Big Beat Steve

Looks like this is a representative cross-section of his recordings, but I suppose you do realize that rattling off brief titles of reissues where it is far from clear which is which and what exactly is on these releases (no labels, no numbers, let alone title listings) is not exactly helpful to guide you on if you are in a completist mood? Remember that many releases were reissued under a lot of different titles through the times and some may be preferable to others though both largely duplicate each other but one may fill gaps that the other one doesn't, but nobody can know them all by heart. Only the "Memorials" are universally obvious as this title has been used over and over again.

O.K., if this is what you were getting at, then yes - I think there were indeed a few parallel developments at work. But again - most of those "blues" artists who later turned out soul (or more or less soul-influenced) recordings leaned very heavily towards R&B in the 50s (as far as I can see it). Which - again - does not have to be a contradiction as I still feel that there was no insurmountable or clear-cut stylistic boundary between 50s blues and 50s R&B. After all, isn't R&B just ONE (major) genre within the OVERALL field of "da blooz"?

@GA Russell: I am not so sure about that "Rhythm" tag being applied to categorize "popular non-blues black music". Haven't read that Wexler book but this is the first time I've ever heard of anything like this (and I've read up on a lot about that period). What would that be, then, this "popular non-blues black music"? Gospel? The Ink Spots? The way I remember reading about this "rhythm" tag (even when referring to pre-war recordings) is that "rhythm" tunes in the repertoire of any artist just referred to uptempo, danceable tunes, that's all. Which did not make them any less "blues" as long as they were "blues" in form. After all, does "blues" have to be slow, low, world-weary? Isn't it rather so that all this "Rhythm" business came to the fore because after 1945 the instrumentation of many recordings by black artists was augmented, more horns were added and blues turned more openly, more often and more noticeably into "blues with a beat"? You stated it quite well in your above post when you said (my words) that blues and rhythm & blues are not mutually exclusive (but in fact - my interpretation again - two versions of the same basic musical style). I am not sure if we are thinking the same way here. The question of whether rock (or other post-blues influences) did make itself felt in blues/R&B is an interesting one and merits to be discussed. But "these influences" weren't "already present in blues" in the 40s/50s. They cannot have been because there was no "rock" yet, see? The way I understand it, part of what is commonly considered "blues" evolved into R&B after 1945 (WITHIN the blues idiom). When rock had established itself as a lasting popular music idiom of its own by the early 60s and when 50s R&B had evolved into soul by the 60s it might indeed be interesting to see to what extent these genres helped to influence and modify blues AGAIN. Sort of crossover ... But is this aspect really on a line with what happened in the "pre-rock" days (disregarding any question of which pre-rock recordings by black artists might make a valid claim to actually being all-out rock'n'roll songs/tunes that just weren't labeled that way yet because that term had not yet been coined )?

MG, you are largely limiting yourself to just one segment of what was commonly filed under R&B, i.e. Jump Blues. Jump Blues is fine (great, in fact), but it is not nearly all of R&B. There were MANY more subgenres of R&B, including vocal groups, vocalists-guitarists, after-hours piano combos, shouters, honkers, etc. etc. Saunders King, for example, was one of the jazziest blues/R&B guitarists around, and your pigeonholing/category distinction between Memphis Slim on the one hand and Jimmy Witherspoon on the other or Roosevelt Sykes on the one hand and Piano Red on the other (or between Archibald and Professor Longhair) really do appear extremely arbitrary to me. Unless you want to reduce it to a case of "as soon as he plays this chord or uses that inflection in his voice he is no longer blues but R&B" (or vice versa). Given your awareness of the history of Black music, I most certainly assume you are NOT falling into the trap of equalling "blues" with "true artistry" and "rhythm & blues" with "commericalism" either? AFAICS it all boils down to a case of R&B being the popular blues of the Black communities in the 1945-60 period and every artist trying to make a living in that field trying to grab a piece of the pie, and thankfully there was enough leeway under the R&B tag to accommodate many variants (stylisticall speaking), and many artists happily moved effortlessly between tunes that a diehard "authentic blues" purist would have approved of and jumping rhythm numbers that satisfied the dancing crowd and turned on the heat in the clubs. Maybe the post-1960 "folk blues revival" has clouded this fact? See the Brownie McGhee example above, and after all even Big Bill Broonzy's pre-folk blues revival recordings were FAR more citified and urban-oriented than what the college audience would have liked to believe. Agree to disagree, it remains ... @Dan Gould: Thanks for your very much to the point example.

Exactly. To rattle off just a few of those I am fairly well familiar with in your list, MG, I'd file both guitarists like Gatemouth Brown and Pee Wee Crayton on the one hand and vocalists like Big Mama Thornton, combos like the Griffin Brothers (great classic jump blues dancefloor fillers among their repertoire!) and vocal trios such as the Big Three or vocalists such as Willie Mabon MOST DEFINITELY under R&B. And Brownie McGhee's early output (long before his association with Sonny Terry) has always and by all accounts been classified as very much in the "Urban blues"/City Blues (and therefore R&B, sort of ...) vein (which is why many blues scribes have often wondered how much of a "down home" act the Terry/McGhee due REALLY was at heart (beyond of what the white college audiences clamored for). And the examples could go on ... Like I said, the stylistic boundaries were very blurred in the 1945-60 era IMO. Which is not the worst thing because there really is no need to try and pigeonhole everything, particularly if this would otherwise mean that one reverts back to the archaic thinking of those who initiated the "folk blues" revival. So, really, MG, your list does not leave very much for all those many facets of R&B. So what is it that you would classify as 50s R&B? BLACK rock'nroll only? That would miss the point IMO and is not borne out by contemporary sources either. In short, really sorry to disagree ...

Unless you instinctively keep thinking of "R&B" as another term for SOUL (as it may have been the case from a certain point in the 60s onwards), I'd guess that the boundaries between "Blues" and "Rhythm & Blues" in the 50s were relatively blurred both stylistically and under marketing aspects (at least in the years before the revival of the "real" blues - i.e. "down-home" blues - happened in the very late 50s/esarly 60s) and likely did not matter THAT much to the black community.

I think you have already named most of the main exponents of 60s/early 70s bluesmen who picked up on then-current soul-R&B/rock music that would supersede straight blues/R&B as the black pop music of its time. I am not that familiar with many of those later recordings as I normally cringe at "funked-up/souled-up" (read: contrivedly modernized/updated) R&B/blues and really prefer 50s R&B/blues (though I can understand the artists' desire to show they still were "with it"). One that comes to mind (as I have both earlier and later recordings by him), apart from Slim Harpo and Jonny Guitar Watson, are Earl Hooker's LPs from the later 60s where his guitar work really shows the signs of the times (more rock than soul IMO, though). I wonder, OTOH, how to rate Hound Dog Taylor there. He did go beyond the black audience "electric blues" (to my ears, anyway) but how to categorize him? Electric blues-cum-garage rock? Great to my ears but really rather unclassificable.

Indeed. Good finds. Picked up a few 10in originals (with decent vinyl but dog-eared covers) myself during our recent holidays in Southern France. As was to be expected, nothing but SIDNEY BECHET (on the Vogue and CfD labels). But dirt cheap so worth shelling out anyway just for casual listening.

Am just listening to it right now (via a CD-R - as it is relatively hard to find indeed - so I cannot give you a pointer as to an accessible CD source ). I consider myself a fan (sort of ...) of those white 1st generation bop pianists (Wallington, Marmarosa, Haig etc) and while I have almost all 40s/50s Wallington recordings I find this fairly non-essential. It is a nice record to study for those who are very much into pianistics and you cannot say it's saccharine but yet it appears fairly subdued to me ... about 9 or 10 of the 12 tracks (all featuring strings) are rather balladesque. OTOH I've never been a huge fan of string backgrunds in bop. In short, it all depends on whether you value piano chops above all and on the degree to which you are willing to listen to not very jazzy string backgrounds.

@Larry Kart + Dan Gould: Of course I was exaggerating deliberately in my above post (in view of the seemingly endless number of name musicians rattled off while only touching the tip of the iceberg ... or so these posts read ...)

Not wanting to spoil your fun at all, but following this thread and the increasing number of names mentioned here, somehow it is beginning to seem as if EVERY jazz musician of note got better with age unless he a) "died before he got old", b) limited himself to commercial work and remained happy with that, c) swallowed drugs to an extent where the physical limits of what any human organism can stand really had been transgressed for good, d) lived to an old age where for inevitable physical reasons the chops just COULD not be there any more. Sort of predictable, isn't it?

:tup

Had no idea she was still around but this is sad at any rate ... RIP. She participated in many intersting and intriguing 40s small-group jazz recordings that were gems and pointed in new directions. Too bad jazz had not really been ripe yet for INSTRUMENTALIST women (other than pianists) at that time.

Ranting about the outward and superficial meaning of "cool" as a sign of approval IMO misses the point. I think this way of using "cool" is just a fad, just like in the US everything that got the nod of approval way back in the 30s was "swell" (AFAIK). Being, feeling and acting "cool" in the sense of being aloof, detached, independent, untouched by and not realy caring about what others think (and therefore being untouched by passing fads), in short, doing one's own thing and being one's own man, is quite something else. And much more difficult to achieve and to live. Because with many exponents of this latter sense of the word "cool" the way they act makes it clear it is just a superficial masquerade but not something deeply engrained and felt inside. Hard to put it any other way in brief, but in fact I have come to wonder about this myself. Being the father of a 12-year old son (who's now at the age where everything and everyone that gets the nod of approval needs to be "cool" , I am getting ready for the right moment when to get him to reflect on what he thinks "cool" REALLY is (or whether he knows what it in essence really is). Might turn out interesting ... But short of that - never mind, it's just a fad word IMO.

Any opinions on PW's "Birds OF A Feather" (Antilles ANN 1006) rec. in 1981/82? Bought this very cheaply just for curiosity's sake at a record shop clearout sale a while ago. I own his 50s "Early Quintets" and "Four Altos" LPs as well as his pairings with Quill on Prestige, Epic and RCA but am otherwise largely unfamiliar with his work form later decades.

Like this?

Received my copy of this 3-CD set (from a very affordable Amazon Seller source) today and am very pleased. CD 1 with releases originally issued under Maxwell Davis' name only has SOME overlap with the earlier Aladdin/Official and Ace reissues (so quite a few tracks remain for discovery) and CDs 2 and 3 avoid many of the more obvious hits that Maxwell Davis appeared on and manages to fill quite a few reissue gaps by including lesser-known and previously (to my knowledge) unreissued recordings, ranging from straightforward R&B to boogie woogie combos and very boppish "crossover" tunes that reach right into the all-out jazz field of the 40s. The sound is quite OK to me, considering almost all of the tracks come from 78 rpm sources, the packaging and booklet are very nicely done, including details on original releases, lots of label reproductions and very much to the point liner notes by expert Dave Penny. And all this at an affordable price. I don't know who or what exactly is behind this "Fantastic Voyage" label (of which I have an also well-done Ina Ray Hutton 3-CD set) or its "Future Music" parent but at any rate as far as track compilation and overall presentation go, IMO this is a well-done release that avoids duplicating too much of the obvious.

A question to those (i.e. you ) in the know: Referring to this Sept. 9, 1952 live recording from the Haig: Xanadu 146 has 7 tracks: The Squirrel/Taking A Chance On Love/Jackie/Donna Lee/Pennies From Heaven/Get Happy/Bernie's Tune. Donna Lee also is on Jam Session JS 101 which has three more tracks: Lady Bird/Out of Nowhere/Keen and Peachy (aka Fine and Dandy). These 4 tracks (according to the Bruyningckx discography) also were on a Straight Ahead Jazz (SAJ) LP. Now if Xanadu bought the tapes directly from Bob Andrews, how come they did not release all of it (but let it be released one way or another on JS and SAJ - which I presume were sort of "grey" labels). Did they actually release only part of the recordings themselves or was there another Xanadu LP somewhere that even Bruyninckx fails to mention? Any ideas/background info? Thanks!

In this particular area MAYBE. Otherwise definitely not.

No thanks, no point having that material in triplicate!

Most of that was on the Xanadu LP 146 "Live In Hollywood" (and the rest - on vinyl too - was on Jam Session Records JS-101 as well as on the "West Coast Jam Sessions" Scarecrow SC-801/2/3 box set ). And no doubt these are nowehere near all of the reissues of this material. 94 bucks for that older Fresh Sound CD of course is plain silly (to put it mildly).

Seconded. That Bopland CD box is recommended indeed (incidentally it's one my few Wardell CD releases that I mentioned above (though I am still hanging on to my "The Hunt" Savoy vinyl twofer as well;)).

You may be right but the problem with recommendations in threads like the current one is that most of Wardell's recordings have (thankfully) been around in so many packagings and guises and formats and a zillion different combinations that it is really difficult to spell out concrete recommendations that would lead the newbie to the ACTUAL release still in print at this VERY moment. I, for example, have virtually all of Wardell's recordings (and treasure them and would wholeheartedly recommend any of them) but except for a few Basie and Gene Norman concerts they all are on VINYL in various packagings (pressings ranging from the late 60s to the late 80s and 90s) and what good would it do to recommend any of these to anybody starting from scratch NOW, seeing that even if the records were still around (quite a few are accessible in secondhand form) all too many would only go down the CD route nowadays. And sorting out which equals which TODAY in the most sensible packaging really would be a cumbersome chore. This obviously limits concrete discussion of specific releases to those who have bought their recordings in recent times. Or just play it safe initially and go the route of the budget boxes available these days (there is one on Proprer too, I think).

Did anybody ever notice what sounds like a major blooper in Joe Williams' recording of "ALright, OK, you Win" with the Basie band waxed for Clef on May 17, 1955? First he sings the line "I'll do anything you say - It's just got to be that way" and in the next stanza "Anything you say I'll do - Long as its's me and you" But then, when that line comes up again the next time he goes "Anything you'll do I'll say ... (which does not really make sense ) and there seems to be a split second of some snickering audible in his voice but then he catches up fast enough without losing his meter and finishes the line with "Just got to be that way" Intentional? If so, a strange kind of put-on IMO. I dunno ... I have this version on a 70s U.K. Verve LP ("Swiingin' With THe count" - Verve Select 231711) but according to the Bruyninckx discography this is the master take. Bizarre ...

Yes, that is REALLY far out!