Big Beat Steve

Well, of course all five tracks are on the second of those two French RCA 3-LP sets featuring Hamp's complete RCA sessions (Historical Recording Sessions Vol. 2, RCA PM 42417) but admittedly that's no SINGLE disc. though you might be able to find a secondhand copy somewhere at a price not beyond the average price of a SINGLE new disc. The four "key" tracks (i.e. the master take of When lights Are Low only) were on "Hot Mallets No. 1" (RCA ND 86458).

My thoughts exactly. I have those complete RCA recordings on the two 3-LP sets from French RCA and really cannot recall that many vocals beyond Ring Dem Bells either - and whichever there were, they do sound like "casual" vocals indeed. No harm there.

I hink a lot of pressings are coming out of Eastern Europe and Russia, so in that sense there are a lot of new sources of vinyl. Very very variable quality. Knowing a couple of niche-market vinyl producers and issuers, I can partially confirm that. New pressing plants (geared towards those niche markeds, including small pressing runs) have sprung up in comparatively recent years in Germany (NOT Eastern Europe) and the Czech Republic (Eastern Europe), and they are delivering good quality. But you have to select your plants carefully, so I am told.

Zweitausendeins circa 1980? No, Zweitausendeins always was mail-order in the first place and they had no local shop back then (and the one they had later - and which closed down a while ago - always was minuscule). But we had several fairly large and well-stocked record shops (incuding one - even larger - with 3 outlets) that even attracted (collectible and niche-music-minded) regular customers from far out of town.

Mindblowing! The best record shops over here were a bit smaller but not THAT much smaller ... but the overall atmosphere was very much the same. So this does bring back memories. And hey ... most of the staff at the local #1 secondhand record shop even TODAY look like they bought their garb at the same time and place (and have kept it ever since) where those Tower employes bought theirs ... Only the record prices aren't the same anymore ... not by a LONG shot!

A subject that's indeed been covered well before - under all aspects imaginable, so I should think. It is beyond doubt that the idiocy of Hitler and his cohorts have caused a brain drain to Germany in many (if not all) areas of science and culture that this country has never recovered from.

I think I know what DJM LPs you are thinking of (those I've found among mine are from the 70s and carry a diferent address): However, there MUST be a link between PRT and Pye: My copy of the UK-pressed Vogue twofer of "The Bebop Keyboard Masters" (VJD 574) from 1980 carries the PRT logo in the (copyright) fine print but a note "Distributed by Pye Records", and an address at Great Cumberland Place in London. My copy of the "West Coast Scene" Vogue twofer (VJD 536) from 1977 has the same layout of the fine print but says "Pye Records Ltd" outright (including the logo) under the same address. My Gene Ammons reissue mentioned above (reissue dated 1984) has just the PRT logo and a different address but still the same layout of that fine print. So PRT somehow must have been a Pye offspring. Though overall those Vogue twofers had a better presentation (liner notes, etc.) than the Chess ones I have seen.

They were a pretty common sight in the UK cut-out racks of the mid-late 70s. Indeed. I bought the Gene Ammons twofer from the above series (compiling most if not all of his 78s) secondhand at Mole Jazz in the 90s. But I do remember this one (and possibly others from that twofer series) was around even in German record shop bins not long before that but I had not grabbed it then (so made up for that at Mole). The typeface, design and layout of the "fine print" (VERY fine print ) of the label owner (GRT) on back of the cover looks a lot like credits on earlier Pye label vinyls to me. Any connections, maybe?

Good for you and buyer. It's a great book with interesting topics (I have the French edition).

Yes, brings back memories ... Thanks! Though I had no idea that this chap is only 5 years ahead of me - most all the regular staff at Mole Jazz always appeared very much more advanced in years to me ...

Euuuhhhh .. Captain Howdy: About that "believing that a jazz icon had renounced jazz" ... It CAN happen, you know ... (and NO satire) Heard of legendary jazz scribe, critic, promoter Joachim Ernst Berendt (a major name in jazz and in the crusade for getting jazz on the map this side of the pond, and never mind if he does not rate in the US, though his "Jazz Book" was acclaimed even there, so I've heard, not to mention his groundbreaking "Jazz Life" with William Claxton)? In many of his latter-day publications he threw out jazz (and what it stood for) lock stock and barrel (getting the impression that he disowned his former works would not have been an exceedingly far stretch), said that (my paraphrase) "swing is irrelevant and immaterial", world music is what it's all about and just "tones and sounds" are what now counts. Pretty far removed from even a WIDE definition of the understanding of jazz. And yet ... the world kept turning and jazz kept on being played. So ...??

Thanks for the link to that article, Paul! Most enlightening!

Not exactly the huuuugest discounts when it comes to a real "sale" ... Well, most of THAT music has been around the block a zillion times in reissues, so ... well ... but though I am not one too impressed by alternates either, I am half-tempted by the Herman set for the volume of alternates and new ones in that particular case. BTW, can anybody comment on the previously unissued tracks (not the alternates of previously issued tunes) from a halfway objective point of view - major, inexplicably unreleased enhancements of the opus of the man or just "nice to have" additions that are not really essential?

Amazing that that 80s Vogue Jazz Legacy "Young Lee" should become so desirable now ... I had bought the Prestige LP eons ago (well, almost) and a couple of years ago, when on one of these vinyl buying sprees through special-offer bins I came across the "Young Lee" LP and picked it up cheaply (being away from my collection to check and partially being stumped by the (bogus) titles such as "Record Shop Suey" which I did not recall at all). At home I found out about the overlaps with the Prestige LP but decided to keep it anyway for the alternates. Seems like I did well in doing so ... Thanks, at any rate, Romualdo, for that handy one-glance overview of which is which. Will file it with my LPs.

Yeah that ... particularly that last sentence ... :tup Little sympathy here with those who need "catchy" lyrics all the time to blare along with ...

Article written by Tanya SUGARBREAD! How fitting!

What do you expect from a WINE association when it comes to testing beers? One way of blowing one's own horn, I guess. @GA Russell: The paper DOES read like it is a U.S. survey, BTW (cf. Section II). Besides, who guarantes these US offshoots are actually 100% equivalents of the original European beers and not numb-tasted rehashes for "export" palates? It is not an unknown fact that the actual Bavarian LÖWENBRÄU does not have much in common with the watered-down U.S. "Lowenbrau", for example. Stella Artois has very much a so-so reputation over here anyway, even among Belgians who CARE about their domestic beers (give most of them a GUEUZE any time ... ) BTW, where is Weizy? He might have a say or two on that matter ...

There cannot have been many female celebs who managed to age with such style and class the way she did. RIP

Thanks! It was a shot in the dark but apparently I wasn't far off at all.

Any relation (after phonetic "anglicisation") to big band leader Nat Brandwynne there, I wonder??

Would't have been the first time pieces were written (on whatever subject matter) that started off by saying "this is NOT a parody" when in fact they were. Admittedly that piece read pretty non-satire - BUT: Didn't any of you feel that from the moment the author admitted his "brief and inglorious" association with jazz that this piece COULD only be less than straight? Because .... hey .... nobody who gets published would be dumb enough NOT to notice that THIS statement alone were a blatant invitation to being torn to shreds by the defenders of whatever he attacked in that piece, isn't it? You don't serve your opponents the ammo to shoot you THAT easily on a silver platter .... So ... big deal ... Honestly, as long as others put down other streams of music (including certain facets of jazz) - and they ARE out there and they DO get published - that THEY don't like or for some reason feel of lesser musical worth (by their personal yardsticks ultimately dictated by their own tastes and not by some higher truth) then he can go on about why he can't stand Brötzmann et al. To each his own ... simple as that ... and the caravan passes ....

Who ever said so? But jazz most definitely is not just all "screeching" either. And the entire rest of this debate (and similar ones) ultimately is just a matter of taste. And tastes do differ. Like everywhere else in everyday life too.

Satire or not, is he "putting down jazz" per se or is he putting down certain styles of jazz? Maybe this (misconception IMO) is part of the problem in the first place? Don't tell me you claim that free jazz/avantgarde is the beginning and end (or should I say culmination) of jazz? BTW, this here .... "The band starts a song, but then everything falls apart and the musicians just play whatever they want for as long they can stand it. People take turns noodling around, and once they run out of ideas and have to stop, the audience claps." very, very strangely reminds me of what some jazz insider (musician?) said or wrote about bebop when first being exposed to it in 1945. Can't find the exact wording of it right now (though it's been quoted and printed often). And anybody passably aware of the history of jazz ought to be aware of that quote so if you write something like the above then either it IS a put-on or it uncannily borders on one. And that thing about that "inglorious flirtation with jazz" makes the entire piece reek that much of sour grapes etc. that it is pretty hard not to see it as some sort of attempt at being tongue-in-cheek (never mind if that attempt was successful or not..).

See post no. 13 here:

Ouch ... Album covers that ought to have gone into the "Uuuhh" thread - because those last 2 bring back 70s "memories" (that were thought to have been forgotten forever ) that really make you go "uuhhh" (or "uugghh") now that they are forced back upon you ...