Big Beat Steve

There aren't any either. No rubbishy and not many dubious ones, that is (IMO ). And even those that are dubious are only marred by some over-sugary crooning vocals (signs of the times) or by some uncommonly pop-ish tunes sung by Jimmy Rushing. But these just reflected the musical scene of the day (Lunceford and Kirk had many more like this, and some early pop vocal ditties sung by Ella with Webb aren't always high points in artistic sophistication and achievement either ) and you are totally right in wanting these too in order to get the overall picture. They do have their charm and appeal, even today. "Bad" or "rubbishy" is a highly subjective criterion anyway. By strict criteria of artistry and musicianship Bird's Lover Man session falls far, far short IMO, but knowing the context, would we consider it poor? It's a unique document in the artistic biography of the man. Or take Ernie Henry's LPs that strictly speaking are not exactly supreme masterpieces of musicianship either (listening to them, for once I'd believe contemporary reviewers who point out poor Ernie wasn't even nearly able to put into notes what he heard in his mind) yet they are acknolwedged by many today who evidently have other criteria. To each his own ...

Boy, must you have been disappointed with Bob Dunn's soloing in that box, Allen. FWIW I'll hang on to mine (and you still have my thanks for making me aware of that box in that earlier thread).

If this really is so, Lewis' assumption seems to be grossly skewed to me. Because if he were to argue that way, it is not only jazz that has come to an end but most other styles of popular music too. How long has it been since any pop/rock artist has had a hit with "I Got Rhythm", "Dinah", "Don't Blame Me" or whatever? (I am not talking about MOR artists who appeal to the remains of an older audience but about the core of the pop/rock music field) If any form of that "Songbook" had been recorded in recent decades by major pop/rock artists it was more for novelty's sake than for anything else, I guess. Or it was by artists who used these songs for a "jazz" image. In short, the "American songbook" is not the beginning and end of popular music per se, and honestly, the audiences of "already fine songs that people knew and loved", i.e. the audience of crooners, operatic tenors and big-bosomed contraltos who performed those songs in a fashion that was as un-jazzy as possible (as was customary before jazz made those songs its own) and still had huge HITS with those performances must for the most part be dead by several decades now. It is not only jazz that has moved on with the source material that is "jazzed up", pop music has moved on too. For better or worse, but it's a fact. But as pointed out before, there is other source material too. And any jazz (or even semi-jazz) artist who uses those Songbook songs (i.e. just plain "standards") today no doubt is inspired not by those stilted antiquated operatic or Broadway show-style singers' renditions but by preceding jazz versions of any particular Songbook song. So whatever remains of that songbook in the mind of the artists and the public TODAY is primarily based on JAZZ performances (jazz vocalists's renditions of those standards included), not on what was done with those songs in popular music many, many decades ago. Not a mean feat ... And maybe something to build on anyway, regardless of whether performing these standards will ever become a mass phenomenon in jazz again or not.

Beat me to it! My thoughts exactly too.

This statement here nails it IMO: "Today the ‘good health’ of a number of big jazz festivals worldwide hides an artistic reality in terms of frequentation that is far from brilliant with the dilution of jazz in its programming (even when what remains is good) and focuses on musicians that do not belong in jazz neither by the spirit nor the form even when they try to convince the contrary. It misleads the public, the current and future programmers, sometimes critics of specialized magazines and the musicians. And it doesn't open the scene of these festivals to the jazz musicians who follow what's going on in the ‘big’ jazz festivals of which many they are excluded." Have often observed this in the programs of jazz festivals over here in recent years, and this certainly does not attract me to attending these festivals if I have to sit through half or 3 quarters of a program that have only extremely tenuous connections with jazz at best and wade through a herd of partygoers who visibly aren't interested in the jazz content but to whom this seems to be more of a "see and be seen" event.

I guess you're right - I, for one, started buying/collecting at 15 in 1975. (And as I am running out of storage space, I try to fill some of those huge gaps (that still remain indeed) as efficiently as possible - avoiding duplications, e.g. by picking up unissueds that fit my tastes, does help there )

Yes - if I had REASONABLE grounds for the assumption that this statement was honest and true and if it was music (style, artist, etc.) where I'd go after almost anything that would come my way. Case in point: Those Uptown CDs. No idea if the statement on that Charlie Parker disc would have aroused my suspicion or not. There are so many Bird airshots, live recordings, etc. out there and who knows if I'd have had the definitive discography on hand to check (and then, often places and dates are identified incorrectly in there ...).

Even if the label wasn't legit this does not make the recordings "unissued". Instances abound where the (legit or relatively legit) reissuers gleefully state "First official release ever" or "Released in authorized form for the first time" (or whatever) so why play hide and seek here?

Good points they made in their blurb, Niko. But as you pointed out, they explicitly ACKNOWLEDGE that these recordings are in the public domain (so nothing doing when it comes to moaning about legitimacy). They carefully stress the sound quality aspect only and they have a point. And I'd love to go that route. Only ... what are they going to offer us as far as the WHOLE spectrum of the original Verve catalog goes? If I wanted to scour a Verve reissue catalog for a copy of Bert Dale's (aka Nils-Bertil Dahlander) "SKAL" LP, where do you all think would I be likely to dig up one first? In that Jazzplus series or at Fresh Sound etc.? See what I mean?

This overview (from German news site Welt.de) speaks for itself. No translation of the captions needed, I think ...

Very valid reasons, and damage caused by one or several of these reasons is likely to happen here and there, but WEARING out one single track on an LP is quite something else. I must admit I've been guilty of this in the past too. As for TTK's question who buys an LP and plays only one track, I think you are geared much too much towards concept albums or listening music such as a lot of jazz ORIGINALLY programmed for LP release. But pop/rock albums that come from hit artists or reissues of earlier music (any style) that originally was on singles/78s only (particularly if it's Various Artists albums) can be bought and listened to that way. In my case it was V.A. albums that had one particular killer track on them that I bought those LPs for (it DOES happen if it's a track you want by all means but just cannot find anywhere else, least of all on a 45 or 78). And in both cases that track was about the 5th or 6th out of 8 tracks on one LP side. So in the course of time that 5th ot 6th track took on a lot more greyish color than the shiny rest of the LP (which wasn't bad at all either but that favorite track just got a lot more spins for quite some time). Overall those favorite tracks are still very listenable, though. But on some good equipment you will note that the background hiss or pops are more pronounced on those. Modern turntables help here, compared to 50s or early 60s "groove lathes"

Doubt that a book will ever see the light. Not sure there is enough of a market for a top quality volume of jazz photos which is what I would want. What I would not want would be to have one of those photo books with badly reproduced images. OTOH if there is a market for the Eddy Wiggins book (professional photos but relatively limited text) and for Nicas' "Three Wishes" book (a good deal of the pics look rather amateurish, yet this does not detract much from their appeal) I wonder if there wouldn't be a specialist market for a book that fills a niche somewhere in between (with regard to the location of the action and the era covered) after all. Like Gheorghe said, memoirs and all ... I'd buy (or even preorder) a copy unseen ...

Like Alison Moyet, then?

Aw well, one never knows, do one?

Nice ... Does Son-of-a-Weizen have a bottle or crate of this in his stocks yet?

No people in or on the white car, and a tame Ford Vedette is no sports car (even if it's a convertible - Ford had the Comete for the sports section of their model lineup at that time). Sorry ... missed ... (Yes I know I am wisecracking and nitpicking but anyhow ... )

I don't think so. I'd classify him in the same category as pianist Don Frye (sometimes spelled "Frey" - which makes the pronunciation obvious, I think).

I supposes this depends on which part of the English-speaking world you come from.

I think I see perfectly well what you are getting at and I do understand your point, but to remain with your example/analogy: Assuming somebody only cares to shriek, gargle, groan and wail like he's gone bezerk if he gets up to say whatever he has to say, would you give much thought to what he might have to say for any CONSIDERABLE length of time? Is this how you would like to be talked to on a permanent basis?

Yes, I think you may have nailed it there. (Isn't Literary Studies a form of art too, after all?)

@freelancer: Just trying to convey an image but not to be taken literally Though I remember one particular instance that had me taken aback first and then smiling (and the staff member too) when I asked the one at the counter who was in charge of the jazz books if they happened to have a copy of John Chilton's Louis Jordan biography "Let The Good Times Roll", which caused some skinny, dour, long-haired (literally) and not so youngish fellow customer clad in an almost ankle-long coat of indefinite vintage (who overheard this and apparently took offense at this very down-to-earth book title) to start lecturing about how the "sublime" (of the arts, I suppose) had come to be dragged down and buried by the mundane, etc. etc. Seemed like a failed art student (of sorts) who was still trying to come to grips with what went on in real life outside his own terms of reference ... Apparently not a first-time incident because the staff member silently first smiled to himself and then to me. Unfortunately they did not have a copy at that time ... @sidewinder: I wouldn't know about Christmans there, I always was there either in April/May or in October/November. And I really don't know of any other way to describe those coat-tie-vest-and-overcoat characters (aproaching or having passed retirement age, and sometimes bearded and portly indeed, yes ...) who seemed to be so engulfed in "fiddling with something at waist level in front of them" without ever showing any signs of emotion of what they did pick out. Well, maybe my own attire of jeans and leather jacket wasn't befitting for a Mole Jazz customer ... ... not in the eyes of some fellow customers anyway. Anyway, Mole Jazz and the entire atmosphere there is still sorely missed.

During my stays in Britain in 1992 to 2000 I tried (most of the time successfully) to arrange my itinerary so enough time for a shopping spree in London remained before getting back to the ferry or Eurotunnel. My first port of call would invariably be the vinyl section at Mole Jazz. Whatever they say in the article (would love to see a pdf somewhere), that "urinal" comparison isn't far off the mark. Particularly since I'd often call in the late mornings/very early afternoons there (straight after arriving in London, most often on the way back from Norfolk) when the usual clientele there would consist of "elderly" (well, far older than me in my mid-30s then) gents in overcoats who'd go through the racks in taciturn, introvert, businesslike, noncommunicative silence. No young(er)'uns - except the occasional "eternal freelancer/art student" type if you know what I mean - around anywhere, they'd probably all be at work. I remember a couple of occasions when I went there with a friend (younger than me) whom I'd try to guide to this or that purchase for her interest in swing music, and when we exchanged comments about this or that find and "hey, did you see this", etc., we almost felt as if our (certainly not loud) comments were met with silent universal disapproval by the "regulars" there. The elderly lady handling the counter and turntable upstairs in their Grays Inn Road shop was sweet, though. Always obliging and helpful. Ah, those were days ...

An interesting but somewhat redundant distinction IMO. After all, "Dee jay" (DJ) was/is just an abbreviation of "Disk Jockey", and if you check out U.S. music papers from the 40s and early 50s you will find that they used these two terms synonymously (except that of course DJs at that time were radio-based and not (yet) club-based). Or to put it another way, a disk jockey was colloquially referred to as a "deejay". In each case you spin records but not necessarily talk OVER them. It depended on how you set up your show or what personal gimmicks you used. Interestingly, things have come full circle in more recent years when it comes to talking over records. On the British rock'n'roll (the REAL r'n'r)/rockabilly/jump blues club scene where DJs are all over the place and "name" DJs are major attractions there have been and still are some (major names) among the DJs who have made it a special gimmick of theirs to talk over a lot of their records when they spin their records in the clubs. Seems to be commonly accepted in the UK that DJs do quite a bit of talking not only in between tracks but also over the tracks (at least with these name DJs) but in the Continent most in the crowd find this very, very annoying. Pull the crows to the dancefloor by the way you sequence your tracks to create an atmosphere and keep up the pace but CUT OUT THAT BLURB!

Recommended listening (and liner note reading): http://www.fantasticvoyagemusic.com/jamaica-selects-jump-blues-strictly-for-you/ http://www.fantasticvoyagemusic.com/jumping-the-shuffle-blues-jamaican-sound-system-classics-19461960/ Intriguing ... I have only second-hand (third hand, rather) knowledge/hearsay of this but I do remember reading statements of "witnesses of the era" who conform the existence of a DJ subculture in 50s Britain.

It's the round thing itself and it CAN be made into an automatic transmission (with more components) but basically it is a semi-automatic clutch that still requires thed river to step on the clutch pedal for shifting but you cannot stall the car even if you let it coast to standstill in 3rd, for example. See Wikipedia description.