Big Beat Steve

And for Europe? Anything in the pipeline yet? To be honest, trying to import from Japan on an individual basis is almost always just way too much of a hassle for a private end consumer, all things considered.

So this one here (2-part version, too) .... ... definitely is not the same version as on the 4-Star label?? Though recording the same tune in a 2-part version in each case is odd indeed. Ths would make it the third version of the three that Mosaic mentions. Jepsen says these are different versions, but like you said, he may have been mistaken, so who knows?? Especially as you claim the 4-Star recording seems to come from a different session if I got you right. Am playing it now - the tenor man blows a relatively fierce horn (not unlike what Flip Phillips did) and the bassist does hum some Slam-Stewart-ish lines behind the guitar solo towards the end of Pt. I and later on in his his solo in Pt. II. @all: Sorry for derailing this thread even further ...

As always, a great addition to the accessible information about that era. Keep it up.

For a while the softcovers and hardcovers coexisted. I have the first four as softcovers and the fifth one as a hardcover. Fine works! Unfortunately rare and fairly pricey on eb.. and elsewhere. Wish they had started doing that series a bit earlier ... Just so you know what to look for, Colin:

Some discographies list the drummer as "Claude Cloud". However, I guess the real leader on this date is probably Leroy Kirkland. My guess too as far as Leroy Kirkland goes. But why would some list one "Claude Cloud" when the identity of Panama Francis seems to have been established? Does a drummer make for a "token" leader figure? Strange things happening with THAT pseudonym ...

Thanks Jack - I had a hunch that If I'd get a reply it would come from you. Haven't got the line-up I mentioned on hand now but I remember that strnagely enough one "Claude Cloud" figured there. Your combination makes much more sense, of course. Now who made up the brass section, I wonder?

Actually it's a relatively flattering one ...

BTW, can anybody enlighten me to the REAL identity of CLAUDE CLOUD of the "Claude Cloud & His Thunderclaps" fame (10in LP on MGM, variously entitled either "Rock & Roll" or "Let's Get Cat-Static")? The general concept of that LP is similar to that of Boots Brown (Shorty Rogers) on RCA and a line-up I have seen includes REAL names such as Sam The Man Taylor and Leroy Kirkland band members, but Claude Cloud figures in between (on drums, IIRC), though I have a HARD time believing there really was person by that REAL name.

:D If "common or garden names" were a criterion then Andrew Hill would have had to "pseudo" his entire recorded output IMO ... As for the earliest examples of this, would all those pseudonym band names used for many of the 20s jazz band recordings also released on other (often budget-ish) labels count, or are these excluded because they were marketing ploys and you want this to be limited to "cover-ups" only? One of my favorite ones is Dizzy Gillespie's apearance as one "Hen Gates" on some 40s Charlie Parker session on Savoy. Which is what has caused considerable confusion or wishful thinking among discophiles ever since as a few years later the "Hen Gates" name was used as a bogus artist credit on several R&B LPs, some of which actually featured the Freddie Mitchell band (but there were other LPs where that name was used for other recordings too). Also check this: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article_print.php?id=1405

That's the one I was immediately thinking of when I saw the title of this thread (which I hadn't seen the first time around as I was not aware of Org. yet in 2004). In fact the secondhand copy of this I bought in London in the 90s had a handwritten correction on the back cover that stated the actual identity and lineup. No doubt Specs Powell was nowhere within earshot of that studio in Cologne (Germany) where that music was recorded in 1957. And what could his involvement with that Strand BUDGET label possibly have been at a time when he was a studio musician? BTW, my (U.K.) Fidelio label pressing of the same record (with the same front cover) clearly says "Specs Powell and his Band" on the back cover (which of course if b.s. and does not hint at anything like a producer's or presenter's role ). Otherwise, I'd have to agree with what Michael Fitzgerald wrote earlier. Being a leader means more than "just" arranging tunes or being given ample solo space. As for eligibility to this thread, would reissue packagings (the above Strand LP was one too, BTW) of material originally released on 78 rpms or very early in the LP era qualify too? There were/are plenty of these where the original leader credits were all jumbled around just because someone else in the lineup had come to prominence in the meantime. This would be one classic case: The leader actually was trumpeter Hall Daniels and the record was originally issued as such as a 10-incher on the Jump label in 1955.

Why oh why is it that the derailed looks of that chick make me wonder if she maybe is some kind of offspring of notorious German rock songstress NINA HAGEN?? :lol:

Good luck Shawn, and do stick around anyway. I hope things will work out for you.

OMG! :wacko: You really think so?? Whatever happened to your ears?? :blink:

James Last ... UGH! Had some good credentials as a German jazz bassist of the early to mid-50s who played with many of the big (German and touring foreign) jazz names, and then (from the mid-60s or so) led an ultra-well-known big band in Germany (and still leads it, I think, though he is well into his 80s). The "James Last sound" has been a trademark for decades around here - for better or worse, because he really was a jack of all trades and shrewd businessman, as he "big banded" everything in sight, ranging from the pop hits of the day through local folklore, light classics, "party singalong" records, and the usual big band swing "warhorses", of course. The musical competences of the band members always were high, but this was NOT a "swing" or "jazz" or "progressive" big band (except for some symbolic excursions into that field) and was never meant to be but rather left its mark as an all-round easy listening party pop big band. It had become a common quip that whenever any sort of marketable music with mass appeal potential crept up anywhere within hearing distance, James Last was sure to arrange it into his book, pouring his "my sound fits all" molasses over the entire score to mold it into another example of the typical "James Last sound". Whatever chart hits or musically hot mainstream, middle-of-the-road trends there were, pretty soon there was bound to be a James Last record of it in the shops. And, having come of age muscially at a time - the 70s - when he really was a big shot in the mainstream pop world around here, I can assure you that sound was the "easy listening bane" of everybody out for something musically more substantial. Germany's revenge for Mantovani, Lawrence Welk, Percy Faith etc. combined, if you want ... Honestly, with the benefit of hindsight, if I'd been forced to listen to German mainstream big bands all the time, I'd have preferred Max Greger or even Bert Kaempfert or the post-jazz "Black Forest" period Horst Jankowski any time. But I'll admit that nostalgically speaking, some of his repertoire can pass as some sort of "exotic"/"exotica" act as it was sooo typical of the middle-of-the-road tastes of those times that in a way it becomes quite exotic decades later (and, in case TTK reads this, his band DID gig in "lounge" settings too ).

Now that was mean (at least to German forumists )! Of all creepy covers you had to pick that one ... Don't know about what some (SOME!!) U.S. listeners/buyers would dare to consider "sexy" but I can assure you neither that feller nor his record covers were EVER considered "sexy" by ANY of his followers around here (but not fascist either ) ... But O.K., I admit I am not too familiar with the standards of some of the more prudish incarnations of good, homely U.S. "sexiness" either so who knows what they would fall for ...

How so? Certainly not by expressing enthusiasm for American Music and seeking opinions on the catalog. Nor would Moms be the first person to distance themselves from certain regions of free jazz, in no uncertain terms. In any case, a stirred pot makes for a good brew. :tup on all counts. At any rate, this thread has stirred my curiosity for the American Music catalog too (though "oldtime" jazz usually is not the top of my favorite styles of jazz and is taken in relatively moderate doses). As for the Climax label, I think the topic has been discussed before, but how come there are other Climax 78s (probably European, but ONLY European??) out there that also duplicate the Blue Note blue 6 white label layout but include decidely NON-oldtime recordings (such as Wynton Kelly) that have also (originally) been issued on BN? And they do not look or sound like cheapo bootlegs at all. Anybody got concrete info on the background on THAT offspring of the 'Climax label? As for "messy bop", care to name a couple of examples to this bop enthusiast (who can take in a LOT of bop - i.e. BEBOP late 40s style - in all its varieties?

I wouldn't have thought of Crown as a "typical" jazz label per se either (though some of their "Modern Jazz Stars" albums are a JAZZ discographer's nightmare ). But I can assure you that Crown is widely considered a typical 50s R&B label (and to a lesser extent a Country label), which - judging by the evidence of their releases OVERALL - is incorrect but that's how it is widely perceived (even if only because the BULK of their "collectible" items is from the R&B field), and there are real collecting nuts out there who'd pick the tiniest details of their releases in those fields apart in order to document and cover everything. "Poor man's Blue Note obsession", maybe??

My copy of Way Out Wardell was on Crown. I bought it around 1961 in a drugstore. That music came from Gene Norman's Just Jazz concerts and early 78rpm releases were on "Modern Music" (the first incarnation of the Modern label) so there is a direct link to the Biharis there. Several Crown LPs with music from that concert were issued. Not according to their most recent online catalog. But the Gene Norman concerts have been reissued quite often elsewhere, including on CD. O.K., point taken - not the most musically correct classification. Now how would one broadly classifiy "adult" instrumental music of those days that is neither straight-ahead jazz nor straight-ahead pop nor teen pop nor easy listening nor ...? Just to give a rough idea? And regardless of where their live gigs (if any) took place. But I think you did understand what I was getting at. The music you named is quite atypical of "anything Crown" so it's not the kind of music one tends to think of when that label is evoked. BTW, what label(s) are your CD reissues on?

Crown is a very wide field, you see. So if you are not really that specific in your question then the answers (ANY answers) really risk being far off the mark you are looking for. OTOH, of course, knowing some of your preferences from previous posts I ought to have figured out you were hinting at some not so obvious "lounge" acts, right? So the question to me would be: Are/were the CROWN recordings lumped in among the assets of Modern/RPM or aren't they?

I'd venture a bet that there are very few "Crown" master tapes as such since the bulk of what Crown (re)issued were previously recorded/issued on the Modern/RPM label(s). And whatever there was in the way of Modern/RPM masters, acetates, tapes, etc. was purchased lock stock and barrel (legal rights and all) by the British ACE label quite some years ago. And from what I've seen on THEIR reissues they used the earliest/most original source material available whenever possible. Hence their various subseries focusing on acetates and other previously unissued/unreissued material from the Modern/RPM vaults.

Sure all that was "new" stuff, at least by the standards of the usual discography of those R&B greats from the 40s/50s. Johnny Otis (whose label this was) did a whole series of those LPs with R&B men from the 40s/50s who had been living in the shadows by some time in the 70s. In the case of Amos Milburn, for example, he had already suffered a stroke by the time of his recordings for Blues Spectrum in 1973 which had left his left side paralyzed, so for the recordings Johnny Otis played the left hand on the piano and Amos played the right hand and did the vocals. I used to see the LPs from that series fairly regularly in the shops in the late 70s/early 80s but never picked any of them up as I was more after the "real thing" form way back and have always been a bit wary wary of "updated stuff" where afro-haired backing musicians tried to do their "funky thing". But historically speaking no doubt they are interesting. No doubt there is a full discography on the web out there. Google is your friend! BTW, as for why Roy Milton is behind the drums on that album cover pic, no doubt that's because in his original band he did play drums.

Any George Wallington on record is an asset IMO so I recommend this one too. The music may indeed not be essential and the idea behind it (40s bebop standards given a new - 50s - lease of life) may be "predictable" but the music is fine anyway. I am not sure about the Interlude reissue that JohnS mentions. The record guides I have access to describe the Interlude reissues (511 and 1011) as straight reissues of this Mode LP. If there are extra Marty Paich tracks they may have come from his two Mode LPs (105 and 110).

Haven't read the full interview yet, but all I can sayafter a first glance: EXCELLENT!

Having only heard of (and seen) "monochrome" red, blue - and even green - Fantasy vinyls myself, I am beginning to wonder if Chewy's item maybe is some sort of pressing plant glitch (where they threw the colors from different pots together)??

Some more suggestions about where to look for record release dates (at least approximate ones): - Down Beat (Record Reviews yearbooks as well as individual issues which may also carry ads for new releases and give clues as to which release number was the most current one at which date in the catalog of the respective label) - Down Beat Yearboks - Same for Metronome (yearbooks - with lists of most important record releases of the year - and individual issues) - "Jazz'n Pops - A comprehensive Catalog of Jazz and Popular Longplay Records" (issued regularly at that time) and similar record catalogs - Record label flyers and catylogs, as suggested by Chewy