Big Beat Steve

+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)

The kind of name where you wonder whether "great" (or should I say weird) names are just as well found in other areas. Or are Hutch Davie Tupper Saussy really jazz people? FWIW this thread and the names that are rattled off here has me wondering anyhow where the line would be between "great" jazz names (that somehow evoke the personality of the person) and just ODDBALL names.

True ... an inexcusable oversight. Do we therefore add Hot Lips Levine too? (Yes, he actually existed too) And while we're at facial details, how about: GATEMOUTH BROWN as well as his brother WIDEMOUTH BROWN Which of course leads to Gatemouth Moore ...

Royal Crown Revue, one of the major bands on the "Neo-Swing" musicians of the 90s (and beyond) includes one Mando Dorame, actually. Talking about great jazz names from that period, I've often wondered who inspired whom (if at all) or how some names came about. There was one Corky Cornelius and a wee bit later there was one Corky Corcoran Coincidence?

"a few" ---the master of understatement :tup In fact a local vinyl seller told me more than once that he had been "commissioned" by one or two of those business upstarts who had just finished furnishing their newly bought or built house "in style" to assemble them a selection of Blue Notes to go with the living room furnishings. And these upstasrts definitely were a bit older than 1/4 the age of the thread starter. OTOH I'd freely admit that some really cool covers can be a big incitement to try out this or that music in the first place (which is why many 70s reissues of cool 50s music with their outright garish 70s covers are a big nuisance) but you'd better progress beyond the covers fast. Not all hope is lost with the young'uns, though. While making the rounds at a clearout sale at about the only local vinyl shop left the other day, the buyers' crowd usually includes a huge share of youngish ones. In fact I noticed a girl (early 20s, I'd guess) who eagerly picked up vinyl by names such as Dorsey, Sinatra or Al Hibbler (!!), etc. (not exactly "cool" covers either but probably budget LPs at their time). You really have to be know your way around to go for names like this at that age! And she definitely did not look like she was into the "retro scene" either,.

So the "Svensk Jazzdiskografi" online discography (where these two concerts are listed as two separate entries with two separate and unrelated releases - 1960 on vinyl, 1959 on CD) was right after all! Had checked there yesterday but a conflicting entry in the Bruyninckx discography (which might have been interpreted as the 1960 date being erroneously listed as such for the LP release and then corrected as a 1959 date for the CD release) made me hesitate ....

But there is no need to perpetuate factual errors (to the point where these errors become "facts" just because they have been repeated ad nauseam often enough for them to appear to be "engraved in stone" forevermore). Has happened often enough and is totally senseless. Like Dan Gould suggested, would some discreet straightening out of those glaring errors (that, judging from what all of you say, seem to abound) by knowledgeable editors (without interfering with the narrative as such) really have lessened or "falsified" the impact of oral histories and personal reminiscences such as this and made them less "authentic"? I don't think so. So IMHO Larry has nailed it in every respect.

Sorry - I NEVER saw your posts of June 2011 as they arrived while I was on our annual holiday and of course I never got around to catching up on all posts that had been posted in all these forum sections in the meantime. Contact me by MAIL and we will see what can be done ...

Excellent find, Jeffcrom! :tup My recent finds: An office colleague of a friend of mine will shortly be moving so she decided to do a huge clearout (including of the records her late husband had accumulated). I was therfore able to pick up the below 10-inchers (all in pristine condition) FOR FREE: The downside, however, was that there were a lot more 12in LPs but unfortunately the sleeves of ALL OF THEM were MISSING! No idea why that gent had discarded them all but though I did take along quite a few LP just for the music it was a real pity as there were lots of collectible goodies in there, and all of them with almost NM vinyl throughout: Original/early late 50s/early 60s deep groove pressings of The Ray Charles Story Vol. 1 on Atlantic, various Everly/Buddy Holly/Fats Domino/Johnny Horton/Marty Robbins LPs, Meade Lux Lewis "Yancey's Last Ride" on Verve Down Home Series (AFAIK the original cover would have had DS Martin Artwork ... grrrrr), various 50s big bands (Ray Anthony et al.), etc. O.K., most of them not the really rare stuff but collectible enough (e.g. one original German pressing of a Johnny & The Hurricanes LP which was in the lot recently netted some 160 euros en eBay - with the cover of course, though ...). Galling, really galling ... Oh well ... After all they were free for the taking so who am I to complain after all. (It was just such a useless waste, though ...)

I can imagine their looks ... About a dozen years ago I've had the pleasure of moving my own collection (then approx. 3,500 LPs plus hundreds of 45s, 78s and CDs) just one flight up inside my house, and even that was a chore. No desire to repeat that either (my collection has increased considerably since), though a friend (a collector himself) has offered to assist: "One box goes upstairs, one goes outside into my car, one goes up, one goes outside ... etc."... Ha! What I would like to know too, though, is the idea or advantage behind the "spine-up" storage of the LPs in those boxes recommended above. I cannot see the point either and also have misgivings about inner sleeve damage.

BTW; no need to go oversas for you: There are more of the same: http://www.vinylsolutionrecords.com/ and there seems to have been another one in London at one time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_Solution

The Electric Fetus was born in 1968 so it's a name that is reflective of its time. I've been to 2 of their 3 locations and they are pretty cool stores. Speaking of signs of their times, I suppose it is not hard to see where the (stylistic) origins of the SICK WRECKORDS store in Frankfurt (Germany) lie either ...

No matter how (dis)tasteful these names are, they invariably do achieve one major goal of any self-respecting publicity action: They get TALKED ABOUT and stick in one's (customer's?) mind. Mission accomplished.

I can speak only for very few regions in France that I visit relatively regularly, but I was surprised to find special-interest books aimed at a collector audience not only in Strasbourg (outside FNAC, mind you) but even in bookshops in smaller Alsatian towns such as Haguenau. And judging by what you normally would expect from the "book" section in shopping centers such as Hyper U, the selection I recently came across in their outlet near Beziers in Southern France seems to indicate that there still are enough customers who buy not only the most trivial fiction, novels or pop musician bios but also much more specialized books in those outlets. Or else the books departments would not stock this kind of items. Overall things may be on the decline in France as well but somehow I feel they still are soldiering on better than elsewhere indeed. So the article linked initially does not come as a total surprise.

No. Discounting which you find mainly online is limited to 5%. Correct me if I am wrong, someone. You are not wrong, and things go even further. FNAC and other bookstores will often discount by 5% too so you won't even save anything buying online. It's just a matter of convenience for those not living near any decent bookshop. Many books do go into heavy discounting some time after their initial marketing period has elapsed, though (they do not necessarily have to have gone out of print for good yet, however), and even there major cities have a very decent and well-established network of bookshops that carry these reduced-price books and therefore attract business to their "main" line of books too (because nowhere near all books will end up on discounters' tables so no use waiting if you WANT that book).

On my travels through France (and always on the lookout for more stuff of interest to cram my bookshelves with, either new or secondhand), I have had similar experiences. What the author says needs to be qualified in one aspect, though: While large chain bookstores such as FNAC or Cultura are omnipresent in larger cities and no doubt do take up an immense share of the overall market (not least of all because they do carry a very in-depth range of books), smaller neighborhood or specialist brick-and-mortar bookstores do seem to hang on much more tenciously and manage to survive indeed. As far as I can see they are aided by one major aspect of the book market that I have often observed in my collecting/hobby areas: French publishers seem to be ENORMOUSLY more willing and able to take risks on real niche subjects, both in the way they publish books that CAN only appeal to a very select and discerning target audience and in the way they venture to have (mostly English) books catering to these niche markets TRANSLATED into the French language (for domestic marketing). Both aspects, for example, are in marked contrast to the German book market, and while it is true that all too many French are at odds with any foreign language skills, mastery of English cannot (and is not) that more common in Germany to the extent that translations would not be worth the effort, particularly since many potential buyers are not even aware of the existence of the books in question. I would not count the number of cases where during my visits to French bookstores I have come across French versions of highly interesting special-interest books that I had no idea they even existed in their original language! In the same way, the range of special-interest niche books they publish on their own really is amazing, and I feel this also helps real-life bookstores to hang on as it allows them to carry a range of books off the trodden paths of the typical mass-consumption articles.

The way I see it, there are some who insist on political correctness, particularly with the benefit of hindsight, and frown upon the use of the term "hillbilly music" thoughout ANY discussion of this music today. While it is true that at some point in the early post-war years the term "hillbilly" had acquired negative connotations (particularly since many facets of country music - such as Western Swing - were far more urban than the term "hillbilly" would imply and many did not want to be associated with the "hicks in the sticks" image whereas on the other hand the "good old homely healthy small-town" image - vs that of the "city slickers" or "dude cowboys" - was exploited to the full for obvious marketing purposes of the music), I am far less sure that this would fit the bill or advance the debate when discussing this music today. Many diehard fans and collectors of the music (i.e. true insiders of the music of those times) TODAY do not see "hillbilly" as anything negative but rather as the "real thing" (correctly or incorrectly but certainly overly romanticised ) and this term is intended to set "grassroots" country/hillbilly music apart from mainstreamed/watered-down "Nashville country" music as it came along later in the 50s. It's all a matter of perspective. In short, "hillbilly" or "country", basically it's the same thing, and "Honky Tonk", "Western Swing" (our Country Jazz, Country Swing ,Hillbilly Swing, whatever ...), "Hillbilly Bop" all were variations of the same (Country) tune. As for Black musicians' awareness, the term itself probably mattered little to them in the early post-war years. Cross-fertilization worked in many ways between blues and country (to use the broadest possible denominators) musicians, sometimes to the point of making the results almost undistinguishable (e.g. Harmonica Frank Floyd who was long thought to be black).

Well, in the case of Earl Hooker one single but obvious example would be that it takes at least SOME awareness of country music if you went and recorded a smoking straight-ahead version of Leon McAuliffe's Western Swing classic "Steel Guitar Rag" (under the name "Guitar Rag") in 1953. (Yes I know this doesn't say anyting yet about lasting influences on one's playing, and the origins of "Steel Guitar Rag" go back beyond Leon McAuliffe's composition, and yet it is obvious where Earl Hooker got his inspiration from, right down to the way he transfers steel guitar licks to his guitar ... )