Big Beat Steve

Possibly, though I cannot recall having seen him in those shops (despite the fact that the above happened sometime in the mid-90s when I regularly stopped by Mole and Ray's during my stays in London). Relatively thin, maybe in his late 40s, somewhat long, greyish hair, and a long coat of undefinable vintage (and time since last cleaning/impregnating ).

One more reason to finally get to Sweden again, it seems ... An interesting place indeed. As for "lightweight" tastes, oh well ... ...if the discussion were led in English (I can read and write Swedish pretty well but have next to no knowledge of the pronunciation), I'd certainly be in a position to defend my tastes and return the arguments ... You know, ever since that day I went into a specialist bookstore in London (might have been the music dept. at Foyle's) quite innocently asking for a (then hard to get) copy of John Chilton's "Let The Good Times Roll" biography of Louis jordan and then getting the verbal flak from another customer about where the world had come to and what a title like that could possibly mean and what about the "sublime" in the arts (and this from one of those types of evidently close to down and out self-professed but failed artists whose outward appearance would have made a good modern reenactor of Spitzweg's "Poor Poet" character), I can take a lot of self-assertions of allegedly superior taste in stride, all things being relative ... !

So ... what ARE the typical prices like at his place (above the typical level at the BIRKAJAZZ online shop, for example?), and what if it transpired that the customer does NOT care for free jazz? Would the customer still get some sort of service if he were on the lookout not for avantgarde but for some not so commmon items of swing, cool or (in particular) Swedish 40s/50s jazz? Just curious ...

Ha, looks like at THAT But it Now price (if that's something like their actual market value) these books were some of my better investments when I bought them back then ... :D

Yes, that was my initial reaction too but honestly, I was too lazy to check (among those I already have). I also would ahve a hard time imagining Martial Solal (see cover pic) as a typical cool pianist, though the alto saxist at the right in the rear looks treacherously like Arne Domnérus (who'd be rather more cool). I just picture that reissue as "50s European modern jazz".

MUST HAVE - despite numerous overlaps with other reissues (at least for those who have been into this side of jazz for some time) and a French share (cocorico! ) blown up out of all proportion compared to the other countries covered (well, "briefly touched upon" would be a better word).

What if Wayne Shorter tried to make fun of the ACTUAL Venus de Milo in this title?

I bought my copy of Sounds and Songs under similar circumstances (at a record fair where this one stood out - at an OK price - among a host of totally differently slanted records of 50s music and, above all, was one of those 50s jazz obscurities I always have had a soft spot for) in the late 90s. A bit later I picked up the Half & Half album on Capitol through eBay. It's no desert island music for me but I enjoy them for what they are (a sort of "Hey, the Four Freshmen play their own instruments in a jazzier way" thing) and when the mood hits me I pull them out every now and then. One kind of cool musical "mid-century modern" vibe that I enjoy very much occasionally. Don't get me wrong, but going by the kind of impression I have got of you through the years on this forum I'd say you won't grieve to death if you miss out on that record. Jazz-wise, it just MIGHT be a bit too polished for you.

The NYT seems to be kind of late (VERY late) to the game. This "resurgence" has been going on non-stop for the better part of 20 years - all through the much-maligned "neo-swing" period in the 90s and up to now, and the "festival in Sweden" (Herräng) mentioned in the NYT feature is in its umpteenth edition by now. Not to mention numerous other festivals that have been held for years. Check out the Youtube clips of the "Camp Jitterbug" finals in Seattle, for example. Good to see there are so many people out there who enjoy and live jazz again for what it was intended for in the first place! BTW, the '"acrobatic lindy hoppers" (Whitey's Lindy Hoppers) from the Youtube video above included not only Frankie Manning but also Norma Miller who, as the now last survivor, gave numerous appearances at festivals and workshops over here. But there were/are other "survivors": The girl from THIS video ... (yes, you can swing to Kay Kyser too!) was a featured guest at festivals in Europe up to recent years and what she still could do at 88 was nothing short of amazing. And the guy in the dark jacket (Ray Hirsch) from this video (featuring the band of Skinnay Ennis) ... was among the guests of honor (along with Norma Miller) at the Rock That Swing lindy hop festival in Munich earlier this year.

"Yes Sir ..." was BIG over here and drove me NUTS whenever I had to hear (i.e. endure) it, not only because of the sloshy vocals and background sounds but because of the ABUSE of the word "boogie" (disregarding its non-musical connotations for a moment ) to this budding jazz and R&B fan. They could neither boogie nor woogie for the life of it but still disco-minded teen music consumers over here were firmly sold on the idea that THIS was what (musical) "boogie" was supposed to be. BERK!

Yes, please! +1 :tup

I have yet to complete reading Larry Kart's book but from what I have read so far, I can second the recommendations. Getting back to your post, John, AFAIK you are a person of fine credentials in the jazz world and "have been around" no doubt - do you have any opinion on the books I mentioned? And anybody else with any thoughts on the books I mentioned?

The recent book sales ad by Pete B where many forumists gave their recommendations on specific books prompts me to launch this topic as I have come across a few books recently that I have either sprung for or am very much tempted but have not found too many evaluations. So your opinions are welcome (not many reviews out there on the web and wading through countless sites for "buying all the books by XXX" with always the same sales blurb is not much fun). Sooo ... Firstly, I recently bought a copy of the original 1971 printing of Dicky Wells' "The Night People" at a relatively good price, I think. While I am still waiting for its arrival, your comments on it are welcomed. I seem to remember having heard good things about it but cannot put my finger on them. Secondly, are any of you familiar with this book which was released not that long ago? "A Golden Age of Jazz Revisited 1939-1942" by Hazen Schmacher and John Stevens. As this period falls squarely into one of my preferred periods of jazz I am tempted getting the paperback edition through amazon (I can do without the 2 CDs of the hardcover edition as the price gap is pretty huge and I must have about 99% of teh tracks listed in my collection anyway). Any comments and opinions on it? Are the discussions of the tunes and that particular jazz era insightful and stimulating enough even to advanced collectors so they can get a new angle from it? Or is this strictly newbie fare? Thanks a lot in advance.

You can't do wrong with Tiny Kahn with me either, so ...

Interesting to get feedback about these two Uptown releaes. Amazing, though, that both amazon.com and amazon.de have a release date of mid-June scheduled for the Chubby Jackson CD and of 20 May for the Howard McGhee CD. So are theses CDs out (through INTERNATIONALLY accessible channels) or not, I wonder? Both sound like must haves, despite the duplications. And from Allen's remarks I guess that the live cuts previously released on vinyl have been improved soundwise (they are quite listenable on vinyl too but I would not enthuse as much as Allen did).

And it seems that Jasmine not only has competition but duplication on the Acrobat label. The 1955/56 "beer" tracks by Jimmy Deuchar that were released in the US on that "Pub Crawling" LP on Contemporary are also on JASCD 616 and 621, as are some others of those Acrobat sessions. I am not familar with these Acrobat modern jazz reissues at all but have a couple of Acrobat CDs featuring early post-war R&B reissues and they are very well done.

Which would make a "needle drop" as close as you can get to the original source material with any of them anyway.

Just to explain this: The Tempo label IS a CULT label in the UK, but do you happen to know if any sort of master tapes of Tempo recordings would be around anywhere at all? I wouldn't be surprised if there just wasn't anything but vinyl copies to start with for most of the recordings from the Tempo catalog.

Well, by definition and according to the European P.D. laws even in their new form pre-1962 source material slated for a reissue can only be P.D., isn't it? But would that necessarily keep a label from doing quality reissues? So ... P.D. or not, it is the quality of the final product that counts IMO.

Back in the 80s, they did a huge lot of vinyl reissues of material orignally released on Decca (or other labels that later came to be owned by MCA) in the 50s adn theys were all over the place in record shops. The sound always appeared quite OK to me. The LPs usually said "Manufactured under license from MCA Records" in the fine print on the back cover, so ... I also have quite a few of their more recent CDs that reissue British jazz (often from the long-defunct but legendary Tempo label), and though I cannot compare with Tempo orignals (due to their scarcity), they do sound OK to me too. Paul Pelletier (who is often named as the producer) is a huge name in reissue and collectible music circles in the UK and beyond and the presentation sounds like serious business. And the CD booklets clearly refer to the copyright existing in the Jasmine recordings too, BTW. Or to put it yet another way, shady reissues exist everywhere but are definitely not limited to one continent, nor are well-produced reissues.

The compiler of the info in that link I provided above more or less tears this book to shreds in his brief asessment. Could it be that Richard Cook did that much worse there than with his "Jazz Encyclopedia", for example?

I am not familar with the Verve book but am wondering if this BN book maybe has conceptual similarities with Richard Havers' books publiashed by Cmopendium a couple of years ago: - Jazz - The Golden Era (mostly 40s, swing and bop) and - The Golden Age of Rock'n'Roll (50s, of course) Both are nicely done, include lots of photos, record cover and label shots and "ephemera" too but, honestly, their written contents, while well done, are more of the "introduction for starters" type and therefore not essential to long-standing collectors and fans of the music, so if you come across these books at cut-price bookstores, then, fine ... I do suppose Richard Havers will have gone far, far beyond this level with the BN tome. @fasstrack: If you can read Japanese , check out the book listed at the end of the sources mentioned on this site (The Complete Blue Note Book ed. by Toyoki Okajima): http://www.plosin.com/milesahead/BluenoteLabel.html It's useful as a source book for the record details but the narrative unfortunately is in Japanese almost completely throughout.

Thanks for that info. Wolfram Knauer is very, very competent but I wonder what there is on this particular subject that has not already been said or compiled elsewhere. So I wonder what new ground will be covered or what new angles will be explored and to what extent this books serves a purpose other than finally prividing some in-depth reading on Bird in German (Ross Russell's book was translated at the time but oh well ... ). And somehow, I still have a feeling that the German language just is not always that well suited to writing about jazz and its musical aspects. In the long run I all too often felt somewhat uneasy with many jazz texts I read about in German, particularly those that related specifically to U.S. topics where English material on the very same subject existed too. But YMMV and possibly that's just my personal impression because the Jazz Podium mag and many scribes of the Zimmerle/Wunderlich etc. era have (to me, anyway) had a way of writing that often just sounded a bit too awkward and stilted for THIS kind of music and seemed way too much influenced by that typical German "Bildungsbürger" attitude. I'll keep my fingers crossed Knauer breaks new ground here (and I will take a closer look at the book at a local bookstore that carries this sort of books), so by all means do let us know about your impressions when you get around to doing some reading.