Big Beat Steve

Agreed - had thought of bringing up that one when the Bird w/Stan Kenton tracks were mentioned earlier. I bought this Alamac LP close to 20 years ago at Mole Jazz in London, and while I am no Bird live recordings completist (but love the Herds from that period very much anyway) this combination had struck me as being so unusual (including for the track selection) that I just had to have it. And I haven't regretted it, of course.

Bird in Paris (the jazz festival recordings) is very nice but fidelity is so-so. (Or has the fidelity improved that immensely on other reissues since CBS released their LP?) Bird in Sweden is nice - yes, but are there any reissues out by now where the solos of the Swedish jam session participants (at least some of them) have not been clipped away? I have an older Storyville LP and the liner notes that openly admit these splicings are slightly unsettling, to put it mildly.

See ... If it had only been about the current "no politics" criteria then why could Larry Kart's sensible explanation (IMHO) not have been accepted as such? After all this still is quite an innocent discussion (IMHO again) compared to how REALLY political discussions could evolve. So why not just have left it at that? Pete Seeger was a political person and to appraise his life the political involvement of his invariably would come up and be discussed. So what? BTW, @Larry Kart: Thanks for that link above on "Pete Seeger before Pete Seeger". Highly interesting. In fact this "Songs for John Doe" album also was discussed in the liner notes to the oft-mentioned Keynote box reissued by Fresh Sound recently as this album was one of the first major releases by Keynote founder Eric Bernay on his Almanac label at the time Keynote was in its infancy. Further Almanac singers releases were on Keynote, BTW. As for "Overnight neither for love nor money could you find a trace of John Doe in any radical book or record store" in the link above, the liner notes to the Keynote box state that "Bernay quickly pulled "Songs for John Doe" from distribution and reportedly destroyed the remaining inventory to avoid possible repercussions". So this explains that, oned might guess ...

Do you really feel that comfortable in unyieldingly riding a principle to death instead of letting a modicum of common sense prevail, as suggested by Larry Kart?? My my ... Whatever political topics come up here in THIS thread - they are part of discussing the life (and times - yes!) of the (deceased) person in question and of evaluating the life of said person and with THIS person in particular they cannot be separated from the person and his artistic opus IMO. As for where to draw a line - would discussing the outspokenness of this or that musician against, say, Southern racism, or against Apartheid (in another RIP thread, for example) within such a thread be off limits too (now don't tell me these aren't highly political topics)? Please - RELAX!

Besides, it is a discussion about HISTORICAL events/actions/statements that are/were of a political nature.

I hope not; just checked my "saved for later" lists on the various Amazon sites and they contain hundreds of items... Time for some sorting and deleting, I guess Uh oh ... same here. Maybe not hundreds but about 50 to 80 any time. And not all of them get bought eventually.

Never seen that box set anywhere around here when we still had well-stocked record shops with staff that cared (even about their jazz sections). Though I remember the "Bean and the Boys" individual LPs which were quite current for a time in the late 80s/early 90s around here. I only picked up a scant few of those LPs (though they were not that expensive), no doubt because a fairly high part of the "non-commercial" recordings issued in those volumes were (very) "later-day Bean" (no doubt a mistake in hindsight but then I was focusing on 40s or very early 50s Hawk all the way).

Ah, THAT one ... I've got that too (but had not thought of it before because I figured TTK was referring to a compilation album featuring various bands).

RCA Camden CAL12 featuring Domnérus, Wickman and Theselius? Somewhat after-hours/lounge-ish cover art - yes ...

I think you got something wrong there, bdamusic. This is a book that features the personal photographic recollections of trumpeter Jan Allan from the way HE witnessed the 50s and the musical scene that he was part of. Which is why the title of the book is "Jan Allan remembers his Fifties". He had just turned 16 when Bird toured Sweden in 1950 - small wonder that Jan wasn't present at those sessions, isn't it? There is a time and place for everything, and understandably and expectedly - from the intentions of THIS book - there is no place for Bird there.

Isn't it quite natural that tastes differ? And exaggeration sometimes helps to convey a message too ... Though it was spurred in part by one of the Beatles' (Ringo??) much later admission that they indeed had gone wildly overboard with all their Guru and psych stuff in the second part of the 60s.

No, you're not. Here's another one. But I was sort of late to the game anyway - started listening consciously to music at 13 in 1973 and bought my first LPs at 14 1/2 years in early spring of 1975 so when I got into music the Beatles had already passed into history. But of course you still were exposed to them everywhere. While many of my schoolmates (who of course were into the then current Hard Rock, Blues Rock, Krautrock, Psychedelic Rock and whatever ...) tended more towards the later Beatles albums, my own rock tastes from Day One leaned much more towards REAL Rock'n'Roll, i.e. Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, et al. So to the extent that the Beatles sounded that essential to me at all, it was obviously their early albums that struck much more of a chord with me whereas I neither could nor would really buy into that screwy, weird Sitar, Oriental, pot smoking, high flying, zonked out stuff of the past-Rubber Soul era, just like out-and-out psychedelic rock and similar genres never were for me. I liked my music a bit more gutsy, immediate and down to earth (but I therefore also understand those who find some of the Beatles tunes on the very early albums a bit girlish). Another reason why the early Beatles albums should not be belittled IMO - it was THOSE albums that created the huge impact of Beatlemania outside the UK and changed the course of rock music forever (imagine white U.S. pop/"rock" would have been stuck in a Bobby Vee, Ricky Nelson, Bobby Rydell, Frankie Valli etc. rut for much longer ) whereas the later ones were done when the Beatles already were an ultra-established act worldwide and (again IMHO) the impact of those albums had more to do with everybody in the rock or pop world waiting for the next word from the Beatles and the Gospel they would preach therein. Sort of "you can't go wrong with the latest Beatles release" thing ...

I suppose they had to gloss over the fact that Trane is present only on some of the selections. Apparently Trane sells - but Byrd, Farmer, Quill, Rehak, Cohn,. etc - much less so.

Another suggestion, David: Keep a watchful eye on www.bokborsen.se This is an antiquarian, secondhand, remainder stock and OOP book site that may have a copy coming up now and then. The books put up for sale there don't have to be decades old so you never know ...

Are you sure you posted in the right thread, Niko?? Why not in the "Hate Hard Bop" thread, if at all? So let's back on track on the subject ON HAND ...

Well, I wouldn not have minded a full bilingual version either (particularly since this would have meant more pics, more period publication repros, etc. spread throughout the inlcreased numer of pages )) but I do think they had their budget constraints too and figured such single-country box sets would sell largely on the domestic market anyway.

About the liner notes: They are essentially Swedish (no major reading problem for me, I'll admit..) but they include a summary in English that is far shorter than the Swedish liner notes but still comparatively detailed (i.e. not just a single-page brief rundown).

Yes, the booklets that go with those CD sets are real gems. And, BTW, they once again show what a pity it is that comprehensive booklets really became a WIDESPREAD addition to collector discs in the CD era only. If you compare the booklets of the VINYL versions and those of the CD versions (like I said, Vols. 1 to 4 were first issued on vinyl) then the LP-size booklets win hands down, of course, because the (numerous) illustrations are significantly larger overall.

Ah ... those .... I have Vols. 1 to 8 (Vols. 1 to 4 on vinyl, Vols. 2 to 8 on CD) and I find them all excellent (if CDs would really wear out then some of the would be worn by now ). Evidently my tastes differ from those of King Ubu (and I am biased in favor of Swedish jazz from the 1935-60 period anyway), but while Vols. 6 to 8 would be most fitting as musical illustrations to Jan Allan's book, I'd certainly advise not to downplay or shrug off Swedish jazz (even pre-1945) unduly. They did have their own thing going, and while some vocals and some big band arrangements are indeed relatively stiff (but not more so than the average German oreven English ones), there are a fair bit of individualistic voices to be found there that make for interesting listening. But of course, to some extent you DO HAVE to be able to listen to this music in the context of its times in order to be appreciate then on their proper terms. Blah about them being "derivative" etc. won't do the matter justice.

Which might give a clue as to the source material they used. I'll try and compare this track with the Mercury LP reissue I have of that session. And thanks for your comparison, BTW!

All in all I paid 378 SEK (including shipping) which equalled 44.95 EUR.

Thanks, Romualdo. So this sesssion in its entirety is reissued for the first time here, it seems ... I am fairly sure I have the Swingtime LP listed by Lord. IIRC it is credited to Buck Clayton and includes a sampling of rarities and oddities usually overlooked in other reissues. But this still seems to leave two titles all new to the reissue world.

O.K., my box set arrived yesterday and I spun through 2 or 3 of the discs. The sound is quite good to me, though I have a lot of the more familiar Keynotes on vinyl reissues on Dutch, UK, US and Japanese Mercury, some of which I've owned since the late 70s and they DID get some play here (so no matter how shiny the vinyl still looks, there must be some wear on them by now so they are not 100% ideal for comparison). I only have the Roy Eldridge/Trumpets volume from the Jap. Essential Keynote CD series and have not compared those yet (and am not likely to do so very soon). So I'll bow to the audiophiles for nitpickety fidelity comparison too. As for the book, I am rather impressed too. The story of Keynote is presented quite well (I was unaware of how John Hammond got into the picture, for example), and IMO Harry Lim does deserve the focus placed on him (if only to offset that he has been ignored by Eddie Condon - cf. the pictures from that 1939 LIFE jam session party featured in the book; if you compare them to the pictures from that session in Eddie Condon's "Scrapbook" you will find he consistently omits Harry Lim in the captions when listing those seen in the pics.) As for the comments on the music, no complaints from my side about the period record reviews. Sure, some of it is a bit "blurb"-ish, but how many academic hindsight-laden assessments of the music do you need, considering that this has done before in other reissues? And if you deduct the bio info on the participating musicians from those latter-day music evaluations (info that any seasoned collector can and will look up elsewhere) the discussion of the actual music slims down considerably. OTOH I find most of those period reviews really fascinating as they shed light on the music the way it was perceived at the time and how it responded to the tastes of those days (assuming the critics weren't at total odds with the buyers' tastes all the time). Much better IMO in providing a path to enjoying the music the way it was enjoyed (and not dissected) by the jazz-loving public back then, even if you don't agree with the review ratings. Not the worst option of appreciating the music even today IMO (if you need background info at all in addition to the music as such). Just my 2c. BTW, one major question: This box inlcudes a 4-track session by a Horace Henderson-led band that was recorded by Keynote but for unknown reasons was sold to the JAMBOREE label and released there (but never on Keynote). The book says this session is reissued here for the first time (thanks to a set of 78s provided by Eddie Bert who had participated in the session and had kept a set of the records). Is that so? Is this session NOT included in the 21-LP Japanese box either? This would be amazing ... Or do they mean "reissued on CD for the first time"?

According to the commonly known historical accounts, Doris Parker had a hand in running the label.

Yes, thanks Mjzee. Will stick a printout of your findings inside the box (which I bought just as much for various of the non-Bird sessions, BTW, and on an overall value-for-money tradeoff still am not too displeased )