Big Beat Steve

You see, that's exactly the point. Good writing and bad writing is one aspect of the problem but is it the only one? Let's assume that a biography is supposed to focus on a person/peronality and his/her life (and therefore on FACTS or at the very least on how these facts are assessed/evaluated by somebody with a qualified opinion/understanding to provide insights into this person that flesh out the picture beyond the bare facts but still are based on the facts), right? Now assume such a biography is written excellently but goes overboard on embellishments, fictional add-ons, etc. that at best provide a picture of "what might have been" or "what could have happened" or "would have been nice if it had happened that way". Would this still be a great biography? Where would you draw the line? Or to put it another way: No doubt you will agree that Ross Russell's "Bird Lives" wasn't written badly as such . Yet it is faulted for many fictional elements that find their way into that book and sometimes make it hard to sift fact from fiction (in the way Chuck said above). So ... where is the line between what's to be considered good and bad when it comes to how HISTORY is presented in an attempt to provide a picture of what HAPPENED and why it happened (but not of what could have happened)? (Note this is an honest question, not an attempt at splitting hairs. I'd REALLY like to know, not least of all because I have to deal with writers - of a slightly different kind - a lot of the time in my job too )

You see, the point really just is that in very, very many cases those Japanese reissues are damn hard to get (at least from Europe) unless you really monitor the Japanese scene day in and day out and are willing to put up with ordering procedures that can be a real hassle. And many go OOP faster than you can say "Hiroshi Tanno". In short, to many collectors over here many of them just as well never existed, really.

:g Several months? And that probably was just before they went OOP? Of course King Ubu was all tongue-in-cheek but isn't the basic point just this: Japanese CDs aren't exactly a prime example of items that REMAIN available WORLDWIDE. Pops up one day, grab it while ya can (if you become aware that it has been relased at all), poof it goes OOP and vanishes off the face of the earth. So many Japanese reissues really are highly IRRELEVANT when it comes to discussing items that remain IN PRINT for at least a reasonably moderate span of time and are at least halfway EASILY available from wherever you are. You know, buying records for one's collection is enough detective work already when it comes to originals and decades-long OOP items. If you need to go sleuthing ALL the time even for new reissues then this can get to be a bit more than what one can reasonably handle, so lots of items actually never existed in reissue form for many people.

I agree with this, but (and how many times have we had this debate?!) if the material is available nowhere else, well, I get it. Example: The John Graas Jazz Studio and Jazz Lab recordings originally issued on (I think) Decca. They're only available from Lonehill. Mosaic has never touched them, and neither, to my knowledge, have any of the "legitimate" reissue labels. So I got the Lonehills. I don't feel great about supporting the label, but I want to hear that music by a (pretty well forgotten) fine jazz artist. gregmo Yeh, I spent years looking for that one. Once bought it as 3 45 EPs. Just for the record, they HAVE been out as reissues on vinyl - on German MCA in the mid-70s (in a series called "Jazz Lab", incidentally). But of course this series is not likely to have been widely accessible outside Germany. And this is one of the cases I mentioned above - Fresh Sound at least covers territories where others either fear or don't care to tread. And I'd guess these are reissues that are not likely to make you a rich man by ANY standards so if you wanted to use terms such as "ripoffs" you'd have to look elsewhere, I'd say.

I won't disagree with you at all on that point. Which is why I for one have always wondered why a certain label could be endorsed HERE even though, for example, it did a box set on one niche subject of jazz and by sheer coincidence this set included about two thirds (or more) of the material from another box set on the same subject that had previously been released by Fremeaux Associés. Coincidence? I had gone into the details of this particular release ad nauseam here too and won't repeat them anymore. But again - double standards in this debate are no way of treating the subject IMO.

True. I am much in the same positon, thankfully. Though, being in Europe, I have no qualms whatsoever buying from PD labels (provided they comply with EUROPEAN P.D. rules as they are) to fill specific gaps if and when I find the price is right in relation to the goods offered for that money. If they comply with those rules they are legal here. End of debate. Which is where I cannot fault Fresh Sound for a lot of their material, particularly because they go in their reissue series where others just either are too cowardly or too greedy to tread. And please (not you, specifically, Sonnymax, but the P.D. label detractors on a more general level) don't tell me this or that CD had already been reissued on this or that Japanese label as late as 1999, staying on the market for all of an immense seven months. Firstly, do we know Japanese reissuers ALWAYS pay ARTIST royalties the way we would like to see it happen (or don't they take advantage of their shares of P.D. stuff too?), and secondly, drooling about Japanese reissues as if this were the "legit" bandwagon that everybody ought to have hopped on blatantly negates acual ONGOING availabilty and accessibility. Finally, the only reason why I often get a bit caustic about those who moan about the alleged "Andorran thieves" is because quite a few of the same have, for example, enthused here about those oh so convenient P.D. material box sets from the UK (you know the labels I am talking about, I guess) as if they were a god-send to those who conveniently can fill gaps in the sidelines of their collections that way. (In fact they often are but they DO take advantage of European P.D. rules any time so no use pretending they are any more legit than those Spanish/Andorran labels and in many cases you can trace the material on those box sets right back to previous reissues that still are available too) This is what I call DOUBLE STANDARDS and that's where I find this whole discussion gets ridiculous. Because in fact you could blame the UK sets just as much as you could blame the Spanish reissuers and there's no point targeting the Spanish labels only if you want to focus on the P.D. reissue label topic at all. So (not meaning you specifically, Sonnymax. but others who might well recognize themselves) if you avoid one, avoid both, or else don't pretend you tower morally that sky-high above those copyright infringements allegedly committed by those labels.

Thanks for the links to the reviews, Brad and Greg M. So if I get this right, the bird book out by Crouch now actually is only one of two and covers the K.C. period "only"? This quote from the review linked b y Greg M. has me wondering, though: "Still, as Crouch is the first to say, this is a life story full of gaps. And so, to compensate for the missing information, Crouch has relied on an imagination that might be called novelistic, if novelists dealt in generic supposition and platitudinous bombast." No matter what praise is heaped on the book in that review, apparently it is not an unmitigated pleasure overall. Well ... Anybody out there who'd be able to judge if there definitely is no risk of this approach turning into Ross Russell-like embellishments if things become THAT novelistic? Yes I know this might be an insult to some (seeing how Russell's book is generally judged these days) but still ... How much imagination can a bio stand before the facts get skewed? And what I do wonder now ... since the Bird bio by Chuck Haddix seems to be strong on the K.C. period too, would one be better off going for that one if one can do without both "novelistic" fantasies and minute details that in the end might add up to speculation only? Any opinions?

Noble enough, but I take it, then, that you never, never, never ever buy ANY of the "Proper" boxes either and would rate them in the same camp.

What are you out for? Asking where to get those sets or just plugging your seller? If there is one who has ("does have them") what you are after ("Is there some"...), then I wonder what you REALLY are after.

He may not really be remembered much for his jazz background because he did lots of MOR pop stuff (even his big band wasn't very jazz-inclined most of the time) but in this he was typical of many musicians during that era. But he did do important things in 50s post-war jazz in Germany and had jazz chops on the piano if he wanted to make use of them. I remember a radio show in the early 80s featuring recordings from the NDR archives that never were released commercially anywhere. Part of the program were mid-50s piano duos of Paul Kuhn and Bengt Hallberg - quite an ear-opener. Would love to hear them again. RIP

Agreed. I figure their approach is "If you do it at all, do it right, cover it in depth, go the whole way". Understandable IMO, because if you cover an extreme "special-interest" subject like this, then those who would want to buy it probably won't go for something that has gaps by definition. And wouldn't this already be the case if you cut things in half (as sugested here). Besides, a "Best Of" compilation is available as a taster anyway. And like you said, would those really interested in this go keep up with a set of maybe 20 two-CD sets individually? (Which may not be any cheaper to produce, BTW) But given the overall scope (44 CDs plus two huge books for 499 europs), this adds up to how much per individual CD? Probably less than 10 euros apiece, considering what a decent book on such a specialist subject would go for. Does Mosaic charge less on average for their individual CDs in a box set? I agree it is big money but what could be the bone of contention about the price? If you consider the Bear Family label policy (like it has always been - and here the price per CD is only two thirds of that of an individual Bear Family CD, which is a price cut you won't always find in their other box sets), it couldn't possibly be the individual price per CD but only the question of whether anybody would jump THAT deeply into such a specific subject in ONE go. I for one won't take the plunge but I realize that it's not the fault of the product but of my insufficient interest in this subject matter that would warrant jumping in THAT deeply. A compilation on such special-interest music like it has been done by the Old Hat label (or maybe the 3-CD set linked to above) would be something else ... So no complaints on my part.

Yes. You had to think about what you wanted to "say," the trajectory of the music within 47 minutes (the length of a side of a 90-minute tape). You had to gauge the gaps between the tracks, adjust the recording levels for each track...it's analogous (sorry) to writing a letter on paper vs. on a computer. It's difficult to erase, you can't really go back once you've started... And there was the plus side, where you really got caught up in the creative act of putting the tape together, making the music flow. For a non-musician, it was as close as we could come to actually making music. +1 :tup My thoughts exactly. Can't even recall how often I stopped in the middle of recording a track and wound back to the previous gap, recording another track instead which I felt suited the flow of the music better after all. Just bcause upon listening to the individual tracks while recording them I found the originally planned sequence didn't quite provide the flow I had figured it would. A bit like a DJ experimenting with tracks beforehand to set up the outlines of a projected playlist.

Very nice. Thanks for linking this!

Hee heee ... That kind of invitation is known from Facebook. A strict no-go.

Good luck, then, with your search. I am afraid, though, you will have to live with the assumption that it is not totaly unlikely that the original pressing run of those LPs has vanished from the market for good because maybe there are diehard Trane adulators somewhere out there among the jazz record hoarding fraternity who otherwise might uphold high moral standards of "no-no-ing the bad bootleggers" much like it was done here in this thread too yet among their vinyl shrine of Traneabilia there happen to sit these two Oberon LPs too ("because after all it is the only way of being able to listen to those utterly formative performances of my dearly beloved 'Trane!" ... ) Can we prove that there are such characters? No. But I'd bet you a nickel that there are some somewhere out there if you somehow manage to look close enough ... BTW, lest somebody twists this statement around: I am defintely NOT implying this applies to those who spoke out against shady releases here in THIS thread but we all know this "condoning bootlegs or not" discussion affects many more people in many areas of the collecting hobby.

Are you really sure it was meant for this rule to extend to items that have been OOP for DECADES? And would you be willing to have the same rules enforced for those currently IN-PRINT items that would have to be considered bootlegs by U.S. copyright standards when sold to U.S. (potential) buyers, particularly if marketed by U.S. retailers? All of them, not just "Andorrans"?

But it's not even a link because nobody put one up for sale anywhere. And again - this is a secondhand affair. Any secondhand LP (legal or not) is outside the reach of any legal matter because the NEW-item sale (that enforceably would have been subject to royalties) has been concluded jezz knows how many decades ago. I dont even think Jim would worry unduly about THIS isolated aspect but it rather seems to me a dead horse is being ridden here.

Besides, whatever pressing runs these Oberon LPS ever made it to, those NEW-LP quantities no doubt were sold off in total long, long ago. So whatever "royalty infringement" damage (if any) might have been done, that's all a thing of the (fairly distant) past by now. Wherever a copy of these LPs (or others like this) changes hands today, we are talking about a second-hand (or third or fourth-hand) deal that would not be subject to any additional royalty payments anywhere anymore anyway.

Spot-on. I agree with Rooster_Ties too. Seems to me like the bone of contention in this particular case it that it is TRANE. Like Colinmce said, if it was some Boris Rose (or similar) 70s/early 80s aircheck LP by one of the swing-era big bands , nobody but REALLY nobody would give a hoot. That said, I admit I've been on the lookout for the Oberon LPs too (though not with much determination and perseverance). BTW, both LPs made it into a review in the All Music Guide (printed copy, 2nd. ed.) and I don't recall this book having to be retracted for endorsing illegal products. So, please ... take it easy, folks, hey? BTW, what if Oberon turned out to be a European affair? (Just thinking aloud ...)

"So we know where to send da boys round" ?? :g

Sounds good. Thanks for that assessment.

Larry Did you read the Carl Woideck book on Parker? Yes. I recall feeling that it was solid but not quite as much so as the Priestley book. In particular, and I'm relying on imperfect memory here, Woideck, who certainly knows what's afoot musically, has the problem of a good many such writers (on jazz or any music) of essentially pointing to/explaining -- in musical notation and in words that more or less paraphrase what's notated -- things that one can already hear, and then he pretty much stops at the point, as though the job were done. Priestley by contrast, at his best, succeeds at/makes a good attempt at detecting underlying principles that are at work and their possible implications as well. I guess what I'm saying is that Woideck is more or less a musicologist, and Priestley is a musically well-versed critic. Not my favorite critic -- among those would be Jack Cooke, Terry Martin, John Litweiler, the late Michael James, and the professionally irascible Max Harrison on one of his good days, but Priestley has some of the virtues (e.g. the understanding that one is running alongside a living art that, in Val Wilmer's phrase, is "as important as your life") of the old Jazz Monthly crowd -- to which he and the others I've mentioned (except for Litweiler) all belonged at one time or another. Thanks for this evaluation. I had totally forgotten I own the Woideck book. Apparently I put it aside shortly after having bought it. Took it out again now and got to say, it is bound to be short on biographical details. About 50 pages of bio plus about 200 pages of musical analysis is a bit of a mismatch unless you are a musician or a recording nitpicker. Seems like the Chuck Haddix book has a similarly strong focus on the analysis of the music, or am I wrong? I also have Ken Vail's "Bird's Diary" but this outlines just the very BARE FACTS and dates after all. While I can do without the Ross Russell "embellishments" there must be more to Bird's personality and STORY. Will Priestley still cover this sufficiently by today's state of knowledge or will one have to go for one that - by all accounts here - might turn out to be more like "Stanley Crouch writes about Stanley Crouch writing about Bird"?

Please, Fer. Don't get him on that track. It seems Allen had that idea originally for the blues book but things worked out better for a printed version somehow (to my VERY great relief - though admittedly that's only me. ). At any rate, I'll be looking forward for them, Allen, so please keep us posted when they will actually be ready for shipment. In the meantime I'll free up some space on my (already overcrowded) music book shelves.

Are you sure these German beers you taste in the US taste like the ones they dispense in Munich? Or is it just wishful thinking? Am no expert on the matter but have heard very often (from seasoned beer drinkers) that US "Lowenbrau", for example, nowhere resembles the "LÖWENBRÄU" real thing from Bavaria. So would things be guaranteed to be all that different for other Bavarian brands? Where is Weizy, BTW?

See, that's one of those things ... I never got into those games (just not my cup ...) and the one time I followed one a bit closer I very fast got the distinct impression things were running in circles. Probably a case of instant boredom and even dislike - just like those album cover threads touch a sore spot with a few forumists here, it seems... "To each his own ..." ( a song idolized to death on that other (big band) board , incidentally)