Big Beat Steve

Thanks Marcel! They do talk of a CD there but the way they refer to it its sound seems to be so-so and it probably is OOP anyway.

Yes, they are kind of late to the game. This subject has been coverd in virtually every detail imaginable, even in English (Thanks, Harlequin Records and others ... )

Like a girl from Liverpool I once knew (fleetingly) to whom ugly things always were "ooglee". Though I doubt other regions in Britain are any better once local colors set in. The way the Londoners (or others from Southern England - not normally an area associated with exceedingly outlandish dialects, right? mess the vowels around (like making an "o" that supposedly in "standard" English is to be pronounced like some shading of "a" all of a sudden sound like "oo" or "ew", with "London" becoming "Lewndewn", etc. etc.) can really drive you nuts. I guess I'll pull out my 1958 45 platter of "Hoots Mon" by Lord Rockinghams XI for some fun listening now: "Hoots mon - There is a moose loose aboot this hoose!" (and no, we are not talking about elks! )

Better still: It is even WRITTEN "fort" (and is proncounced "for"). As long as you are referring to a MALE person, of course. "forte" as a word all by itself in French only exists in the sense of a MUSICAL "forte" (i.e. loudness too) As for your pronunciation, never mind if it is "for-tay" or "for-tee", but if somebody would like to point out, for example, that "spelling is not my strong point", do you actually expect him to state something that sounds like "spelling is not my fortified 19th century Far West soldier outpost"? C'mon ... No, seriously, except in certain female variants of the word that means "strong" in all shadings (including a strong = loud voice) the French language has no such "forte" as you imply.

A question that may have been asked elsewhere before but anyway ... Is there an easily accessible reissue of her 1959 Warwick LP out? Being unable to find that one, out of despair a couple of years ago I bought her later "Now and Then" LP on the Stash label (which includes about half of that Warwick LP) but still ...

I agree with you and have regretted this on a number of occasions too but please remember that discographical information beyond the release year and original label and release number (which usually ARE given) is much less important to the typical collector in the R&B, rock'n'roll (r'n'r in the TRUE 50s sense, not in the diluted US sense of the term ) and country (honky tonk/hillbilly boogie) field than it is to the jazz collector. The way I've observed it, collectors in those fields usually want to know when the record was released and which label it originally was on (to check against the originals they may have or are looking for, possibly) but as for the names of all the session musicians, that's not one of their priorities.

Yes I guess there is. Record stores like this - including listening booths - just weren't around anymore (least of all over here) by the time most of us "young(ish) uns" got into jazz. Great. Steve, where did you find that photo? That's his old store on Michigan Street. I can almost smell the cigarettes. Actually that photo is on page 2 of that 74-page 1952 catalog of which the front page is also included. I won that catalog on eBay about 10 years ago at a pretty good price (for my wallet). And the lists and prices inside (and of course that shop photo) make you wish for a time machine ...

O.K., then, if you want it that way ... Grab these if you want some meaty and varied 50s R&B (warblers & thrushes, honkers, vocal groups, instrumentals, you name it - fine music throughout but ABOVE ALL an offering that is not likely to shove too many overlaps with what you already have down your ears ): http://www.acerecords.co.uk/content.php?page_id=60&artist=7605 Haven't bought Vol. 5 ("Further...") yet but if the other four from that "Mellow Cats" series are anything to go by then the entire series is to be recommended unreservedly.

I know you didn't, but others - reading your question - might have got started thinking in the wrong direction.

You'd just discovered the incredibly wide range of substyles in jazz. Reminds me of how I initially felt when I was first confronted with the MJQ when I had been used to all-out swing (both big band and small groups) as my favorite dish as well as some initial taste of Dizzy, Bird and other early bebop heroes.

O.K. that clarifies it. Thanks! I took mid-50s to really mean 1955 (very very early 1956 at the latest) and therefore was puzzled.

Speaking of Percy Mayfield, I am assuming you are referring to SPECIALTY. Ace has been doing Specialty reissues ever since there have been CDs and even before. The entire Little Richard and Larry Williams as well as Guitar Slim catalogs on Specialty (and probably more which I cannot recall offhand) had been on Ace for a long time in the vinyl era. The way Ace has been operating ever since they've ben inexistence rules out ANY misgivings about these reissues being "shady". They are the real deal and have always been. So never mind how they got it. There must have been SOME deal about the Specialty catalog, seeing how long Ace has been covering that label. Honestly - being a collector I don't tend to think about labels like Specialty in terms of "Fantasy" or the like. Fantasy is the colored early Brubeck vinyls, Cal Tjader (and their ilk) and that's that. As for the rest, the world being the way it is today, tie-ups tend to change so fast these days that what's current today is likely to be passé tomorrow. So what then? Besides, if you step back a bit further you will find more seemingly similar reissues done more or less in parallel. Back in the vinyl days a lot of Ace reissues were limited to Europe (non-U.S. anyway) distribution because Rhino had sewn up the U.S. territory. (Occasionally you tended to find both in secondhand bins over here anyway) But if you looked closer and compared you'd find that where Ace tried to cover the whole field in depth, Rhino reissues were notoriously incomplete, omitted tracks, had more scanty playing time, etc. etc. Thankfully those days are over.

Uh oh ... You started something there ... Would it be OK to post all the covers of the RUTLES' LPs? Only the tip of the iceberg ...

Just for curiosity's sake and without wanting to sidetrack this topic unduly: What ROCK (i.e. NOT pre-rock pop ballad crooners and chirps) could there have been in Britain in sizable portions that you already would have tired of in the MID-fifties (like you wrote)? Did the UK really catch on to U.S. Rock(n'roll) to THAT extent that early? Pete Frame's book "The Restless Generation" (great read for those interested in popular music of that era and the culture that goes with it, BTW) doesn't quite sound like it. Just wondering ...

Saw him twice live on stage here in Germany in the late 90s and it was a GAS! Pleased to see that he is still kicking it up (small surprise, as his name appears on European concert/festival flyers every now and then. Unfortunately making it to that 2012 Rockin Race festival where the above clip came from was ut of the question for me). Actually, while it isn't bad I'd call it one of his more "run of the mill" stuff. By the time these tracks were recorded he had settled into a formula - sort of. I find his early 50s recordings (as reissued on Jonas Bernholm's labels such as Saxophonograph etc.) have quite a bit more punch and condensed immediacy.

Now THAT's a really wide field. How about checking out their online catalog and seeing what strikes your fancy? http://www.acerecords.co.uk/content.php?page_id=61&label=144 http://www.acerecords.co.uk/content.php?page_id=50 Their reissues all in all really are carefully produced and thoughtfully compiled. (And expertly annotated, that goes without saying) So it all depends on what kind of music you REALLY are into above anything else.

Yes I guess there is. Record stores like this - including listening booths - just weren't around anymore (least of all over here) by the time most of us "young(ish) uns" got into jazz.

Same here. Exactly the same. I checked it out countless times through the years at the local library and marveled at those period photographs for hours. Of course it was a revelation to me as there simply was nothing to compare to it for visual impact (never mind the historical flaws that became apparent later) and browsing through those pages did lead me to take the plunge on quite a few artists whom I had not heard before anywhere (and I was very rarely disappointed). As for those poorly reproduced photographs, actually my initiation rites went through two different issues of that book. The first one I checked out several times at the library was an early 60s edition "printed in Czechoslovakia" which did apear visually OK to me by the standards of the time. But when I went back (after a spell of absence) to check it out again it was gone and an earlier (first?) edition (which ended with the "Artistry in Rhythm" chapter instead of the later "Now's The Time" chapter) had replaced it (a really old book which could only have been brought in secondhand by the time it appeared on the shelves there - late 70s/early 80s - for whatever reason). The small print said "printed in Yugoslavia" and the photograph reproduction in that edition really did appear poorer to me too (blacked out, blotchier etc.). And yet its impact on me remained intact at that time when that book really was without par over here.

While for the life of it I cannot recall which was my very FIRST jazz record ever bought, among those that I bought very, very early on (after having listened to a good deal of jazz radio shows - featuring mostly late 20s classic jazz and 30s swing) when I started buying records at 14 1/2 in early 1975 there were these: - ODJB (RCA 2-fer) - Fats Waller piano rolls (early to mid-20s), - Muggsy Spanier's Ragtime Band, - Count Basie 1937-38 (live at the Meadowbrook, Cedar Grove N.J.) - Artie Shaw RCA 2-fer with his classic big band sessions As I did quite a bit of reading on jazz at the same time (including Berendt's Jazz Book as well as Keepnews/Grauer's Pictorial History of Jazz) I became aware of more jazz names pretty fast and within less than a year I cautiously approached modern jazz, starting with the Diz/Bird twofer on Prestige featuring the 1945-50 Guild/Manor recordings. Yes, I really worked myself into jazz chronologically too ... Strangely, this had exactly the opposite effect on me at the time. My mother - though only a very casual jazz listener - had had that very EP (plus other MJQ records such as Fontessa) since the 50s. To me, however, these recordings initially sounded thin, lifeless and rather unswinging. Of course, compared to 40s Diz, Bird and other bebop heroes (I remember Dexter Gordon's Storyville LP with his Dial sessions was another of my early bebop purchases) they invariably appeared thin. It took me quite a while before I could see what the MJQ was all about.

Yes, very nice comp. Though those who've been around the block in early R&B for a while and still treasure their vinyl will find that there are quite a few duplications from CD1 with the Maxwell Davis LP on Official 6064 (which reissues his Aladdin output) and with the "Father of West Coast R&B" LP on Ace CHAD 239 (which has a cross-section of his Modern/RPM stuff). But there are some newly reissued tracks on CD1 anyhow to make it worthwhile (so I'd guess) to all-out collectors. As for the contents of CDs 2 & 3, that depends on what you already have in your collection (am pretty sure I'll take the pluge before long, despite the duplicates ).

Which is great indeed, and the styles (different at first glance) do go together quite well.

The Robert Capa of his time, it seems.

Would vinyl be a way out for that Brew Moore release? I might bump into one significantly cheaper than that.

While we are at it, may I throw in a word for THIS ... http://www.frogrecords.co.uk/ ... in the same vein? The FROG Blues & Jazz Annual (Vols. 1 and 2 are out) also comes with a CD so it not only makes for nice listeinng for those who go for early blues and jazz but also for hours and hours of very interesting reading. Recommended!

Yes, excellent! Thanks for that link!