Big Beat Steve

- "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 ...

Sales of that book must be picking up fast, it seems. Got mine in October, and it was no. 137.

Well, right in the middle of that period he was with the Brown-Roach Quintet and recorded with them in April, 1954 (including "Sunset Eyes"). So he must have been around and present in some way ...

I agree that this is a good item price but would like to add a word of caution for interested parties OVERSEAS. The seller says he will ship overseas only through eBay's "Global Shipping Program". Basically shipping wrks fast that way but I have no idea how this works in the way it calculates shipping and (presumed) custom costs. I have come across this option several times in items I have bought through eBay and sometimes the rates quoted were just absurd. I remember two cases where I have been able to figure out beforehand from the bulk and size the object (printed matter) amounted to that shipping in a Global Priority Flat Rate envleope would cut the quoted shipping costs to about one half of the price this eBay scheme indicated. I told the sellers so and judging from their replies they had no clue how this scheme worked either but had used it only for convenience. They were happy to go along with my suggested shipping option and things worked out fine and did not take unduly long either. So if anybody from overseas is interested in this - get the shipping quote first and then figure out for yourselves (by comparing with the options listed on the USPS website, for instance) if this sounds reasonable or over the top.

How come that capsule bio above (no doubt picked up somewhere else) does not mention he name as part of the cast in a film that made her name ring a bell with more than one music (and probably movie) fan of a younger generation? She starred opposite ELVIS PRESELY in his second movie LOVING YOU in 1957. It may be a coincidence but this was the movie that came to my mind first when I read the title of this thread, and while admittedly I am no movie history fan (was briefly in my youth but that ebbed away early on) her face and those hairs would not have made that much of an impact on me in those 40s "film noir" movies that I may have seen - there was only ONE Veronica Lake - ever ...

I hear you, and I understand. But isn't my take even odder, then? I came to jazz in the mid-70s, can't even recall what the key early exposure was that got me into jazz, but it definitely was the classic jazz and swing from the 20s to the 40s (so probably those "DIxieland" revival bands had an early impact thought they were quickly forsaken for the real thing) and then got into bebop and other modern jazz up the mid-50s or so pretty fast too. By the time I was 17 I had embraced most of what there was from ODJB via Fats Waller via Basie to Django to Diz/Bird to Sonny Rollins (e.g. "Saxophone Colossus") (speaking of British jazz, BTW, I think the frist British act I ever bought a record of - when I was 16 or so - was Joe Daniels's Hot Shots, though German and other European jazz I explored initially included much more modern artists, but not beyond the 50s either . , ) All historical music even by the mid- to late 70s and something I never could have experienced first hand either. Yet the intense attraction was and still is there. And when I was played the then-current jazz (jazz rock, fusion, European Avantgarde), the gist of my reaction then was "Where's the jazz?" Usual disclaimer about personal tastes too. Those early stylistic preferences have conditioned my jazz leanings and still do so to this day, though the boundaries have expanded (even if not radically ) to include subgenres I did not (yet) get back then. So have I been a moldy fig for the past close to 40 years?

Reading about upcoming jazz gigs on this forum and elsewhere featuring names that are totally unknown to me and that I would not even be able to situate stylistically - even broadly - in fact I have often wondered about who of these would figure AT ALL in some future in-depth history of jazz (that includes more recent decades). We have been discussing minor figures such as Steve White and many other collectors' discoveries within the scope of jazz from the pre-1960 era here but which minor figures from today's jazz would ever find their way into jazz books today, even only with a passing mention? I think all of the earlier posts above contain a bit of truth, but couldn't it also be that jazz from the more recent decades is so fragmented style-wise that it is hard for those who "basically" would be interested in "jazz" to know what they're getting at all if they tried some jazz gig by some relatively unknown just on the premise that it is "jazz"? I have a feeling this is particularly true for Europe (certainly not just the UK and maybe even for the USA)? Maybe the fact that there are so many totally different streams being lumped in under the general header of "jazz" makes it unrealistic to expect all of the niche audience of jazz (that is and has alway been small overall) to embrace them all? Like a reputed German jazz collector, writer and reissue producer once remarked to me (referring a.o. to styles that lean towards the "world music" and the experimental ends of the spectrum): "If it cannot be categorized anywhere else it is called "Jazz" today." I mean, look at rock music. Would you expect any rock fan with clear-cut tastes (no matter how wide-ranging they are) to love soft rock, today's Brit pop, grunge, heavy metal all alike (and I am only naming a scant few of the streams within rock)? There never have been many of that sort who like all substyles of "rock" across the ENTIRE spectrum alike and you would not expect there to be, would you? ? And I'd imagine that today's "anything goes" attitude that some hardcore fans and exponents of today's jazz proclaim (up to the assertion that "no, jazz does not have to swing anymore for it to come in under jazz anyway") would strain the tolerance of many other listeners' tastes even more. As for Scandinavian jazz, from all I have read I have a feeling that Swedish jazz underwent a major slump in the 60s (particularly as far as the national audience and live music spots were concerned) but regained some momentum later on. And from the little I have been able to follow there, the various facets of the jazz scene there seem to be fairly stable and vibrant ever since. Same for France and Germany the way jazz developed there from the 70s. And they do have their contemporary local/regional heroes in various styles of jazz, though of course all in all it REMAINS a niche market limited in size.

Good points. Some years ago I bought a copy of Cannonball Adderley's "Somethin' Else" / "47 West 63rd Street, N.Y. 23" pressing, DG vinyl and RVG in the dead wax at the princely sum of 1 euro at the annual clearance sale of a local collectors' record shop. Sure enough, the record is scratchy (some very feelable), scuffed, has some heave "sideswipe" scuffing all through Side 2 but the pops and crackles do not yet overwhelm the music and it plays through fairly well and teh cover is halfway presentable. So at that price I have no reason to complain about such a "period document" that still testifies of the "party action" it apparently saw ... But the past life of some record (orignal 50s pressings 'n all) that cannot be remedied anyway and avoiding further deterioration today are two differnt stories altogether after all ...

Honestly, that's more of less the way I do it. Not about being "familiar at all" but asking very, very politely not to get their fingers on the playing surface, etc. as a measure of protecting the surface etc. However, you have to be clear and act fast (if you need to tell them at all) because once they get their fingerprints on the platter the next one will sneeer at that very record, claiming lack of care for the record, etc. etc. And then there are those who by the way they act must have been into all this for a very long time and YET they seem to have utter trouble coordinating their fingers to get a record out of its inner sleeve (more so if it is just a LITTLE tight). No doubt you know the kind .. those who press their fingers together to "grab" a record (as if in a vise) to get it out of the inner sleeve (as opposed to those who SPREAD their fingers out (octave!!) to hold the record at the center hole and outer rim and nowhere else). Clumsiness revisited ... Quite a bit like those who NEVER seem to manage to get antique books correctly out of their slipcase without tearing its edges. And yes, this does give me the jitters. Not to mention that it keeps baffling me how vinyl can attract hermit-like geeks of the kind who at best cut their fingernails about twice a year (let alone clean them ...) Although records are only a small sideline (duplicates from my collection) at my usual fleamarket stalls that I hold once or twice a year you learn to tell those characters apart pretty fast, particularly since I am far more often on the buying side at those events and always try to treat the objects I inspect with the care I'd expect myself as the owner.

I cringe BIG TIME. I cringe particularly heavily (deep inside, though I have had people tell me they noticed me cringe by the look on my face ) when I see people do this who ought to know MUCH better: Other (self-professed) collectors, deejays, record dealers, etc. In the case of other collectors, as long as it is their LPs they are free to do with their platters as they see fit, like Paul Secor said above (though I don't quite get it why they do it) but it is annoying when it's those who take a closer look at MY surplus LPs I have up for sale at fleamarkets. I tell them politely but in no uncertain terms to NOT TOUCH THOSE GROOVES! (By the look on their faces I often seem to be the first to tell them this in their entire lifetime ...) Hey, after all when they just take a look at the disc it's not theirs yet so they'd better be careful with someone else's goods... (And sometimes I have half a mind to yell at these jerks "If you cannot reach an octave with your hands then DON'T MESS with longplayers!!" ) As for deejays, this seems to be a particularly frequent occurrence. Beats me why when it comes to collectible music or "vinyl only" DJs where the records aren't easily replaced. Even if you can clean fingerprints away you can only go so far ...

Well, sgcim, I cannot be authoritative on that subject because I have heard only a few of his later recordings (and admit that to a degree I am going by "conventional wisdom". Can't say I find his "Return" and "Cooking on All Burners" albums really a letdown (apart from the fact that I dislike Gary Mazzaroppi's bass playing which sometimes crowds out the guitar). He may well have been in a slump in the 60s (maybe during that unrecorded hiatus period?) but IMO if his playing "deteriorated" then it was from an exceedingly high level to a level that still was very, very high, and on a level many other guitarists would have wished to achieve ever. As for that person you cite, are you sure he has the full first-hand picture through several decades? After all Tal Farlow's life after the 50s continued for close to 40 years and he WAS prolific in the recording studios as well as on stage later on so there ought to be enough evidence for everybody to judge by himself. The author of the book by PJC seems to have been close to Tal Farlow too in his later years, BTW, ever since he staged a concert tour for him in the early 80s. And Tal Farlow's dislike for life on the road and large audience settings indeed is stressed repeatedly throughout the book.

Talking about Nocturne: http://jazztimes.com/articles/9065-the-complete-noctourne-recordings-jazz-in-hollywood-series-volume-1-herbie-harper-with-bud-shank-harry-babasin-bob-enevoldsen-virgil-gonsalves-lou-levy-and-jimmy-rowles Jim Sangrey's comments on Steve White had made me curious. Must get a copy of that Nocturne Steve White LP not included in the FS box set (and was unaware of the Fantasy reissue until now), but in fact his Liberty LP was one of the few from the Liberty "Jazz In Hollywood" series I had never been tempted to get (with the best - or worst? - will in the world I just cannot get into most of those "hey I can sing too" jazz musicians' vocalizing from that period). Steve White's Nocturne LP must indeed have sunk pretty fast at the time because DB's review of his Liberty LP starts with calling that Liberty LP his "debut LP" (and goes on to call his vocalizing "extremely ill-advised for just about every reason in the book" ). I have most of the others from that Liberty series and "Sam Songs" is a favorite from this series here, BTW. And, before maybe getting back to a few other statements made here last night, may I add this quote from the above review to maybe tip the scales in the "arranged" bit about WCJ some more? It is conventional wisdom in some circles that West Coast jazz was over-arranged and anemic. You would not think so from hearing these records. For the most part, they have much in common with the Prestige (East Coast) modus operandi of the time: Show up, agree on some tunes and blow. Exceptions are the tight ensemble writing of Paich and John Graas for one of trombonist Harper's quintet dates, the compact charts of Virgil Gonsalves' sextet, and Rogers' quintet writing for the Bud Shank date. Still, ensembles are one thing; improvisation is another. These dates had some of the most unrestrained playing of the period. And certainly Nocturne is all-out WCJ all the way by every yardstick too, right? One of those cases, I'd say, where it is for historians or discographers to bring this aspect back to light just to complete the picture that may have been incomplete at the time (not wanting to fault anybody for anything, but asking those of you forumists who have lwitnessed that period first hand - how many of you were keenly aware of the Nocturne releases back then?)