Big Beat Steve

Sounds like something I might like to get my hands on too. However, neither Jepsen nor Bruyninckx nor the Goldmine Price Guide to Collectible Jazz Albums 1949-1969 know this record. Seems like this is REALLY rare. Any more details and info available?

Yes I noted that too (upon checking my Jepsen again) after having posted the above. So I stand corrected for this typo. But you beat me to accessing this post again to correct (minor matters you know ... comparatively speaking ... . )

Uh oh ... That's a wide field. Wider than some may imagine ...

Have the LP right in front of me: It's Capitol 5C 052.80 806 1949: I Can't Remember (vcl Tiny Irwin) 1950: Carambola Honeysuckle Rose (vcl Joe Carroll) "Carambola" was/is on the Capitol "The History of Jazz" comp "Vol. 4 - Enter The Cool" (Cap T796) that was around in several iterations/pressings from the original issue of the late 50s at least up to the mid-80s (I bought my copy as a Spanish facsimile reissue in 1983)

100% agreement. I really cannot complain about the vinyl selection in jazz and related collectible music we had here available locally (though I was far removed from London where there was even far more on the shelves as I was able to see during my stqys there in 1975 to 77). After I started listening to jazz, blues etc. and buying LPs (which fast turned into collecting) in 1975 there was constantly much, much more of interest to me than I could ever hope to be able to buy. We had 4 or 5 shops locally that constantly stocked nice items, including lots of imports, even U.S. ones (and who cared if they were cutouts - these were not inferior pressings, after all, just items that had been written off elsewhere and recycled in the sales channels here). And they had dedicated staff that constantly saw to it that even obscure "collectors only" items were stocked - for jazz, roots music (blues, Western Swing, etc.), rockabilly, you name it. Not just German licenses/pressings, UK, French and US runs too. OK, some of the imports were pricy, but there were always enough good deals around too. And current labels (MPS, Enja, etc.) were common sights too. So I really can't complain about the range available, and my only regret is that a good deal of those times (c. 1980 to 1985) fell into a period when my buying funds were tight and I missed out on a lot. The major advantage of the CD era was/is that reissuers soon went (and still go) well beyond what had been covered in the LP era and where one had little hope that they would ever go much further (unless one happened upon Japanese reissues).

"Where's the bass?" To paraphrase Jimmy Giuffre: "It is understood."

Once the reissue folks started to really fill their CDs up to near the 80min max. playing time -, yes, price really got interesting. Before that ... not so sure. And in the relatively early CD times I often noticed that those CDs that limited themselves to a skimpy 12-13 tracks (each of which wasn't that long either) were decidedly more expensive than the corresponding vinyl. And this went on for a LONG time. But a definite advantage was that during the CD era they finally started to reissue stuff that had never before been available ever since the orignal 45s or 78s (or LPs) had been released. There really was and is an upsurge in availability. Public domain laws no doubt helped a lot there too ... OTOH ... considering the initial pressing costs of CDs vs vinyls, many of those CDs aren't THAT cheap after all. But I guess you can't have'em all.

I've had this problem too and had to remind myself to be extra careful indeed. I've found removal became easier over time once you'd removed the CDs several times by pressing really dead center on the prongs before even trying to lift the CD. However, I've found CDs to be uncommonly tight on pretty strong prongs on several recent CDs I've bought. Could this be a widespread phenomenon with digipacks?

There aren't any either. No rubbishy and not many dubious ones, that is (IMO ). And even those that are dubious are only marred by some over-sugary crooning vocals (signs of the times) or by some uncommonly pop-ish tunes sung by Jimmy Rushing. But these just reflected the musical scene of the day (Lunceford and Kirk had many more like this, and some early pop vocal ditties sung by Ella with Webb aren't always high points in artistic sophistication and achievement either ) and you are totally right in wanting these too in order to get the overall picture. They do have their charm and appeal, even today. "Bad" or "rubbishy" is a highly subjective criterion anyway. By strict criteria of artistry and musicianship Bird's Lover Man session falls far, far short IMO, but knowing the context, would we consider it poor? It's a unique document in the artistic biography of the man. Or take Ernie Henry's LPs that strictly speaking are not exactly supreme masterpieces of musicianship either (listening to them, for once I'd believe contemporary reviewers who point out poor Ernie wasn't even nearly able to put into notes what he heard in his mind) yet they are acknolwedged by many today who evidently have other criteria. To each his own ...

Boy, must you have been disappointed with Bob Dunn's soloing in that box, Allen. FWIW I'll hang on to mine (and you still have my thanks for making me aware of that box in that earlier thread).

If this really is so, Lewis' assumption seems to be grossly skewed to me. Because if he were to argue that way, it is not only jazz that has come to an end but most other styles of popular music too. How long has it been since any pop/rock artist has had a hit with "I Got Rhythm", "Dinah", "Don't Blame Me" or whatever? (I am not talking about MOR artists who appeal to the remains of an older audience but about the core of the pop/rock music field) If any form of that "Songbook" had been recorded in recent decades by major pop/rock artists it was more for novelty's sake than for anything else, I guess. Or it was by artists who used these songs for a "jazz" image. In short, the "American songbook" is not the beginning and end of popular music per se, and honestly, the audiences of "already fine songs that people knew and loved", i.e. the audience of crooners, operatic tenors and big-bosomed contraltos who performed those songs in a fashion that was as un-jazzy as possible (as was customary before jazz made those songs its own) and still had huge HITS with those performances must for the most part be dead by several decades now. It is not only jazz that has moved on with the source material that is "jazzed up", pop music has moved on too. For better or worse, but it's a fact. But as pointed out before, there is other source material too. And any jazz (or even semi-jazz) artist who uses those Songbook songs (i.e. just plain "standards") today no doubt is inspired not by those stilted antiquated operatic or Broadway show-style singers' renditions but by preceding jazz versions of any particular Songbook song. So whatever remains of that songbook in the mind of the artists and the public TODAY is primarily based on JAZZ performances (jazz vocalists's renditions of those standards included), not on what was done with those songs in popular music many, many decades ago. Not a mean feat ... And maybe something to build on anyway, regardless of whether performing these standards will ever become a mass phenomenon in jazz again or not.

Beat me to it! My thoughts exactly too.

This statement here nails it IMO: "Today the ‘good health’ of a number of big jazz festivals worldwide hides an artistic reality in terms of frequentation that is far from brilliant with the dilution of jazz in its programming (even when what remains is good) and focuses on musicians that do not belong in jazz neither by the spirit nor the form even when they try to convince the contrary. It misleads the public, the current and future programmers, sometimes critics of specialized magazines and the musicians. And it doesn't open the scene of these festivals to the jazz musicians who follow what's going on in the ‘big’ jazz festivals of which many they are excluded." Have often observed this in the programs of jazz festivals over here in recent years, and this certainly does not attract me to attending these festivals if I have to sit through half or 3 quarters of a program that have only extremely tenuous connections with jazz at best and wade through a herd of partygoers who visibly aren't interested in the jazz content but to whom this seems to be more of a "see and be seen" event.

I guess you're right - I, for one, started buying/collecting at 15 in 1975. (And as I am running out of storage space, I try to fill some of those huge gaps (that still remain indeed) as efficiently as possible - avoiding duplications, e.g. by picking up unissueds that fit my tastes, does help there )

Yes - if I had REASONABLE grounds for the assumption that this statement was honest and true and if it was music (style, artist, etc.) where I'd go after almost anything that would come my way. Case in point: Those Uptown CDs. No idea if the statement on that Charlie Parker disc would have aroused my suspicion or not. There are so many Bird airshots, live recordings, etc. out there and who knows if I'd have had the definitive discography on hand to check (and then, often places and dates are identified incorrectly in there ...).

Even if the label wasn't legit this does not make the recordings "unissued". Instances abound where the (legit or relatively legit) reissuers gleefully state "First official release ever" or "Released in authorized form for the first time" (or whatever) so why play hide and seek here?

Good points they made in their blurb, Niko. But as you pointed out, they explicitly ACKNOWLEDGE that these recordings are in the public domain (so nothing doing when it comes to moaning about legitimacy). They carefully stress the sound quality aspect only and they have a point. And I'd love to go that route. Only ... what are they going to offer us as far as the WHOLE spectrum of the original Verve catalog goes? If I wanted to scour a Verve reissue catalog for a copy of Bert Dale's (aka Nils-Bertil Dahlander) "SKAL" LP, where do you all think would I be likely to dig up one first? In that Jazzplus series or at Fresh Sound etc.? See what I mean?

This overview (from German news site Welt.de) speaks for itself. No translation of the captions needed, I think ...

Very valid reasons, and damage caused by one or several of these reasons is likely to happen here and there, but WEARING out one single track on an LP is quite something else. I must admit I've been guilty of this in the past too. As for TTK's question who buys an LP and plays only one track, I think you are geared much too much towards concept albums or listening music such as a lot of jazz ORIGINALLY programmed for LP release. But pop/rock albums that come from hit artists or reissues of earlier music (any style) that originally was on singles/78s only (particularly if it's Various Artists albums) can be bought and listened to that way. In my case it was V.A. albums that had one particular killer track on them that I bought those LPs for (it DOES happen if it's a track you want by all means but just cannot find anywhere else, least of all on a 45 or 78). And in both cases that track was about the 5th or 6th out of 8 tracks on one LP side. So in the course of time that 5th ot 6th track took on a lot more greyish color than the shiny rest of the LP (which wasn't bad at all either but that favorite track just got a lot more spins for quite some time). Overall those favorite tracks are still very listenable, though. But on some good equipment you will note that the background hiss or pops are more pronounced on those. Modern turntables help here, compared to 50s or early 60s "groove lathes"

Doubt that a book will ever see the light. Not sure there is enough of a market for a top quality volume of jazz photos which is what I would want. What I would not want would be to have one of those photo books with badly reproduced images. OTOH if there is a market for the Eddy Wiggins book (professional photos but relatively limited text) and for Nicas' "Three Wishes" book (a good deal of the pics look rather amateurish, yet this does not detract much from their appeal) I wonder if there wouldn't be a specialist market for a book that fills a niche somewhere in between (with regard to the location of the action and the era covered) after all. Like Gheorghe said, memoirs and all ... I'd buy (or even preorder) a copy unseen ...

Like Alison Moyet, then?

Aw well, one never knows, do one?

Nice ... Does Son-of-a-Weizen have a bottle or crate of this in his stocks yet?

No people in or on the white car, and a tame Ford Vedette is no sports car (even if it's a convertible - Ford had the Comete for the sports section of their model lineup at that time). Sorry ... missed ... (Yes I know I am wisecracking and nitpicking but anyhow ... )

I don't think so. I'd classify him in the same category as pianist Don Frye (sometimes spelled "Frey" - which makes the pronunciation obvious, I think).