Big Beat Steve

Contemporary, Columbia Jazz and Prestige (in no particular order). Thinking strictly in LP terms, I'd probably have picked Pacific Jazz instead of Columbia, but since I'd want some SWING too I'd have to choose Columbia for its all-round appeal.

Not to forget Dizzy Gillespie's recording of "Cripple Crapple Crutch" (rec. April 11, 1952) where he clearly sings that he wouldn't "give a crippled crab a crutch" either.

To behear, you mean?

I don't think too many would have complained about 60s soul being referred to as R&B. The continuity is there ideed. But as this series of "100 R&B" LPS reaches well into the 70s, the plain descriptor "R&B" becomes a bit misleading IMO. And I think the main bone of contention here was the way the "R&B" term was/is used for even much more recent forms of black music - beyond that specific list. OTOH it really was to be expected that this "100 R&B LP" package would turn out like that. After all, were there all that many R&B LPs (i.e. original LP packagings) prior to the final years of the 50s (i.e. the end of the "real" key R&B era) to be reissued NOW? Remember that - in contrast with jazz - R&B as part of "popular" music remained mostly a 45rpm medium for relatively long. I can only see a scant handful pre-1960 items on the first few pages of that list.

Just call them R&B. After all they carry on the tradition and make it evolve to some degree. Like I said in my above post there are relatively recent acts that would really come under the R&B (despite all the evolutions they have gone thoprugh). Duke Robillard would be another one IMO. And no doubt there are many more. So is there any reason to be more generic than you have to in describing styles of music?

May I offer a huuuge pail of water to cool you down, and a tube of ointment to treat the burn marks? Because you ARE right. Just wondering, why? a) For the very same reason that IMHO it is a huge abomination use the term "rock and roll" for anything past the very early Beatles period (when they still performed rock'n'roll tunes (covers) and before the actual beat music set on. The "Rock" stopped rolling before the Beatles came along and when teen kids like Avalon, Vinton, Rydell etc. took over. Point. What came after was (and is) just plain "rock" (in all its facets). a) Why not call a spade a spade? There ARE connotations with the REAL term of R&B as it developed from the 40s onwards, and I don't think anybody has to be afraid of terms such as "soul" or "funk" (or "hip hop" etc.) to describe specific styles of black music. So why not be precise and to the point? Again, why not call a spade a spade? After all there ARE more recent acts in the wider blues field that would merit the R&B "style tag" so why make it unnecessarily blurred by making it "mean anything (black)"? Not a case of pigeonholing, just a case of being at least relatively precise in what you are talking about. Especially since the vocabulary to differentiate is there. Just my 2c

O.K., so for the most part this "R&B" term is to be understood the way it was used in U.S. charts through the decades to describe "popular Afro-American music", regardless of the actual style of music, i.e. simnply "SOUL" or even "Funk". A not so unimportant distinction to those who specifically go for "R&B" in the stricter sense sense of the word. Nice series, though, for collectors of this ty<pe of music.

Agreed about "Overboard". RIP Sugarboy. Not too long ago I pulled out his Chess/Checker and Imperial reissues again after they had long gathered dust on the record shelf. Music that really grows on you.

About where the dross is in music: I do think there is a point to downloading being pushed immensely by the desire of many music buyers to buy single tracks only and not entire albums. And although some may sneer at this "high brow" attitude again, I do think that jazz all in all is one of those styles of music where the majority of the listeners and buyers of the music treasure what they buy and whatever they buy is bought for keeps. Because they are not only "consumers" of the music but rather collectors and they do listen more intensely on a permanent basis. Now is this also the case with mainstrean/pop/chart etc. music churned out today? And has this been the case with mainstream/pop/chart music of past decades? Of course there were/are those who do treasure these popular styles of music and hang on for a long time, no matter what the current trends are. But are they the majority? Or is the majority of mainstream/pop/chart/music consumers made up of those who often go after todays' trends today and after tomorrow's trends tomorrow? With the result that what they download is of interest today but not in 1, 2 or 3 years from now and can and will be erased again. Expendable, consumed music. Though IMO the "fault" lies not with the music (because any style of music, no matter how mainstream-ish it was in its day, has its core of lovers and collectors so there is some intrinsic value in ANY style of music to those who love that music beyond its fad-ish or trendy short-term appeal) but rather lies with the buyers, i.e. the majority of the buyers, those who account for the BULK of the sales. And it is for them that formats that appeal are adopted and provided. Hence the download trend IMHO. And this is where jazz remains a special case (like other "special-interest" styles of music). Beause there the proportion of the long-term music lovers/collectors (who want to keep their music in a tangible form) vs short-term music consumers is totally different from most mainstream/pop/chart music. This doesn't prevent anybody from downloading even in jazz but this may be why downloads are not nearly as much appreciated and welcome - as shown in earlier posts.

Yes, French is not a black box, language-wise. There should be enough people here who can handle it. If Brownie in the end cannot follow through due to higher circumstances, feel free to send it to me. But for what you want to know now, try one of those online tools. The results will be some terrible gibberish but at least you should be able to grasp the bare essentials of what it is roughly about at all. Processing details are the same on all amazon sites, from what I can tell (apart from amazon.de, I've dealt with amazon.fr, amazon.co.uk and amazon.com). But watch out - maybe it is not worth the effort to go to any great lengths with these mails anyhow. Do they specifically mention the item you ordered in these mails? Because if they don't, then beware - amazon.fr are VERY strong on sending publicity mails, mentioning special offers, general discounts or invitiational mails to those who've not bought via them for some time (I've used amazon.fr only occasionally through the years) and at times my mailbox gets loaded with regular invitational mails for a return visit to amazon.fr, etc. I am not bothered enough with that to send them a mail asking them to cut out that nonsense but I don't pay much attention to it either.

Obscure albums I'd give my eye teeth (not quite but anyway ... ) to hear? INGO: "Jazz auf der Gitarre" (Amadeo AVRS 9017) rec. late 50s. Been aware of it (thanks to a 1960 jazz record catalog) since I started collecting in 1975 but never ever saw any copy anywhere, not even an unaffordable, over-the-top priced one, and to the best of my (admittedly scanty) knowledge of the Japanese market this seems to be scarce enough to even have eluded the Asian reissue freaks.

@Greg M: Are JOSEPH GIBERT and their CD section as well as Paris Jazz Corner and other stores like this still alive and kicking? Otherwise, FWIW I've noticed a rapidly dwindling selection of jazz or other non-mainstream/chart items in chain outlets that handle CDs for quite a few years now (including in France) so I am not all that surprised. But if the specialist stores/sections finally start disappearing ...

I wouldn't know about their modern jazz, really, but as for the reissue activites at large of this label, I am afraid you are being a bit rash in your judgment, King Ubu. Show me where an in-depth reissue of the R&B output of the MACY's label covering exactly the same ground has been done before (you can gather a lot of Macy's hillbilly items on other reissues but you'd have to plough through a LOT of individual platters) or of the MELODISC label or of drummer/bandleader Peppy Prince's output. As for them being "shabby", if blues writer Opal Louis Nations (known from numerous contributions in the "Blues & Rhythm" magazine) sees fit to contribute liner/booklet notes those Acrobats can't be all that shabby. As for jazz and all having been out on CD before, a very superficial check shows Acrobat claim this one hasn't ... http://www.acrobatmusic.net/?cid=5&AlbumId=777 ... and this one doesn't exactly look very rehashed, either: http://www.acrobatmusic.net/?cid=5&AlbumId=792 ;) BTW, lest somebody again complains that the above items cannot be linked to here, Acrobat stress the point of their reissues being the "first legit CD" ones over and again throughout their item descriptions. So .... would they do so if somebody could easily pin a lawsuit on them for clearly false claims?

He was on this 1955 10-incher that I picked up for the proverbial song (nobody had ever heard of the leader's name, it seems **) at a record fair a long time ago. Time to give it a spin again ... (** Neither had I, but you can't go wrong with 50s Eurojazz in my book ... )

Oh my ... and I had searched high and low for a sort of impressum with a straight CONTACT e-mail address on that Don Redman blog as well as on Armin Buettner's excellent Crownpropeller blog but to no avail ... Will do ...

Amazing ... Seeing how Steve Race sems to have made a point of relentlessly blasting ANYTHING that even remotely reeked of rock'n'roll, that youthful version of 50s pop that reared its head even in the UK in the mid-50s, in his journalistic activities (cf. what Pete Frame has to say about this in his excellent book "The Restless Generation") he sure must have undergone some changes himself.

Actually this is what I had thought about when I found out about that omission yesterday while working my way through those 100+ pages. Though I do not know if they had for some reason deliberately decided not to include ESTRAD (maybe feeling that in THEIR opinion it did not add to the facts about the Danish/Swedish part of the tour already covered by Orkester Journalen). This would surprise me, however (seeing that they did scan two only slightly different ads for the very same concert in Switzerland, etc. etc. - a collector's approach which I fully symapthize with, BTW ), particularly since ESTRAD had some good scribes and did show some nice pics. Such as those shown hereafter: The cover page ... A jam session with local Danish musicians in Copenhagen. BTW, the trumpeter to the right is the one who elsewhere on that blog is said to have been obliged to shave his beard because Norwegians mistook him for a German submarine officer. Go figure ... The crowd in excitement ... "This is how you look when the jazz devil grabs you", the caption says ... Certainly a bit more excitement there than what that "Billed-Bladet" picture feature says about the Danish jazz nobilitiy looking totally in awe yet being described in the caption as being "all in ecstasy".

King Ubu, I don't think this is any sign of nazism. These period documents need to be read and understood within the framework of their times. I'd say it's a mixture of extreme conservatism and cluelessness with regard to this "newfangled jazz". A dose of racism was in there too, yes, like it existed in many nations. Check internet sources/references to that BOOK published at about the time of this tour in SWEDEN, for example: "Jazzen anfaller". A very, very conservative "musicologist"'s stance on the evils of jazz and jazzmen. Referring to that blog - yes, the documentation of that tour is most fascinating as a document of the European jazz scene in these days. Strange, however, that so little was quoted from the Swedish publications (no full translations at all), though a number of Danish were involved in compiling that material (and they should have sufficient knowledge of the Swedish langugage). Surprising, BTW, that there is no trace of the coverage in ESTRAD (Don Redman rated a title page feature in the October, 1946 issue of ESTRAD) on that website either, though old ESTRAD copies are not totally impossible to come by. The coverage in Swedish jazz magazines was fairly thorough and insightful, though the "Don Redman en besvikelse" ("Don Redman a disappointment") concert coverage was surprisingly harsh indeed. In hindsight and to be quite honest, maybe the author did rate the Redman band correctly enough - a major event and a revelation to jazz-hungry post-war Europe but by the standards of the early post-war U.S jazz scene that band for the most part would have rated among the "also-rans" (including their musical level). Sorry to see that, for all the tidbits compiled on the Don Redman band's stay in several European countries, their presence and live appearances in Germany seem to have gone virtually undocumented, judging by the meager references to their stay there. Probably most if not all of their live appearances were in US officers' and NCO clubs that were off-limits to German citizens but still some more eye/earwitness accounts of their appearance there would have added immensely to the picture.

The kind of semi-derelict buildings that photographers immortalized some 80 years ago and that you now see on SHORPY to everybody's amazement. ... History does repeat itself (Not only in your neck of the woods ...).

Thanks for that feedback on DG, everyone. Which I can confirm. Received order AND shipping confirmation within less than 24 hours, and the item arrived safely after 10 days (normal ..). BTW, I don't know if any of you ordered Jazzhus items lately, but currently DG seem to include a freebie 12-track "Jazzhus sampler" (nice gesture) with every order from the Jazzhus catalog. That freebie features mostly UK and German artists - nothing wrong with that at all, though I for one would not have minded getting a listening sample of one or two of the Danish acts such as Bjarne Rostvold ...

Nat King Cole career revisited? (minus the make-up part, probably )

I take it, then, that you would consider Diana Krall a far better instrumentalist on her instrument than, for example, Candy Dulfer on hers (whom I've also seen posing in a "sort of" sexual/sensual attitude for P.R./marketing purposes)? (No, I am not asking this because I'd disagree - I am just wondering as I have not heard enough of both of them to really have a well-founded opinion, though what I have heard of Candy Dulfer's tootling has left me sort of cold ).

I hate to say it, but When? The Hit Parades of the Swing Era, the best-selling record lists of the 30s and 40s seem to argue otherwise (I've seen old Billboards and such). Who, outside of black communities, knew of Armstrong, Morton, Bessie Smith during the Jazz Age? Crow Jim? Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, the Dorseys, etc., were part of the jazz world too. And hit parades weren't the only criterion. Wasn't it so that public turnout to live appearances went a "bit" beyond that of a niche product too?

Again, IMO it all depends. I wouldn't claim it is the only route but I think it is one that does work. I remember the case of a fellow collector who had been (and still is) very much on 50s rockabilly plus black rock'n'roll, including early post-war R&B, and his interest in those R&B combos had led him to explore post-1945 bebop to some extent (Gene Ammons, for example, is one who'd easily straddle the fence). Though it's never become his favorite musical forte ever since those R&B combos were a sort of stepping stone towards bebop. Another friend who's pretty knowledgeable about swing as well as R&B and jump blues the other day asked me about recommendations for 40s bebop too because his curiosity had been aroused. And this one does a lot of DJing himself and has often confirmed that whenever he does a soul/black music (60s/early 70s) night, a certain dose of gutsy 60s Soul Jazz goes over with no problem at all even with those among the public/dancers who otherwise had not progressed far beyond Motown. So there ARE ways to get people interested .... May be harder with those listeners who are into totally different music but punk music lovers have been known to embrace the more punk-influences 90s Neo-swing bands, for example ... No guarantee they'd ever get straight into Ayler/Coltrane, etc., but who knows ... Of course others may advance in that direction from their rock preferences via jazz rock, etc. When exploring new musical styles (and this is particularly true for jazz) IMO it does help in most cases if you find something there that you immediately can relate to from your previous listening habits (instead of being dumped in totally unfamiliar territory).

Opinions and tastes do differ after all, so no problem. Maybe to clarify things, it would be wise to define which styles of jazz we are actually talking about throughout. I still feel there is enough jazz that is fairly simple to grasp (and NOT simple in the sense of the Brötzmann quote posted above!) and accessible to everyone and will immediately make you want to tap your feet to. As far as THESE styles of jazz are concerned, the effort required is not any bigger than the effort required with the varioous styles of rock and popular music where the casual listener who is not a fig fan of any particular style yet would have to make just as big an effort to tune in to, say, house or techno or rap if all he so far has actively enjoyed is "classic rock" or Brit pop or grunge or whatever (and vice versa). OTOH there ARE styles of jazz that can only sound weird and unhinged and dissonant and do not immediately make sense to the uninitiated. But why start with the most inaccessible areas of jazz if you want to want to get others started on jazz? Why not open up ways of easing them in in a gradual way into an EVOLUTION of jazz? Maybe because to a certain species of jazz fans those jazz styles that are far simpler and more immediately enjoyable in a "party" sense of experience are far too lowbrow (or should I say "lowly"?) to them as they are all cerebral in their jazz thinking? Just wondering .... That post sounds like it would have been interesting food for discussion, though.