Big Beat Steve

No you didn't. The liner notes are relatively brief and superficial compared to those of other Uptown releases of never-before-issued live recordings. Maybe Bob Sunenblick or Bob Blumenthal (who were responsible for previous ones) ought to have had a hand in them? I cannot really complain about the fidelity, though.

One for you, then: ;)

Coincidentally, I bought a few more at a local secondhand record store overstock clearout sale the other day, including "Bobby Hackett 1943" and Armand Hug (reissue of his Southland LP244) still in shrink wrap. I am no completist in the "moldy fig" department at all but have always found his releases/reissues interesting and entertaining. The only little quibble I have with his reissue policy (and that of other labels that do the same) is that you really can go overboard if you release alternate takes right down to every 10-second false start of fluff. This can detract a bit ... R.I.P.

Exactly. Really ... no matter how great B.G. was - how many more live recordings/airshots/broadcasts by B.G. do you really, desperately, unconditionally NEED? I cannot really see myself going after YET ANOTHER live version of "Rachel's Dream" ... There are other artists that have been served far less in the past and could do with a few more publicly accessible additions to their recorded legacy. And Randall's Island would indeed be something ... so we can at last get some sound to that known footage ...

:rofl: The mere thought of having to hear a discoed/funked-up version of THAT makes me shudder! That Kenny Rogers song was unbearable enough as it was, but THAT ... OTOH, considering the lyrics, if it had been sung with a croaky, gravelly voice in a low-down in-the-gutter country blues mood to the accompaniment of a lone acoustic guitar, now that would have been something ... But certainly not marketable to THAT target market in the 70s ... But nah, those cash-in-on-the-hit parade cover version compilations done by no-name artists really were all over the place (by ANY budget label) in the 70s, so what's the deal? Listening to some of those 50s BELL cover versions of chart hits can be fun (and some actually are pretty nice and lend a new tiwst to the song) but that 70s disco stuff? Shudder .... The 7700 series of Modern/RPM/Kent reissues are a bit more satisfying for 70s United releases after all.

Well, in a pinch they could always have gone to the Japanese 21-LP box, couldn't they? And shouldn't a (careful) needledrop be better than whatever "low" a low-bitrate source is? That Pieter de Wagter interview you linked was an interesting read. Technically speaking, it seems like he knows what he's doing. The only uneasy feeling I have about this is whether he has the feel for 40s jazz (as opposed to much more recent rock mastering that is the focus of this interview) and hits the right balance.

Thanks, Jazztrain. That clarifies it. Knowing that the 21-LP box set will probably never come my way, that 11-CD set will likely be the next best thing (give or take most of the alternates). And I guess there are quite a few out there who'd argue like that (if reason prevails ).

Well, Hans, maybe a way to find out would be to try to contact/track down (fellow countryman?) Pieter De Wagter (who is listed on the FS site as being in charge of remastering of this CD box set) and ask him directly. Assuming that this is not a spoof pseudonym ...

Like I said, Mike - I have part of those alternates on various LPs anyway, including one alternate each of almost all the Prez tracks (they WERE released before). So to me it's a tradeoff between hearing a few more alternates of the household names and getting to hear (at last) those recordings that I've never heard anywhere else before because they've been constantly bypassed by earlier reissuers. But that's only me, of course ... BTW, a question to those in the know (and/or who own the huge 21-LP Japanese Keynote box): Are all those 90 alternates FULL and complete tracks or do they also include (to a sizable extent) false starts, breakdowns, etc.?

Yes, that's the author of the liner notes. I had no idea of his credentials so did not state his name. I doubt there is another story behind it, at least not in the way Kurt S. Weill made it seem. George Wallington definitely was on the first part that tour (pictures of him on stage and backstage are in reports on that tour in Swedish magazines), and the split of Annie Ross and George Wallington in Brussels is reported in several sources. It is also said that the trio date that George Wallington did for French Vogue in September, 1953, was done to raise money for his return trip to the States and that several other band members would have split during that tour as well, had it not ben for the fact that they would have been stranded without sufficient funds for their return fare. And even if George Wallington HAD been a last-minute substitute for Dodo Marmarosa BEFORE the start of the tour, the reason why there was no regular pianist at the Basel concert would not have been connected to Marmarosa. Which is why I wonder why the tensions that apparently existed inside the band during that tour would have been glossed over like that TODAY, after all these decades ... If it had been some post-tour promo blurb for the Hampton band - yes, but now??

Yes, I must admit I for one could live without the alternates. I have some of them on various LPs (and the sole "Essential Keynote" CD volume that I have) anyway.

Well, I sprung for five CDs from this Swiss Radio Days series and received them yesterday. All of them are VERY nice, and the fidelity and "presence" of sound even for these very old dates is surprisingly good. The two Lionel Hampton volumes are quite striking. Compared to the typical studio/live recordings of the Hampton big band from that period the band sometimes sounded rather "far out" (advanced) during that 1953 tour and those two CDs make a nice addition to the IAJRC LP with recordings form the Paris concert a couple of days after the Basel concert, for example. It is interesting to compare the Hampton band's recording of Gigi Gryce's tune "Brown Skins" with the version recorded in Paris by the "moonlighting" band members a couple of days later. What I found a bit disappointing are the line/booklet notes which are rather "generic" and include relative little info on the context of the concerts/tours that the recordings come from. In the liner notes to the Hampton CDs the scribe actually goes overboard with some odd assertions, i.e. when referring to the fact that Quincy Jones handled the piano in the rhythm section he claims that this was to make up for the no-show Dodo Marmarosa who never appeared to join the band. Howzat?? To the best of my knowledge Dodo never was a candidate for this tour but in fact George Wallington was the regular pianist for the tour but according to Alun Morgan's liner notes to the "Complete Paris Sessions" by Clifford Brown reissued by U.K. Vogue in the 70s, halfways through the tour some dissent arose between singer Annie Ross and Hamp (or probably Gladys Hampton??) and when she split in Brussels George Wallington went along out of solidarity. I have been unable to find the exact date of the Brussels concert from the reports on that 1953 tour in old jazz mags (Jazz Hot, Jazz Podium, Orkester Journalen, Estrad), but the Scandinavian part took up the first part of September, the Paris concerts were in the final days of September, and according to a concert review from Brussels published in Jazz Hot (that does not indicate the exact date of the concert) George Wallington was still on board there for at least one concert so Belgium probably took place between the Scandinavian part and Sept. 24 when they appeared in Basel. In short, the reasons for the lack of a regular pianist were quite different (and well-documented in jazz literature, BTW) and I wonder what made the liner note writer of that CD come up with his assertion...

Wow!! I guess this replaces/duplicates the contents of that huge Japanese Keynote LP box that unfortunately is long OOP. Had searched for it (at a halfway affordable price) for a while but at one point gave up. No doubt I have a lot of the contents of this box on vinyl (via the usual Mercury reissues through the decades) and some on CD (remember when you showed me the secondhand racks at Gibert in 2006, Brownie?) but still I guess I'll be happy to shell out for the "rest".

I wonder if it makes much sense trying to rewrite history. Acknowledge injustice and do what you can to see to it that past injustice won't repeat itself in the way business is done today - yes. But would persons/checkbook holders like Herman Lubinsky have been much better and fairer persons if they had NOT been Jewish? Or isn't there an Alfred Lion for each Herman Lubinsky? And - referring to who shortchanged whom and to what extent this was a question of the race and faith you are born into - what about persons like John Dolphin? Was he Jewish? Was he white? So can you really generalize?

I guess I will spin the HOT CLUB COOL YULE album by the Hot Club of San Francisco as well as the Savoy R&B/jazz compilation LP "MR SANTA'S BOOGIE" again.

Pulled the trigger on my reply too quickly because the CD has just dropped into my mailbox. Whipped away by my wife as it's another Christmas present. Same here, in fact. I asked too quickly. My copy hit the mailbox today too. Excellent service at an affordable price. Will give it a listen this evening.

Talking about Carmen Leggio, is there any reissue of his 1961 debut album available anywhere? (See below) I only ever saw copies of this LP on eBay in 2001 and 2004 but missed out on both, of course. According to the discographies (Jepsen, Bruyninckx) this was on Jazz Unlimited JA-1000 but I have a feeling this is not the whole story (or these Jazz Unlimited issues are later pressings). A friend of mine once had a 45 "Swing With SML" credited to "Carmen Leggio & His SML Tenor" which was on Golden Crest 45-380 and the label said something like "Excerpt from the Golden Crest album CR-380" (I noted this down at the time because I liked the tune and Golden Crest caught my interest as this is a 50s label you do not nomrally associate with straight-ahead jazz. I canot find any trace of this Golden Crest issue in the discographies, and even less of any 45 culled from this album. This 45 may have been a promo 45 done for the French saxophone manufacturer SML (my friend lives in France so this is not impossible - unfortunately he lost his 45 when his son - then of toddler age - accidentally stepped on it and broke it. I don't think he ever managed to replace it).

BTW, a question to those of you who also received a shipping confirmation for the Jacquet/Parker Uptown CD through amazon.co.uk on Nov. 19: Have any of you received their item yet? Just wondering ...

Tarrytown? Should be CARMEN LEGGIO.

No more Cardiganshire or Denbighshire or Monmouthshire or Glamorganshire , then? (No, I did not look them up online to find out ) BTW, what made me realize that apparently almost ANY place can be a "-shire" in the UK was when I found out there actually is a Renfrewshire up in Scotland (Renfrew being a character's name of sorts that for some reason I came across in several unrelated novels and/or radio plays through the years)

Thanks for your input, everybody. So there must have been a "pressing" run with only 22 tracks on CD4. Very odd ... This seems to be confirmed by this site that I came across while searching for a track listing before deciding to buy: http://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=494727 Though they indicate that the final 2 tracks by Vic Lewis were omitted for a total of 22 tracks on that CD (which does not seem to be the case after all). I guess I'l use the samples on this site to check more closely which tracks are missing on mine: http://www.amazon.de/BeBop-In-Britain-Various-artists/dp/B003HLX4IE

I can only roughly reproduce what DANISH pronounciation (to my ears, anyway) would sound like and how it ought to be transcribed but as far as I can tell and assess, the "iø" is pronounced more like an extended "öö" (i.e. "øø"). In short, the "i" is not pronounced that distinctly and the "i" and the "ø" are worked into a more open sound somewhere between "e" and "ö". Now try to reproduce that in non-phonetic spelling for English tonsils.

and above all, write it like it is supposed to be written: Schiøpffe "ship fa" is right as far as "something like" goes, but "sheep fa" or "shayp fa"/"shoyp fa" would be a little closer yet.

I am resurrecting this decade-old thread for a specific inquiry. After the Bebop in Britain 4-CD box set done by Charly (gathering Esquire recordings from the late 40s/early 50s) was mentioned in passing in the Tommy Whittle obit thread my curiosity was aroused so I checked the contents online and though I have close to three quarters of the contents on the Equire LPs reissued long ago I sprung for it as a dirt cheap new copy was around on amazon. So .... here goes: While listening to the 4th CD set ("In ALL Directions") the contents of which are mostly new to me, I noticed an oddity: This CD has only 22 tracks instead of the 24 listed on the cover and in the booklet. After aural checking, the Norman Burns quintet occupies tracks 9 to 13 instead of 9 to 14 (Bye Bye Blackbird is track 13 instead of 14), and one of the Tito Burns tracks also seems to have gone AWOL. DId any others who won this set notice this, and do any experts happen to know which tracks exactly are missing? (Not being famlilar with the various originals on that set it is hard to tell which is which if you have not heard those tracks elsewhere before)

Rutland IS there alright, MG. Just check the map here and compare with Bev's pink map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rutland_UK_locator_map_2010.svg