller we are talking about ? Which incidentally would be fine with me and after all it should not be an unsurmountable task for ANYBODY to follow such information by AGAIN typing the information via any search engine or on any website in order to locate that disc. Cannot possibly be so that any effort to be made beyond clicking on a link would be considered too awkward for anybody, right?

How is anybody ELSE to know in order to tell YOU? We all have the discographies to check what there is to start with ... Seriously ... I, for example, knew all along I like 40s bebop so anything by the artists from that field and falling into that time bracket has always been a safe bet for me and whatever I wasn't able to hear beforehand I bought unheard and just just going by the artist(s) and recording dates and cannot say I have been disappointed anywhere. But that's a decision to be made by everyone himself. Because I was prepared to go all out in the field of 40s bebop (to an extent I would not have cared to do in 50s/early 60s hard bop, for example). but how is anybody to know how far anybody ELSE is prepared to go? Pretty much impossible to guide anybody SAFELY, then.

Of the non-Parker stuff, what do you think is the best, and where would one get it? Who would be able to answer THAT adequately, not knowing your tastes and preferences in every detail? Dexter Gordon is fine, Howard McGhee is fine, Sonny Berman is fine, Dodo Marmarosa is fine, The Hermanites are fine, etc. etc. The Dexter Gordon and Dodo Marmarosa tracks may be most "seminal" ones in certain repsects but all of them deserve exploring by anybody interested in the classics of bebop jazz. Impossible to choose (select) really by way of recommendation. I

I wouldn't contradict you - I was just referring to the 45s of the 50s and early 60s when quite a huge percentage (mostly indie labels, true ...) looked rather uninspired and like hack jobs.

Considering the state of the (non-)"art" of the 45s in the 50s and early 60s, they weren't doing that badly with that special font of the label name IMO. To put it more bluntly, label design and "artwork" or 45s was largely in a "dark age" in the 50s and early 60s, at least compared to the 78 rpm era and the 45 rpm era starting from the mid- to late 60s. , some notable exceptions such as Roulette or Chess notwithstanding.

AFAIK those Climax 78s were no bootlegs but some kind of overseas licensing deal. And at least the Climax labels reproduced the BN layout a bit more faithfully so everybody knew what they were supposed to remind you of. Previously discussed here: Whereas this "Blue Note" 45 has nothing in common with the actual BN but the name. Their label design and use of fonts, etc. (you CANNOT call this "artwork") is about as nondescript as those 45 labels got in that period. There must have been millions like that. One as bland as the other.

"Gag" is the word. Or "gimmick". Or "soundalike". Take your pick. IMO it boils down to the same thing: People stepping in somebody else's musical identity to see how it feels there. But maybe albums or recordings such as this actually are the ULTIMATE tribute to the orignal version? Even though they defy the usual artistic "raison d'être" of coming up with something that is "your own", no matter to what extent it borrows from or is based on somebody else's previous version of the same "source material"? Honestly, this entire discussion has been running in circles for some time now, isn't it? You can like or hate such projects, but those who find it intriguing listening to such projects won't ever convince those who find such coyping quite pointless (regardless of what the original intentions or marketing goals of those copying projects were). And vice versa. Though they well may be some who find all this pointless and STILL listen attentively to all that copying for curiosity's sake .... And though I am among those who find such copying exercises pointless or a gimmick at best, I'll have to admit that in this case the "iconoclasm" notion of toppling the saints off their pedestals can be a charming one ...

I hate to distract or derail this discussion, but talking about the idea of reproducing a known piece of music NOTE BY NOTE (as really seems to be the postulated intention here), do you condone or (even) appreciate the approach those big band coypcats followed with the TIME-LIFE series or don't you? Not that I would want to FORCE this subject into the ongoing discussion but the two approaches strike me as being fairly comparable, and assuming that MOPDTK master their instruments well enough to tackle such a project at all, I would really like to know where the "ineptitude" comes in. Knowing that the big bands that tackled those big band charts for TIME LIFE of course had loads of technically proficient players too, would that mean that if the one project is inept, so is the other? Or where exactly is the "ineptitude", assuming it is NOT in the mastery of the instruments?

Leeway and ejp626 sum up nicely the core the problem, IMO. Iconoclasm is a very apt keyword. Use the material in full and make something new out of it would be fine - such as the John Kirby Sextet jazzing up the classics, which created reactions of shock in their day too, or cool jazz musicians playing Jelly Roll Morton, or whatever happened in jazz through the decades in that vein. But trying a note-for-note carbon copy of the original sounds like rather a gimmicky approach (but one that will certainly get them headlines), and to me that is a bit too much like that TIME-LIFE approach e.g. of "the Jimmy Lunceford recording of "XXXXX" (now comes the fine print) as played by Billy May". Though no doubt it might make for a nice one-off experience when heard live on stage. Though I wonder what the reactions of Miles/KOB lovers would have been if this .. "Personally, I would have preferred that, like any bona-fide iconoclast, they took an axe to it, free-jazzed the hell out of it, put on a huge mustache and goatee, to remind us that change is inevitable, that nothing should be held immutable." ... had really happened.

Some R&B sounds that were a bit slicker: The band behind Ivory Joe Hunter's 1949 hit recording of "I Almost Lost My Mind" for MGM included Taft Jordan (tp), Budd Johnson (ts) and Ernie Caceres (bars). And the lineups behind Ivory Joe Hunter recording for King were like this: Harold Baker (tp), Tyree Glenn (tp/vib), Russell Procope (as/cl), Oscar Pettiford (b), Sonny Greer (dr) in late 1947 and Baker, Glenn, Procope, Greer plus Johnny Hodges (as) and Wendell Marshall (b) in July 1949. Howzat for some R&B lineup? The list of jazzmen recording regularly with Ray Charles (starting with his Swingtime recordings and all through his Atlantic period) should also be a pretty impressive Who's Who.

Not to forget Ben Webster's presence on a Johnny Otis session for Mercury in late 1951.

Taking it one step further, quite a few jazz notables were on the Atlantic studio musician roster in the 50s. Leaving out a few jazz men maybe more renowned in R&B circles anyway (such as Freddie Mitchell, Mickey Baker, King Curtis, Harry Van Walls etc.), the following renowned jazz musicians were on one or the other of Joe Turner's Atlantic recordings/hits in the 1953-59 period: Taft Jordan (tp), Budd Johnson (as), Leonard Gaskin (b), Connie Kay (dr), Lloyd Trotman (b),Jimmy Nottingham (tp), Dick Vance (tp), George Barnes (g), Jerome Richardson (as), Mundell Lowe (g), Hilton Jefferson (as), Marlowe Morris (p, org). Some of the above, plus Al Caiola (g), Romeo Penque (as), Milt Hinton (b), Sam Price (p), Teddy Charles (vib) were on the Atlantic recordings by Chuck Willis from the sane period. Teddy Charles (no doubt a surprising name in this context), for example, was on the "Hang Up My Rock'n'Roll Shoes" session from 1958 but not on that particular tune.

In case you were alluding to my earlier post ... note I always put that "cacophony" in quotation marks to show that this is not an "objective" or lasting judgment of the music by any means. Anybody is free to embrace free jazz and avantgarde as much as they like - the only thing that bugs ME in debates centering around this form of jazz is that there a a bit too many for my taste (sometimes here but often elsewhere too wherever free jazz is/was written about) who proceed on their own conviction of "if you do not like free jazz you ain't seen the light, you ain't with it, you ain't getting the JAZZ message, you are old hat, you are missing the boat, you don't understand 'JAZZ' " etc. etc. . Which is something I find all wrong because those who "argue" like that seem to believe the evolution of jazz occurs in a LINEAR manner from the simple to the ever more complex and "far out". Whereas in fact jazz has always branched in all imaginable directions, sometimes in a fairly straight way, often rather twisted, sometimes even in circles, etc. But certainly not in a linear pattern that knows only ONE direction of evolution - and certainly not an evolution linked to any sort of automatic artistic superiority. An if some (like me, admittedly ) prefer not to get out too far on certain limbs of that tree of jazz then isn't this just as valid as the actions of those who like to sit out there on those limbs (and you, for example, do not wish to climb certain OTHER limbs of that tree either, isn't it?) But that's a totally different debate IMO. EXCEPT in the event that some possible sense of superiority should creep into the debate surrounding such note-for-note copying projects - such as hinted at in my above post: copying KOB note by note is heresy (?), copying the big bands note by note - ah, couldn't care less ... Finally, just to get this straight (in case I did not manage to get this across in my above posts): If somebody wants to copy some previous recording note by note and "reenact" it that way (i.e. not in the sense of Supersax or Lambert-Hendricks-Ross reworking previously redforded solos) - OK, go ahead and enjoy yourself. No doubt there will be an audience for it. I am not overly moved by this kind of copying project but that's only me ... and tastes differ, so to each his own.

Quite true, MG - this subject has many facets. But even if we take only jazz musicians who worked (often extensively) in R&B bands before they became JAZZ stars (cf. Clifford Brown with Chris Powell's Blue Flames) or jazz musicians who did R&B work on the side (as session musicians or on-stage "side jobs") with R&B singers/bands while they were already well-known in jazz circles, then this will make up quite a list ...

Strange ... Hot Ptah, you know, even before you wrote your post I was half expecting this sort of reaction that you described and I have a hunch why ... Anybody remember that TIME LIFE box set series of the "Swing Era"? It is a well-known "secret" that those big band recordings in that (admittedly nicely produced) box set were NOT the original recordings but note-by-note re-recordings done specifically for this box set project (by Billy May and Glen Gray). Apparently the recordings sounded close enough to the originals (I don't really go for this kind of copying either and had the most important original recordings anyway so never grabbed a copy - despite the interesting booklets - though several affordable secondhand ones crossed my path during the years) and strangely enough I have often read praise of this box set (even on jazz forums, including this one, I do seem to remember). And many dwelt on the improved fidelity, better sound, etc. but hardly anyone faulted the set for the recordings NOT being the original ones but rehashes and carbon copies of the "real thing". Could it be that even some jazz aficionados will embrace copying such as on that TIME LIFE set, including because "fidelity" is OH so improved .... making the recordings OH so more listenable ... and the fact that these just are NOT the real thing is shrugged off as immaterial (after all "it's only them big bands so why care?"). Whereas in the case of KOB jazz fans cry out loud. Why? Is this sort of "tampering" with KOB close enough to being SACRILEGIOUS, I wonder? Is KOB really on that high a pedestal? Which would explain the reactions you describe: "unacceptable" "wrong" and whatnot ... Note that I do understand those who do not like this kind of copycat practice, and I am not particularly keen on it either, but I am not keen on it anywhere and find it pointless. Not because KOB might be some commodity particularly worthy of protection beyond all others. That TIME-LIFE practice bugged me too. BTW, neither do I particularly care for that 50s practice of re-recording ONE'S OWN recordings just because some A&R people want to jump on the stereo bandwagon (cf. June Christy's "Something Cool" album for Capitol, and no doubt many others). Looks (or rather, sounds ) rather gimmicky to me too.

To be more precise, they were (collective personnel) Shorty Rogers, Milt Bernhart, Bud Shank, Gerry Mulligan, Marty Paich, Jimmy Wyble, Howard Rumsey, Roy Harte, Dave Pell, Jimmy Giuffre, Bob Cooper, Frank Patchen, Shelly Manne aka "Boots Brown & His Blockbusters" as well as Al Cohn, Nick Travis, Eddie Bert, Charlie O'Kane, Elliott Lawrence, Buddy Jones, Osie Johnson aka "Dan Drew & His Daredevils" But this is not exactly what the thread is about but rather the reverse: A bunch of crack jazz musicians having fun and showing that "we can honk with the best too!" Great R&B LP, BTW. But they were not the first. The Lighthouse All Stars clique (Howard Rumsey et al.) had been doing the same thing earlier in the 50s for various recordings of the tune "Big Boy"/"More Big Boy" (M.B.B.) (plus teh follow-up "Big Girl"), first for the Skylark label, then on Contemporary.