Big Beat Steve

Well, the reissue on Dragon Records states it explicitly. And since a lot of the arrangements from those sessions were credited to others (Gösta Theselius, Harry Arnold and others) there is SOME credibility because if the credits would have been usurped what would have prevented him from usurping 'em all? However, you ARE correct in one respect: The 1960 recording of Count'Em released on Argo LP 668 has Quincy Jones AND Jimmy Cleveland listed as the authors on the record back cover. So some percentage of the credits goes elsewhere after all.

A tongue-in-cheek record cover that should sit well with quite a few around here. For the record, that EP includes the following tracks from various 1958 sessions: Count'Em (the title track, obviously) / Meet Benny Bailey / Cherokee (the first two composed and arranged by Qunincy) All (and much more) found on Dragon DRLP 139/140. Fine stuff.

Actually they seem to have been fairly common almost everywhere. I have close to a dozen of the Bell 45s too - all of them bought at local fleamarkets through the years (and I know I missed out on others and passed up a few that were all too "non-rocking" , judging by the songs). And I know a few friends of mine from France have a handful of them in their collections too. How come they were arund here at a time when import records (i.e. not local license pressings) sold at a premium? Who knows ... maybe souvenirs left behind by G.I.'s doing their army stint over here? Am now spinning Edna McGriff's cover of Huey Smith's "Dont You Just Know It" (backed by the Jimmy Carrol orchestra again). Amazing how they go about aping the N.O. sound ... BTW, thanks for the explanation of why there were 7in 78s in those years, Jeffcrom!

Unfortunately that box sounds as if heavy noise reduction was applied, it killed the music. I don't find the vinyl set THAT bad. With 20s/30s recordings a lot of it always is a fine line between not doing enough and overdoing it, and not everyone is a John R.T. Davies who managed to strike the right balance, but overall I find this package VERY listenable.

7in 78s were quite common waaaay back (in the 20s) but admitedly much less so in the 50s. However, as there were a number of other oddball formats in the 50s (e.g. 7in records spinning at 33) I don't think it is inconceivable that even things like this existed then to some extent, especially with budget labels. At any rate, Jimmy Carroll was a common name on these cheapo Bell records that covered then-current hit tunes. Without even having heard that particular record, I'd venture a guess that "Stood Up" is a cover of the Ricky Nelson song.

Same here too (though not quite 10,000 in total ), but more (much more) power to them anyway!

BE BOP A LULA by Charlie Parker ... I'd LOVE to hear THAT! This cover definitely is a top contender for the "How many goofs can you get into one album cover" contest.

I use a HP Laserjet 2300 at the office and am very, very pleased with the refill cartridges that we use, both with the price, the yield (pages) and the printing quality, including in the case of difficult jobs (example: b/w printouts of high-res pictures such as those on the Shorpy website). However, you have to shop around and have a bit of luck on your side too. We used to use a different refill brand from another supplier (more or less same price, i.e. same savings vs. genuine OEM items) which were quite OK too for more run-of-the-mill printouts (more text, not so many images) but the printout quality on full-page high-res photos was not up to par as lighter horizontal streaks appeared and the contrast tended to suffer once the cartridge had seen a bit of use. OTOH with the ones we have now been using for some time, no problems whatsoever at all, including with photo printouts from page 1 and almost to the end of the useful life of the cartridge.

Oh come on, Hot Ptah et al., it is not a matter of "shortcomings" or actual deficiencies at all. Nobody intended to rip that particular artist to shreds at all. The only thing that was mentioned was that the way ONE mega hit was arranged and performed just appeared to be overdone in the opinions of some. Not all tastes are alike - regardless of whether this applies to the living or the dead. Not to mention the fact that maybe this overdone, overbearing way of performing did this particular artist a disservice in her LIFETIME with more people and in more ways than one would imagine. And after all it may not even have been her fault in the first place but rather that of her porducers. So PLEASE - considering the way many, many other discussions evolve here, please dont' give me that "De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bene" bit. THIS is easily overdone too and can then pretty fast become all phony. So please be reasonable. Nobody out here tried to denigrate her lock stock and barrel.

Being European and having witnessed that era when that song was "hot" I can confirm 100% what you say. Way over the top, and really caricaturesque in the opinions of quite a few. More of an exercise in voice gymnastics - not only in my ears ... And referring to Stefan Wood's statement that her vocals have become the template for all too many, I figure this kind of vocal jumps definitely is part of that emulation.

Indeed. Another example was described at length in the Sept./Oct. (#4) 2009 issue of ORKESTER JOURNALEN, relating to the Elmo Hope LP released on Prestige: "Informal Jazz" (7043) was later reissued under the same number as "Two Tenors" credited to Hank Mobley and John Coltrane (sidement on the original date) but it seems like they did not bother to change the labels accordingly; they still said "Elmo Hope" and "Informal Jazz" under the same release number. At least part of the pressing run had this incongruency. The same seems to have happened with "Hope Meets Foster" (7021) later retitled as "Wail Frank Wail" credited to Frank Foster only.

Aw well ... excellent musicianship to be sure (as always with Edelhagen), but jazzwise the selections reissued there are a bit on the predictable, all too clean side IMHO. Technicality and fireworks and certainly a lot of precision and punch behind the arrangements, but from a creative, jazz-oriented perspective, the Edelhagen band made livelier and more satisfying records a bit earlier in the 50s.

Having actively lived through the vinyl era from the mid-70s when I started collecting I can't say the EUROPEAN MCA pressings were bad. The German, Frnech and U.K. pressings I came across all thorugh the 70s and 80s all in all were wuite OK. What bugged me in the pressing quality at that time were some of those late 70s vinyls where the grooves really got very, very close to each other, and there seemed to be huge differences at that time, in some cases - upon looking closer - you could make out each individual groove (those LPs tended to be OK), like it was on LPs from the 50s, and in other cases the grooves looked just like a blur, and those records were much more prone to skip even when new. And I cannot say this was a case of 20-track single LP budget pressings where you had to cram a LOT of playing time on them. Some of these Pickwick (or other) 20-track budget LPs sounded better than some 14-tracks major label close-grooved pressings. As for actual surface defects, and beyond what TTK says about budget and Crown labels, there were some awfully crappy pressings elsewhere too, not necessarily among budget labels. Straight from the late 50s and all through the EP era, I've found an obscenely high share of duds full of blisters and bubbles among SONET pressings (Danish), for example. Strange how they ever made it to secondhand bins where I came across them later on. Any half-intelligent new record buyer would have returned them right to the shop?? Or did they have a habit of disintegrating and blistering later on due to old age? Any Scandinavian here who knows? Among more recent pressings, I still am surprised at the kind of pressing defects that seep even into normally carefully made reissues on collectors' labels. For example, an LP I have from the Swedish Dragon label has a sort of "wart" somewhere that invariably causes it to skip except with the most careful pickup/weight setup. And one of my Tal Farlow "Ed Fuerst" LPs has a nasty blob of some foreign matter (looks like some grain that you can actually feel) that makes the record pop on that side for several spins (no skips, though, though the bulge in the surface feels much worse than on the Dragon LP). (Yeah, failed to check the records close enough when buying them brand new)

Interesting ... I am half-tempted to jump for it unheard-unseen ...

Let's face it - Contador had it coming to him. He had tried to get away and sneak out so many times or, to put it another way, has sneered in the face of those who tried to combat dopimng in this "sports" and showed an attitude that cried out loud something like "you can't get me, I am too big and important for you", and now they did get him by his b...s (well, sort of ... the punishment could have been harder). I have no pity at all for any of those they catch today (or caught ever since they got at least halfway serious about at least TRYING to clean out a BIT of this mess), neither for Jan Ulrich nor for any of the others who got caught ever since.

Thanks very much, King Ubu. Looks like that 2nd set has all the Columbia/Okehs from that period (minus the originally unissued ones that Bear Family DID include in their set) and then the Radio Recorders 1947 sessions on CD 4 are MGM masters (that duplicate the Bear Family "Papas Jumpin" vinyl box set and likely other CD reissues that have been released in the meantime). Pity ... None of the 1944 AFRS radio transcriptions (but I guess that would have been wishful thinking with this kind of box sets ). But nice enough anyway (and affordable) for those who so far have none of the early Bob Wills records.

Since a quick search on Amazon didn't yield too many details, just a quick question regarding the SECOND (1940-47) of your JSP sets: Does this also included cloumbia/Okeh STUDIO recordings only (making them redundant with the Bear Family box set which includes a total of some 257 tracks from Bob Wills' Columbia/Okeh studio years)? Or are there other sources (transcriptions etc.) that have been incorporated into this second set?

I tried doing something very similar once on my show: something like 20 versions of 'Maple Leaf Rag', from a very early acoustic recording -- might have been someone like Vess L. Ossman on the banjo -- to the (then) most recent one. It was fairly boring, to be honest, and I didn't do it again. I found it very interesting at the time, and though some of the tunes were not my favorite staple it was quite instructive. I also remember havnig heard something similar in a shorter (30-minute) jazz radio show many moons ago but cannot remember the tune they focused on. But then again, for my very own listening amusement in my car I once dubbed an entire 60-minute cassette with all the versions of "Jumping At The Woodside" (including MANY Basie versions, obviously ) I had in my collection. And no, I did not tire of listening to it. (My excuses to Durium for those off-topic remarks ... )

Jean-Christophe Averty hosted that "Les Cinglés du Music-Hall" radio show a LOT earlier than the 90s as an afternoon show. I used to listen to it relatively often for quite some time during my University time in the early 80s (I spent my University years in a town close to the French border so was able to catch French radio) when I had the time. It was a funny show ... while it essentially focused on 20s to late 40s/early 50s acts that you might label under "variety" (actually pop of the day) many of the backing orchestras or small groups often provided at least a semi-jazz dance band sound and some were decidedly in a jazz or swing groove (the featured vocalists notwithstanding). Apart from the occasional show that concentrated on more jazz-oriented orchestras of the 30s, some of the musicians working in those singers' backing orchestras really caught your ear and served as a good introduction to French and Europan jazz and dance bands of that era. I think this is where I got my first exposure to very early Django Reinhardt backing Jean Sablon and other singers. Those Cinglés du Music-Hall radio shows were funny shows to listen to. Judging by his speed and intensity of talking, Jean-Christophe Averty seemed to have a habit of working himself right into a frenzy during each show, which was all the more striking because the comments and background info on each tune were set up as a sort of dialogue between Jean-Christophe Averty and a co-host (Jacques .... somebody) with Averty seemingly getting increasingly carried away as the show went on whereas his co-host came across as a sort of relaxed "straight man" to keep things a bit calmed down after all. Amazing ... and a real test on one's abilities to understand French and - above all - catch the key info on the featured artists and the names of the tunes ... The programming format was something else too. Who would expect a one-hour radio show to be made up entirely of nothing but all the available recorded versions of ONE SINGLE TUNE from that particular era? (Every now and then they did such one-tune specials there; IIRC the early versions of "Just a Gigolo" were one such show I caught on that program) Anyway, it did guide me in my buying of the occasional French 30s jazz reissue vinyl that popped up in record stores here and there back then ... Fond memories ...

Ehhhmm ... just out of sheer curiosity: What would be "bitterly cold" in your neck of the woods?

When can one hear the flagwaver version?

I know. I wasn't referring to what's written ON the album but what had been written ABOUT the album. (Or what I must have been reading about that particular album someplace somewhere) The way I listen to albums such as this now, of course I listen to the music as such and for itself - Quincy or not.

Queen Disc Q 003?

As for shipping, while I haven't checked the exact rates at Birka Jazz, their shipping costs probably aren't entirely their fault. I bought from Birka in the first few years after the turn of the millennium (but then gave up as somehow I had exhausted the more essential and nicely priced items they were likely to have for sale ) but did not find their shipping costs inflationary. However, I've bought from other Swedish sellers relatively often (mostly mags) in more recent years and found that the Swedish postal rates for shipping abroad have increased quite heftily through the years.

Yes I was definitely wrong about using the term "big band". I should have written "one of his own BAND albums", i.e. one of the albums credited to him and showing off his own skills. And again - I distinctly remember this particular album being mentioned more than once as one (in addition to "This Is How I Feel about Jazz" and also "Birth of a Band") that really showed off what he could do at that time - even more so than the arranging he did for others. When I read the opening post, my first thought was "You got that album too, so what did get YOU started on that one"? And I checked - and found ... nothing. Not in the printed All Music Guide on Jazz, not in any of the early Down Beat Record Review yearbooks, nowhere in the West Coast Jazz books by Gordon or Gioia, nothing ... It has me stumped, right now anyway ... because I really remember clearly reading favorable comments on it.