Big Beat Steve

Seems like not everybody's definition of simplicity is the same, least of all in jazz.

Wrong on several accounts - sorry. What you say might be true (and probably is) for all those who are only prepared to consider it jazz if it was produced (stylistically speaking) post-Electric Miles or maybe post-Miles Davis Quintet or (at the very, very widest) post-Bird. SWING is quite accessible and a lot (waaaay past Glenn Miller) is comparatively "simple", danceable and just plain fun (or would you deny that Swing is jazz?). Not to mention "classic jazz" (popularly summarized as "Dixieland"). And Swing therefore can serve as an entrance door to subsequent styles of jazz as it allows people to find their way GRADUALLY in those areas of jazz as and when they are prepared to listen and explore that music by way of musical CONTINUTY (which does exist). I've witnessed several cases myself where this has worked. This still concerns only a minority but MANY more than the current audience of what many (self-proclaimed) "progressive" fans of jazz consider outright jazz. Apart from music of the swing era or current bands playing in that idiom ("recreations" or not), many of the less punk-ish "Neo-Swing" bands of the 90s onwards would have served that bill of being an introductory card to jazz very well and yet most "progressive" jazz fans saw fit to diss those bands as unfit for any consideration because in their exes they were not even remotely linked to jazz. Probably because to those "progressive" jazz fans anything from the swing era (stylistically speaking) is just old hat and not "jazz" enough. Your loss, this snobbish attitude ... So if attitudes like this mean that jazz (as understood by those who consider themselves "real" jazz fans) remains limited to far-out, weird, screwy "noise" (which is how many non-jazz listeners would perceive those styles of jazz at their first enounter) then you are slamming the door in the face of those who'd be willing to try and increase the jazz audience. Your loss again ...

So how do all of you tell the REALLY honest sections from the (personally imagined to be) honest (but in fact overly embellished/exaggeratged) sections that demand a grain of salt? Because if you are able to tell ALL of them apart then the book won't tell you anything new since you know all the historical background and detail by heart. Likely ... ?

Yes, some really intriguing reissues of Eurojazz rarities. I've googled a bit and found a couple of sites that carry some of these releases, e.g. here: http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/home/search/-/label/Jazzhus However, they don't list those I am most interested so I feel like pulling the trigger on one or two at Dusty Groove. Anybody have any experience on how fast/reliable DG is with processing European orders?

Yes - very interesting. Thank you!!

Agreed, though when I first saw that movie (in my early 20s) what struck me most about Chuck Berry's appearance was how this seemed to prove there wasn't such an unsurmountable gap between jazz and r'n'r at that time, seing how the audience just had a big time. OTOH I remember most period writeups of Bert Stern's film that I've since come across in old jazz mags made a point of disparaging Chuck Berry's appearance in that film, mentioning it as an all-time low in taste, etc. etc. Not to be taken seriously with the benefit of hindsight, and clearly the audience was ahead of the scribes, but signs of the times anyway.

Is this book from the "Studies In Jazz" series? They usually are just as expensive or even more so (but usually worth it).

Actually by sheer conicidence the other day I caught a radio feature (on a station I don't normally tune in to) on Anita O'day's career, and when Jazz On a Summer's Day came up the speaker mentioned how much Anita, dressed in her ultra-cool style (that we all are familiar with since watching that movie) stepped up for that afternoon show and soon had the relatively lazy and subdued public yelling and clapping for more ... And then her renditions of "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Tea for Two" from that concert were aired.

Not accessible to German users (copyright ...) but never mind ... I treasure my VHS copy.

@Mark Stryker: Have you found that Mingus letter re- Thad Jones or are you still on the lookout? Just recently I have been able to buy a collection of about 45 Metronome magazines (not cheap but cheaper than what they always seem to go for on eBay) covering the mid-1952 to mid-1960 period, including 10 of the 12 1954 issues. The mags arrived today so I checked. Unfortunately none of the readers letters in the 1954 issues I now have contain any letter by Charles Mingus, let along one praising Thad Jones. So if that letter actually was published in 1954 it must be in the November or December issue of 1954 (which I don't have). Sorry I have not been able to help. I will keep an eye out for anything like that when I start "devouring" the contents and will report here but as it now stands it was a close miss.

I was wondering about that too. According tot AMG he was indeed born in 1937 (= 75), but wikipedia says that the year was 1930 (= 82). 1930 would have made him uncommonly old for a newbie pop singer of the LATE 50s. Besides, a British rock'n'roll encyclopedia from the mid-70s that I have here gives his 1937 birthday date too (as does the obit linked above, incidentally). BTW, seeing the thread title (and being unaware of that other's death date)I was wondering about any confusion with Jimmy Jones the pianist too.

How can somebody born in 1937 be 82 now?

Hee hee, seems like Prestige at one point really tried their best to outcrown the Crown label! :crazy:

Bought the CD reissues (Blue Moon) of his "Basically Bagley" and "Jazz On The Rocks" LPs from the 50s some time ago and like them a lot. RIP.

I don't download, but I do want to hear samples (at least of really unfamiliar stuff), including samples of things not available other than on CD. So this is a bummer for me. Same here. I haven't checked out these sound samples very often but just recently it has saved me from an unwise purchase (no big deal, just something that while not bad was something I could and will do without). So I'd regret seeing those samples go (because some minor labels indeed don't do MP3 - and I would not expect them to).

Agreed with MG. Your perspective, TTK, is a very interesting one that really nails it. Bossa Nova as played by non-Brazilians in those 60s has become a genre all of its own that conveys mooods and images that are different from those conveyed by the true Brazilian (folk) artists. Folk purists may call them "watered down" but IMO they do manage to stand on their own. I wouldn't dare to compare or rate both of them but IMHO there is a place even for that "air of young jet-setting international decadence" (60s Latin lounge music, to put it more bluntly ).

I have this LP on a 60s U.K. vinyl pressing (reissue or maybe actually first UK issue?) on the EMI Stateside label (Stateside being one of EMI's (semi-)budget labels AFAIK). Sounds O.K. enough to my ears, quite clear and crisp and certainly not muffled. But of course I have nothing to compare it with. Now if others say the original Jubilee LP sounded crappy too (was it the fidelity of the session that was crappy or just the pressing quality of the Jubilee vinyl?) I wonder where this EMI Stateside pressing stands. Any impressions by any long-time (U.K.?) collectors?

+1 :tup

The label name is a nice'un, for sure!

I remember reading that "pulled from obscurity, dentures, trumpet, forgettable music" thing in more than one source too and not doubt this had been recopied somewhere, but isn't there another aspect to this, in particular? Isn't it so that the origins of the discussion of Bunk Johnson and his peers fell right into the post-WWII "Moldy Fig" feuds and isn't it true that there also were those in the "traditional" (including British Trad) camp who took to ANYTHING produced by those resuscitated old heros (initially Bunk Johnson, in particular) as if it were the cream of the crop in every respect and a role model and musical yardstick for anybody wanting to capture the spirit and essence of the true origins and originators of jazz? Thereby forgetting that they wre dealing with elderly persons physically past their prime and musically rusted up who did produce more than a bit of fluffs and by the late 40s were not necessarily playing the way they did in the early days anymore anyway? Isn't it "Bixing" too if you blissfully ignore all that? So maybe that statement quoted above was a sort of counterreaction to all that hullabaloo about the "oldtimers", acounterreaction that essentially served the purpose to alert the listeners to the "Emperors Clothes" aspect that no doubt was there too? And the truth indeed lies somewhere in between?

You might as well have included the caption/quote for the pool hall hustlers Pickett and Burke as well. ;) Provocative for sure, but a book where you can let your own imagination run loose, using the pictures and their captions just as starting points.

Top to bottom: Tina Turner Franke Avalon & Annette Funicello Dave Dudley Sam Cooke Hank Williams And the thing behind the Ray Charles picture probably was that by all accounts he never let his blindness stand in the way of certain activities ...

I can see the point of them "capturing the spirit of the earlier recordings" while the original items were OOP but I've listened to some of them (never bothered to buy and keep any of them) and while they were not bad per se they - correctly or incorrectly - for me always had the stigma of being rehashings of "the (50s) real thing". Why go for "imitations" instead of the real thing? Thankfully Jonas Bernholm's Route 66 label carrying all the "real stuff" came along before the 70s were over. Some of the modernized, almost "funked-up" arrangements just sounded out of place to me. Though I can understand the idea of giving the old masters some long-overdue new exposure that no doubt was behind this series.

Thanks for reminding me of that horrible book, which I've spent years trying to forget about... Why horrible? Sure the pictures are a bit cliché-laden but IMO they show the essence of many of the artists really quite well in a (single-picture) nutshell. And they do tell a story, particularly to those really in the know. And even as a beginner in rock music I found those illustrations quite fascinating when I got hold of that book in my very early music buying/collecting days at age 15. Of course many of the scenes shown are of artistically doubtful value as they in fact just boil down to retouchings of photos taken at other times in a totally different context (e.g. the diner scene on the cover). But who among casual browsers would know (or care)?

So what is a "great" jazz name (given that real names and nicknames are happily mixed here)? Maybe the below fictitious line-up that appeared in the Swedish jazz magazine ORKESTER JOURNALEN in 1957 in a columnist's somewhat sarcastic comment on those endlessly, often aimlessly rambling "blowing" sessions that abounded on LP at those times? Joe Atom Bomb Blowingboy (his brother) Moe Blowingboy Jackie Machine-Gun Cincinnati Chicken-Feather Donaldson Okmulgee Huckleford (b) Artie Messenger (dr)