Big Beat Steve

It may indeed be an oversimplification (as TTK says) but from my own experience (with my parents - as hinted at earlier and also with other people from that generation) I think you nailed it - particularly when thumbing through old volumes of our own German mazz mag JAZZ PODIUM. "Third Stream" in all its facets (starting with the MJQ - I remember my mother enthusing about their "Fontessa" album) and the entire subject of how to obtain "respectability" for jazz got a lot of room there for quite a few years. OTOH, Lionel Hampton's concerts were blasted as if they were the lowest of lowly gateway to juvenile delinquency (not surprisingly ). This entire aspect of classically trained middle-class people somehow trying to get to grips with jazz is a VERY European thing and probably not comparable to the typical "average" U.S. experience. As far as I can see you are right about the non-presence of "horn-led" jazz (and the presence of a token few piano jazz albums) if artists outside of "Third Stream" were purchased too. Just checked up .. the Swingle Singers album I "inherited" from my mother is "Going Baroque", BTW. In the same batch were George Gruntz' "Jazz Goes Baroque" Vol. 1 and 2, Loussier Vol. 1 and the above-named "Fontessa" by the MJQ (I had bought my own copy of that one long ago by then but here came a DG black label U.S. Atlantic pressing, so who am I to complain? ). The tyical fare of classically-eared middle class people from over here who ventured into jazz. At the time this kind of jazz all sounded extremely odd and sometimes downright gutless to me by my swing, oldtime and bop jazz standards. I then got into the MJQ fairly early on but overall I still cannot warm up much to Loussier and the Swingle Singers are an acquired taste (though I do like the Double Six of Paris' Quincy Jones album, for example). As for Bossa Nova, come to think of it, I think Bossa tunes were also heavily featured on that Austiran radio show I mentioned earlier (I remember that seemingly casual, uninvolved, low-key singing struck me as pretty strange too back then, though lately I've warmed up to Bossa Nova as part of those very 60s-ish sounds too )

Talking about the ubiquitousness of amplification and PA systems and all, maybe musicians can provide some insight on this (related) question: How come nobody feels comfortable playing without monitors on stage anymore even in smaller groups/combos (claiming without monitor they cannot hear what they are playing and/or singing)? Is it that today's PAs overwhelm everything that they would otherwise be hearing of what they are playing? As far as I know, stages for smaller groups had the usual microphones and PA systems for the singer(s), guitar(s) and other amplified instruments way back in the 50s too (though of course smaller amps and speakers etc. than today) but AFAIK monitors were unheard of. A side aspect of loudness too or just different conditioning of the musicians? Just curious ...

Yes, this early exposure to the Swingle Singers occurred in the mid-70s. I did listen ot a lot of jazz radio shows up until the mid-80s or so (at the time there still were many more interesting jazz programs than there are today) and got many inspirations there too, and lots of the records played were ear-openers (in some cases only fulfilled decades later when I finally tracked down the records). As for the context the Swingle Singers were aired in the above radio show at the time, I did a quick Google search and found the theme of the show actually was a Swingle Singers rendition of a piece by Bach, and one of the host's other often-played artists was Leroy Anderson! Yikes ... what company! So now you have the setting ...

I have strange feelings and reminiscences about them from my very early days of jazz (and interest in music at all). My parents had the odd Swingle Singers LP (I think I have inherited the Swinging Bach LP) as part of what they found "respectable" in jazz when (and only when) merged with classical music (yes, MJQ, Gruntz and Loussier were others among the handful of jazz LPs they ever had - typical 60s European target customers of "Third Stream" )). Not what I considered the CORE and ESSENCE of jazz both older and modern in my formative teen years at all, but oh well ... Generation gap, I guess (though my interest in jazz was in the older forms from Day 1). But the more unsettling listening experience around that time was a late Sunday evening radio broadcast which I think was taken over from Austrian radio (the host was Austrian) called "Schlager für Fortgeschrittene" (something like "pop hits for advanced people") that aired an extremely odd mixture of records that sounded to my - then - ears of a 14 to 15-year old teen as if they had been recorded and pressed along the principles of "Yes they do make records like that in spite of what the listeners out there would buy at all". Actually I now and then tuned in to that program because I found the usual radio hit fare rather boring - but on the other hand, THAT ..??) . I cannot recall the programming in detail; it was made of all sorts of 60s/early 70s sophisticated "adult target audience" singing (and if it had not been for the vocals, the dominating instrumental sound patterns of the records would have been more like "elevator music" - to this teen's ears, anyway), but the Swingle Singers recordings were featured regularly, and at the time I found this kind of singing rather disturbing. Not that I had problems warming up to other vocal groups such as Lambert Hendricks & Ross or the Double Six of Paris or others later on, but the Swingles sure struck an odd chord with me and whenever I listen to them today (not often, admittedly) those times in the 70s come up again ....

Or, rather, this:

At any rate, this cover looks VERY much like a later pressing to me, particularly that centered STEREO typeface at the top looks looks VERY 60s-ish (or even 70s).. The original LP number was UJLP 1201 and the cover shown here ... http://www.popsike.com/COLEMAN-HAWKINS-ACCENT-ON-TENOR-SAX-URANIA-UJLP-1201-OG/140651071950.html ... looks much more like a 50s cover. Anyway, thanks for the reminder. Might as well spin the LP later myelf.

Now that wouild be an interesting topic if posted in the "Misc. music" section. Quite a few jazz/R&B etc. cases might come to mind ...

What made me wonder in quite a few of these (and similar ones ...), though: We all grow older and have or develop our own (sometimes age-related) weaknesses (and AFAIK some drawings may have been a way of Robert Crumb psych-treating himself )) but how come these ultra-collectors are SO OFTEN depicted as always being people past middle age and all bald, fuzzy-bearded or ill-shaven, heavily bespectacled (invariably short-sighted), sloppily garbed and bad-teethed nerds that look like they never ever left their record hoarding rooms (or rather, basements), not even to breathe a sniff of fresh air every once in a blue moon? Are they (or us) that bad and removed from the world?? Granted I am getting ahead in years too and my eyesight isn't quite what it used to be in my younger years anymore either, but is it only because I also have been moving around in rockabilly and western swing collecting circles too that fanatic dyed-in-the-wool collectors who are more of the "ducktail greaser, leather jacket and turned-up jeans" or "hawaii shirt and chino trousers" faction are not unknown to me at all? Aren't there any other typical collecting characters but those basement geeks to be caricatured? After all ... depending on what kind of BOP you like to listen to, it can be this ... ... just as much as it can be this ... :g

fair? fare???

Ever since the start of this thread I had waited for SUCH a quip to come up .... "Are we not men? We certainly are NOT Drevo!! "

As for why the original title was mistaken for LANCE A. - easy to explain in my opinion. A topic (ANY topic) about THIS jazz person would have been much more appropriate inside the jazz forum (Artists? Misc. Music? Jazz in Writing?) and not in a multi-topic "non-political" forum outside the actual jazz forum. After all, the minutest trivia of the lives of other jazz personalities are evoked and discussed inside the forum too.

More in the same vein? http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-30679108

Now all this hullaballoo has prompted me to pull that album out again (after years ...) and give it a spin. Nice, yes ... totally ... and I can get the groove that this album radiates, but please ... no need IMO to go overboard like that ... it IS nice, but I know from the little I have heard of the Scotts (Shirley and Rhoda), for example, that there is plenty out there that will get open-eared listeners in just as much of an organ-led groove in not such a different vein at all (organ isn't all Jimmy Smith or McDuff or ..., is it?). Harold Land may be more straight-ahead "modern jazzy" here and less gritty, "soul-jazzy" than Jaws in his cooperations with Shirley Scott (MG, what would YOU think?? ) but that should not be the main factor ...

Same here - almost. Must have had it for some 15 years now. Different from the Wiggins date that originally was on the DIG label that I had purchased earlier but a safe bet anyway.

Yes ... like in many countries, which is why it was Bora Rokovic here (see earlier post by Niko) but Borah Minevich in the States.

OK, thanks - I will correct the entry in the book.

Lucky lucky lucky. Lucky indeed .. ... though a belated question (I noticed this thread only now): I pulled out my copy of Bill Birch's "Keeper of the Flame" book, hoping to find photos of that concert, but the text (and picture caption) mentions Larry Gales (b) and Ben Riley (dr) for the 1961 (May) concert of Monk at the FTH. Same musicians as for Monk's 1965 concert at the FTH. Who's right, who's wrong, I wonder?

Klaus Schulz uses the spelling "Drewo" throughout in his "Jazz in Österreich 1920-1960" book and in the liner notes to the Austrian All Stars CD (RST 91549-2), and as an Austrian and expert on Austrian jazz he really ought to know. I'm not going to check my old volumes of JAZZ PODIUM to find additional evidence but I have a feeling "Drevo" is strictly wrong (as for why this happens, ask the record production and artwork people - if they can get away with designing records by "Charley Parker" they can get away with anything, it seems ... ).

Yes that makes sense. At least the "intensity" part of it ...

See here: He is already coming under flak.

IMO your sentence says something else again: Not having enough clubs is not the same as not having enough customers of the target audience who live closely nearby and tend to go club hopping each night. California DID have its share of clubs AFAIK (see the books etc. on the subject of Central Avenue, for example) though no region could probably have competed with New York (but that's a high yardstick anyway) but maybe the population density and spread AND their personal background (of those who had moved in only fairly recently) actually WAS different at that time and that MAY have played a role? (Sociologists to the fore! ) As for "grinding intensity" - oh well, you know how too many scribes's minds work - throw in images, allusions, indirect statements, alliterations (whatever) by the shovelful .. just to conjure up the image of the literarily proficient ... all for fear of a rather more "matter-of-fact"-like style that might see them labeled as being too dry or too "scholarly". Besides ... if you throw around images you will be harder to pin down in your statements ...

I mean what the hell does that mean? Living cheek-by-jowl in NYC is "conducive to bebop's grinding intensity? Bebop flourishing (or at least finding it easier to get some response) in the climate of a dense network of clubs, bars, lounges (any place that featuered live music, or other venues where music blared out to the public through P.A. systems) where you literally just had to drop out of your bed to end up in front of the bandstand? As opposed to "sleeping suburbs" where you would have to travel some distance to catch any sort of "niche" live entertainment at all (the suburbian neighborhood tavern where the sole jukebox is stocked with the latest pop or country fare only doesn't count)? Just guessing ...

But wouldn't the number of original sessions be more indicative of any primary geographic impact that they may have had (assuming that indie labels would initially be distributed above all in the area where they were recorded and pressed before achieving nationwide distribution)? No, I DON'T think that what Myers says is valid in this form but yet I think that in order to try to evaluate the original reach of the music from that period at all you would have to think in terms of the typical original 4-tune/2 78 rpm record session format prevalent in those days. What may have been released much, much later by way of alternate takes etc. is fairly irrelevant to the way the recordings and records were perceived originally IMHO.

I can not tell you. I was there twice or three times in 1998/1999 and found a few nice and fairly priced long-OOP R&B and swing LPs but the impression from some 15-16 years ago obviously cannot be representative of what there may be today. What they state on their website reflects the impression i had then pretty well, though. But from a brief conversation with the shop owner I noticed that even then he was well aware of other (potentially more profitable) outlets. I mentioned a Jazz Couriers LP then released on MFP (originally definitely a budget label) that I had seen at quite high prices at London shops during my visite there the days before and he told me that Jazz Couriers LPs (even this one) would "go straight to auction", i.e. not finish up in his shop racks. That shop did/do list items on eBay in later years too, BTW.

I am VERY interested not only in bebop but just as much in post-war R&B/jump blues and also in rock'n'roll (i.e., in this context, the roots of rock'n'roll) so a box set that explores widely ignored examples of cross-fertilization between bebop and jump blues would be VERY welcomed - but THIS?? In the context of Charlie Parker and Dial?? Ho hum .. Never mind the East Coast vs West Coast debate, but could it be that Marc Myers has been listening to a totally different box set focusing on Leo Parker and Gene Ammons? (Now there you have two artists who straddle the fence between bop and R&B, including one Parker!)