Big Beat Steve

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!

Same here. Except that I cannot yet bring myself to "cleaning out" among my own stuff (apart from a scant few items which won't amount to much). But my latest vinyl and CD purchases made me realize the ceiling has definitely been reached now. What is more, I am still far from finished with dealing with the "leftovers" of my parents and grandparents. One's junk is another one's treasure indeed, which is why I hate throwing out too much unseen/unchecked, but disposal/sale progress is slow. BTW, the hoarder phenomenon is given coverage in a TV series here too, including the inevitable "reality TV" interludes of how an antique dealer comes to the recue of the hoarders (who finally want to get rid of their accumulated odds'n'sods) and shows them how to sell, set up stalls at fleamarkets, etc). Though (thank goodness) I am a million miles away from the "hoarders" (in THAt sense of the term) all too much of it sounds strangely familiar. The affinity is inevitable ...

I have far from all the CDs from that series (I have mainly concentrated on purchasing those by FRENCH artists) but I remember purchasing one other (with a street scene with a 30s-50s Paris bus on the cover IIRC) that featured accordion music that I found I could do quite well without (though I really like Gus Viseur etc.) so I gave it to a friend who had taken up accordion lessons.

Oh yeah ... Having liked some of the other Crollas from that series of course I picked up that one too and was BITTERLY disappointed. And still am.

I have the "Piano à la Mood" (the one with the poodle jumping the fence on the cover) LP. It is nice but rather ... well ... mood-ish tinkling indeed. Not the most out-and-out hardcore jazz LP ever. Not sure if it is that essential on the reissue market.

Yes they did here and there - towards the end of the 78 rpm era when vinyl had already been going strong for a couple of years. This 78rpm marketing gimmick was revived elsewhere too. I remember one particular release by a Dutch rockabilly group named The Chevy Cats. They released one of their 45s concurrently in 78rpm format at the end of the 80s. As far as I recall it sold out pretty quickly (collectors are easy to assess after all ... ).

Considering the really out-of-this-world reputation that JRT Davies enjoys (rightly so IMO), what would be the (technically valid and justified) point in applying additional noise reduction? No doubt JRT Davies in his mastering did go as far as he could in restoring fidelity and reducing noise without sacrificing range. Maybe those more familiar with the finer (technical) points of how to ideally remaster recordings from the 20s could set me wise?

So if he scores a sizable hit in one of the current musical styles, do you think he will rename himself DON IS? (Yeah, I know, this one was (is? ) a predictable one. )

At any rate now Dick Clark can meet up with Alan Freed again up there at that DJ's Turntable in The Sky and they can both discuss it out as to who was shrewd enough to make token admittances and therefore back out of tha Payola business in time and save his butt before everybody started to dig deep enough to hit pay... no, not dirt but ...smut.

@Clunky: Any vinyl-only releasse/reissue of interesting collectible music deserves to be supported, but would you happen to know which would be the best buying source for this? I've seen it on Amazon UK at 27.99 GBP which is a bit ... er ... steep (but admittedly not totally unlikely for such a collectors' release).

Ouch ... duplication time again - I already have the original Heliodor LP with tracks 1 to 6 of CD2. But as the price seems to be right CD1 should be reason enough ... Thanks for the info!

Bought a lot of these back in the day (introduced me to Eddie Laguna's label, Jay McShann as well as affordable (!) reissues of the 50s modern jazz recordings on Storyville, among others). And the German pressings I came across (both those by Intercord in the 70s and those by Deutsche Austrophon in the 80s) always sounded quite decent to me (and still do). So no need to shell out like that. BTW, what' that strange format of combining 33 and 45 rpm records in one pack? Who needs that kind of duplicate packagings - just a gimmick, or did I miss a point there?

I'd think so too. Jepsen lists only two tracks under this number (the sole entry as a Chocolate Wiliams leader date). One of the two tracks (Lady Gingersnap) is on the Savoy twofer "The Modern Jazz Piano Album" (SJL 2247), whic AFAIK is not a particularly rare album. Two more tracks from that date (on Hi-Lo 1403) which are also on that Savoy twofer start the Herbie Nichols leader entries in Jepsen's discography.

A lot of what was released on Bertelsmann (e.g. Johannes Rediske, Oscar Pettiford) seems to have had its (more or less simultaneous) "non-record club" release on Manhattan (which was a subsidiary of Ariola). I myself have - Sadi's Vibes (Fats Sadi, of course, feast. Jimmy Deuchar) (66133 C) - Jazzing In Stuttgart (Horst Jankowski Trio) (66026 C)

True for 100% of all reissued music but just look at what loads of BN fetishists drool about, just because the very item they have got hold of now sometime back in the 50s had already been in the grimy hands of the then owners. Surreal, irrealistic and unreasonable but that's just what the core of any "original item/issue/printing" collectionism is all about so it's just part of the game for those willing to play it ...

Is that record really THAT rare and is this a common price? Of course we know prices started skyrocketing ever since the Asians all went haywire about anything reeking of "Eurojazz". But this is a bit hefty anyway. I bought my copy several years ago (through eBay too, IIRC) but at a fraction of that price and that already struck me as a "collectible" price. Strange seller indeed, BTW. Those other comments sound alarming indeed ... BTW, checking out his other current listings, this Lucky Thompson single actually isn't THAT overpriced, really. Asking 29.99 or 39.99 for German pop records from the 60s that should not go for much more than, say, 5,00 or maybe 10,00 if they come with their picture sleeve is certainly over the top ...

Yeah, I think that's happened to a lot of us. Bought some of those Everests (with Period stuff, incidentally, that seemed to be fill gaps on the reissue market at the time) through the years but at other times I found many of their reissues being compiled in quite a helter-skelter manner so passed up other Everests countless times, including this one, IIRC.