Big Beat Steve

So this would amount to what at other times music scribes have described as "journeyman musicians"?

I can't seem to find my Art Pepper two-fer now but I think it consists of the same material as two Blue Note Art Pepper CDs: 1) THE RETURN OF ART PEPPER: The Complete Art Pepper Aladdin Recordings, Vol. 1 2) MODERN ART: The Complete Art Pepper Aladdin Recordings, Vol. 2 They are not Blue Note recordings, per se, but apparently Blue Note acquired the licensing rights. There is a Blue Note LP, OMEGA ALPHA, LT-1064, which has some additional Pepper Aladdin recordings not on the CDs. See my reply above (post #19) which gives the reply in a nutshell. Blue Note never acquired any licensing rights, it's just that Blue Note and Aladdin ended up under the same company roof so whoever did the reissues had access to multiple labels' material.

Actually I was thinking about posting about these UK Vogue doubles yesterday. They did catch my fancy early on (as they were priced VERY affordably) when I had the occasion of shopping for jazz LPs during stays in London while still in school in 1975-77. Not all of those "Vogue Jazz Doubles" were double LPs, reqally. Aside the from Clifford Brown 3-LP set (still a favorite of mine today) I remember buying 2 LPs by Django Reinhardt in the form of 2 separate LPs held together by a sort of "Obi strip" proclaiming "Vogue Jazz Double". The Gene Norman Just Jazz Concerts 3-LP "box" set was nother one not strictly a "twofer" (or "threefer"). But music that (for a long time) was rare and inaccessible. As for the double LPs, the Basie Roulette reissues were a very convenient way of obtaining this music while it was OOP almost everywhere else. The "Bebop Keyboard Masters" twofer also is a nice one, and sensibly programmed. I have mixed feelings about the "West Coast Scene" series, however (there indeed were three of them). Vol 1 reissued LPs credited to Marty Paich and Jimmy Giuffre issued originally on GNP (the programming of which which makes sense), but Vol. 3 IDIOTICALLY enough included ONE side each from four LPs by Med Flory, Lou Levy and Herb Geller for the Jubilee label, i.e. ONE HALF of each of these LPs only!). I had bought the set (secondhand) as this was better than nothing but soon found out the others were around (thank you, Fresh Sound!) but of course it did take some time to convince myself to buy the full LPs for "half" the music. (BTW, anybody dead keen on wanting Vol. 3 ? It still occupies my garage sale LP box ). So all in all, those Vogue Jazz Doubles were nice IMO but the programming sometimes was a bit helter-skelter. "Stitt for Starters" (1952-55 Roost sessions), for example, is a good introduction (as the title implies) but another nightmare for those who want the music in a complete run on VINYL.

Yeah, "Black California" Vol. 2 eluded me for a long time (U.S. release only indeed AFAIK whereas Vol. 1 was fairly common in the shops for quite a while) and when I finally found it (secondhand at Mole Jazz) I IMMEDIATELY dumped that CD reissue (same cover but minus a couple of tracks omitted on the CD due to playing time limits) that I had obtained out of sheer despair in the meantime. Was I glad I had an immediate taker for that silver platter ... Good idea ... same here.

Yes, completely forgot about the RCA BLUEBIRD reissue twofers which were very important to my swing music appreciation in the 70s too. Apart from those mentioned above and in subsequent posts, there also was a chronological CHARLIE BARNET series on six 2-LP sets (which I revisit quite often) as well as a TOMMY DORSEY series. Among the single twofers, the Earl Hines twofer got countless spins here (and still does from time to time). What those who are into jazz in the STRICTER sense may have overlooked: The BILL BOYD (western swing) and THE CATS & THE FIDDLE 2-LPs sets from this Bluebird series are priceless too and were not really superseded until CD completists came along (and yet ... ). Same here so you are not an isolated case, I guess. Got into 30s swing and oldtime jazz more or less simultaneously but I really worked my way chronologically into latter-day post-1940 swing as well as into post-1945 modern jazz (as hinted at above). Helps a lot to ease in your listening habit gradually ... And actually my very first MILESTONE twofer goes back a long way chronologically too: Blind Lemon Jefferson!

Not surprising at all. These tracks were from the Score and Intro labels which were Aladdin subsidiaries. Now Aladdin passed under the Liberty roof later on, and so did Blue Note, so Liberty (part of United Artists - along with BN - at the time of this reissue) is the link where things come full circle.

Another twofer follower here ... After I had started buying (and soon collecting) jazz records from the age of 15 in 1975 I jumped straight into the twofer buying business and have not regretting those buying decisions to this day. My main points of attraction were those Prestige/Milestone twofers that were allover the place in the mid- to late 70s as well as the Savoy reissue 2-LP sets (mainly focusing on 40s/50s modern jazz as well as R&B) but I did get into those greyish Blue note twofers as well as some Columbia/CBS sets (for earlier swing reissues) too. I've always found them to be excellent value for money (particularly the Savoy and Prestige/Milestone/Fantasy sets), good fidelity, consistently interesting liner notes, thoughtful compilation strategies that really catered to the collector by combining sessions and/or 10in LP reissues in a sensible manner. There are some I still pull out very frequently, e.g. the George Wallington and Wardell Gray twofers on Prestige or the Brothers and Other Mothers (as well as some earlier swing reissues from the same series) on Savoy. In some cases I've even bought mint spare copies when they came my way cheaply in secondhand bins. My first modern jazz LP bought ever actually was one of those Prestige twofers - the "In The Begining" set featuring the 1945/46 Dizzy/Bird sessions. An ear-opener to that kid of 16 and, as it turned out, the right place to start to work my way into bebop (right from the start it did sound much more logical to me than all of what had been written on the subject would have implied). As for the cover artwork, as has been said above, most of it is VERY dated (particularly on the Miles Davis twofers) but oh well ... So were many single-LP reissue covers from the 70s that clumsily tried to "update" the visual aspects of the 50s music contained within. Being the vinyl nut that I am, occasionally I still pick up a set from these series today, the most recent find being that Quinichette-led Basie Jam twofer on Prestige.

I'll second the above without any hesitation!

Can't say I have comprehensive knowledge of this, but taken in moderate doses there really are gems out there. Some of my favorites: East Texas Serenaders Red Fox Chasers Gid Tanner & The Skillet Lickers (and the recordings made under the leader's credits of Clayton McMichen and Riley Puckett contan many interesting items too) If you want to have diversity to avoid any sort of same-ishness (understandably; many of those 78s never were meant to be listened to in a row of 15 or 20 by the same artist/band), try some of the V.A. compilations. Some nice ones among the few I have are: http://www.venerablemusic.com/catalog/TitleDetails.asp?TitleID=14879 http://www.venerablemusic.com/catalog/TitleDetails.asp?TitleID=14921 For further in-depth background info, the artist biographies in this book are essential reading: http://www.amazon.com/Country-Music-Originals-Legends-Lost/dp/0199732663/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312497584&sr=8-1

In a way, yes, Shawn (and we will all be able to refer to that post time and again as and when we follow our OWN firmly held beliefs and the right to express ourselves however WE see fit to ) ... but ... ... who is Monday Michiru? Will he (or she) ever go down in jazz history? P.S:, No - I am not the biggest fan of OP either. I don't dislike him that much but his grunting and groaning annoys me no end on quite a few of his recordings.

Nice cover. Would have snapped up that one unseen-unheard too. Not least of all for the record title for curiosity value. ;-) Surprising to see, though, that according to the Jepsen and Bruyninckx discographies this is said to have been recorded SPECIFICALLY for the HALO budget label. AFAIK Halo usually reissued older recordings from defunct labels by (then) major artists to cash in on the drawing power of the names (as did many budget labels then), e.g. Halo reissued older National recordings by the Louis Prima Orchestra to grab a bite of the Louis Prima market after he had relaunched his career on Capitol. I think it wouldn't be unlikely these recordings may originally have been done for the BATON label (as the recordings Tate had done prior to these) and somehow remained in the can until they found their way onto that Halo LP. So they may have come from the same source that yielded THIS 80s reissue LP (below) with Baton recordings. More from Baton also was reissued on Black & Blue in France in the 70s. BTW, Bruyninckx sez only half of that HALO LP is by Buddy Tate, and the rest is by an "unknown R&B orchestra". Maybe some stunt like they pulled on other budget labels where recordings by the Freddie Mitchell band (and others) resurfaced as by fake band names or like the umpteenth retitling of Joe Houston tracks on Crown LPs... Anyway, Chewy, WADDAYA MEAN that Buddy Tate "COMPLETELY SELLS OUT"?? Just because the Rock'n'Roll tag was attached to these releases? He did not - just like Cootie Williams did not sell out with his 50s R&B recordings either, and neither did others in the same vein. (Yeah, I know, I am biased, but I gotta defend the "Big Beat" tag after all ). So wise up, man! Just because some of these swing masters decided to go the down-to-earth, gutsy, honest, straightforward R&B route (instead of awkwardly trying to "update" their blowing into fancy rambling that some would have called "modern" but what just would not have bneen their bag) does not mean they "sold out". There IS a straight line of evolution between and swing and R&B, after all. And in the sense of black 50s combos and orchestras, the "rock and roll" label was just the marketing tag applied to R&B. After all we are talking about REAL rock'n'roll of the c.1954 to c.1962 era, NOT that later stuff that many Americans erroneously refer to as rock & ROLL too (actually Rock stopped rolling in the early 60s and became just plain "Rock" later on - not much to do with the REAL thing anymore ;) ).

From the DOWN BEAT "MUSIC" YEARBOOK 1963:

Can't find the source right now (and am too lazy to do a search on my bookshelf) but I remember distinctly that U.S. press comments on the allegedly corrupting influence of Benny Goodman in the mid-30s youth in the U.S. very closely foreshadowed the comments made about Elvis and his impact on his teenage audience some 20 years later. Same vocabulary, same accusations, same pseudo-arguments. History repeats itself, particularly in this field.

I don't know about Ireland, but from what I have read about what went on in 20s and 30s Continental Europe, the jazz-tinged "classical" or "serious" compositions (e.g. Ernst Krenek in Germany/France) were only a tiny minority of what could possibly have been lumped in under "jazz" by the non-discerning public and scribes (that went on to lambast jazz as being oh so vulgar and the downfall of society and its youth anyway). The majority of what was there really was "syncopated" dance music with a more or less evolved content of real jazz - a bit like what passed as jazz among 20s U.S. dance orchestras just because of the presence of a 12 or 16-bar hot solo in an otherwise staid orchestra. But since the boundaries to those bands, recordings or live appearances where the jazz content was higher were rather foggy, in the end you never know whether this or that public figure who publicly put down jazz had not actually been listening to some "real" jazz or swing. Depends on what your ears are attuned to (see below): (Translation:) "Modern dance music" (aka "swing") as seen ... ... by Swedish parliament representative who saw jazz music "fit only for hottentots but not for Swedish youth"... ... by normal people.

O.K., I did overlook THIS way of bringing in landlordism in the original source. As for the kind of jazz that ultra-conservatives would have disapproved of, hard to say what was the current state of awareness in Irleand in c.1934. At worst it could have been moderately "syncopated" dance band music, at best it could have been the efforts of Irish jazzmen to play their own brand of jazz (which, like the British variant, probably imitated the U.S. sources and had not yet found a real voice of its own, or would jazzed-up versions of "Irish washerwoman" have been considered as such? ) or, as you point out, teh visits of famous U.S. jazzmen (cf. the U.K. "Mainstream" press quotes to the Armstrong/Ellington tours of the early 30s in "Jazz in Britain 1910-1950"). Yet, upon re-reading the entire linked article, all these debates of 1934 do not strike me as THAT different from what happened in many ultra-conservative circles elsewhere in Europe in the 20s and 30s.

I still fail to see the DIRECT connection between this form of European sharecropping and the hatred directed against jazz as being oh so "immoral". Especially since jazz and its main ingredient - "da blooz" - was not exactly an elite thing but came from those parts of society that SUFFERED from the U.S. version of "landlordism" (a term that I find relatively self-explanatory, BTW, but maybe only to Europeans ).

Correct, Hot Ptah. I was indeed tempted to add that this practice made the task of discographers much easier. But in the case of Bob Wills session details were documented well enough. Not elsewhere, though, where Bob Wills' exhortations rubbed off on other Western Swing band leaders or vocalists. On "Pocahuntas Stomp" (Dude 1408) by Dub Adams & The K-Bar Ranch Hands, for example, the band leader/vocalist/announcer (?) goes out of his way in introducing the soloists; the steel guitar soloist is identified as "Roly Poly", the clarinetist is announced as "Brother Hal", and so on ... But to this day liner note scribes wonder who was hiding behind these monikers. As for "Bubbles In My Beer", you must be refering to the MGM recording. On his 1960 Liberty re-recording, Bob Wills goes one better and not only calls up Joe Holley to "Wake up over there, Jody, let's go here now" but keeps mocking vocalist Tommy Duncan at almost every second line: T.D.: "I know my life's been a failure..." - Bob: "Oh I wouldn't say that" T.D. "I see every road that I've travelled" - Bob: "Highway 66?" - whereupon Tommy Duncan has a hard time not breaking into laughter during his next line ... and so on ... A classic.

This may miss the point of THIS topic in the stricter sense of the word, but judging from the blasting that jazz received elsewhere throughout Europe in the 20s and early 30s, Ireland may have "lagged a bit behind" (elsewhere some advances had been accomplished by that time) but not THAT much. Germany (pre-nazi, of course) is just one example, and Jim Godbolt's "Jazz In Britain 1910-1950" quotes a number of infamous English sources from that period as well. Hilarious today, but certainly less funny then. And even countries where jazz had gotten an early foothold and had developed a thriving scene, e.g. Sweden, produced such nasty publications as "Jazzen Anfaller" ("Jazz Attacks") by one Erik Walles as late as 1946 which included "assertions" such as the following that were NOT meant to be merely folkloristic: "Jazz canot be understood without referring to important facts regarding its development. Jazz was created by negroes. Jazz was created by drunk negroes. Jazz was created by drunk negroes in brothels." So - no, the above Irish example does not strike me as particularly backwoodsy. although it really IS eerie to see the parallels between the Irish reference to teaching Irish dances instead of allowing people to dance to jazz and the situation in 30s (and especially Nazi) Germany where German folk and traditional dances of course were promoted as "clean" examples of dancing as opposed to the "lewdness" of dancing to jazz. It took a lot of public opinion makers quite a long time to see the light when it came to popular culture (and things repeated themselves with rock music later on, as if Western civilization was about to collapse each time), and unless I am very much mistaken, even the U.S. had their share of inveterate numbskulls (in influential positions, mind you) in that respect too.

Another oddity, not so much for the interjections but for the line-up credits: On "Windy City Boogie" recorded by the J.T. Brown band for the United label in July, 1951, various whoopings and hollers (including the inevitable "Mercy Mercy") can be heard throughout the tune. By whom? The line-up on the Delmark reissue indicates the presence of Roosevelt Sykes "playing" "ENCOURAGEMENT AND ZEST" (such are the instrument credits)! Now how do you play "zest"??

Another exhortation (that would also fit in here ... is on Wynonie Harris' 1947 recording of "Blow your Brains Out" where he introduces the tenor solo "... baby, time marches, ... now I want you to meet Tom Archia - march, Tom Archia!" whereupon Tom Archia blows the second tenor solo. BTW, Hal Singer, the other tenor man, is introduced as "Oklahoma". Both tenorists are called out several more times throughout the track. As for identifiying soloists in this manner, and assuming that WESTERN swing falls into the swing style of jazz (ain't it so, Mr Lowe? ), would ALL of Bob Wills' encouragements and "Yah-hah's" count too? (Would make a long list ...)

One of my favorites: At the end of the ultra-fast "Red Hot Blues" by the T.J. Fowler band (National 9072, recorded in 1948), after the band calls out a hoarse "One-Two-Three-Four-Five-Six-Seven-Eight-Nine-Ten-RED HOT!", a single voice (the band leader?) adds a dry, cool "THIS IS THE BLUES, BABY!". Yes ... they sure blew the cobwebs out of many of those so slow blues that according to many set the ONLY pace a blues tune is supposed to be played at.

I have the "Our Love Is Here To stay" Jubilee LP by the Gene Harris trio and somehow have always been under the impression that this was NOT the "Blue Note/Three Sounds" Gene Harris. Just checked the Bruyninckx discography on CD, and he confirms my impression.

If you can shoot it cheaply on ebay, get it. Those TREND books tend to be around so you just need to observe the market for a while and then ... click and snipe" It's a good read and it is intersting to be able to see the history up to that time (c.1955) the way it was seen THEN (and NOT with all too many interpretations cobbled up with the "benefit" of hindsight that too often makes too much use of "generally acquired wisdom" of what was supposed to be good and enduring and what not). Another interesting aspect is that a good deal of its pictures have not been seen elsewhere THAT often.