Big Beat Steve

Pretentious, maybe ... but would you disagree that in the world of jazz, in particular, there IS a substantial number of such albums? Even if it boils down to a live recording from a particular concert/gig only. Or why is it so that so many jazz collectors whine so loudly each time a reissue omits one or two single tracks from a 8 or 10-track original album? Cannot possibly be about "completist fetichism" in EACH and EVERY case only. Like I said above, I do not doubt single downloads are fine and the way to go (for those who feel comfortable with that medium anyway) if you are buying tunes that were released as "single" tunes anyway (or where their inclusion in an album is unrelated to the rest of the album contents), particularly in the many facets of contemporary pop. But was/is this particular discussion about today's POP music above all?

You are missing a point there ... Many original 78s and 45s were INTENDED to be listened to only one piece (or pair) at a time, and not in a sequence of 12, 16 or 24 chronological items by the same artist in one go. Which is why some reissues from that era tend to sound a bit monotonous if listened to via recent reissues because many artists (particularly in early blues and hillbilly/country music) have a certain degree of sameness about their individual tracks that becomes apparent if their music is "consumed" in larger doses in one go. Taken individually, you pay much more attention to the INDIVIDUAL tracks and above all notice the differences that there are, just the way it was (and was supposed to be) back then. The same may work for those current artists who deliberately release individual tunes via internet platforms today, and individual downloads may well be the way to go in these cases. But REMEMBER - ever since the LP era started, there has been an increasing number of albums where the contents (each individual track) were conceived as a unit, a single entity ("concept albums" are NO invention of the rock era) and I can very well see the point that these albums are appreciated to the full primarily if listened to in their entirety. Now if today's listeners are no longer tuned to that kind of intense listening and are only willing to take downloadable snippets in the form of individual tracks I think it's easy to understand those who complain. There may be a point to that statement about a "shrinking attention span".

Actualy I've listened to several Membran reissues (some of their 4-CD R&B sets, in particular) in recent days, and the fidelity isn't that bad at all. And compared to the actual fidelity of some of the original Charlie Parker Records vinyl releases they cannot have made matters worse, I'd guess. (No, the vinyl fidelity was far from unlistenable but certainly not top-notch). It will be interesting to see how they coped with the glass and bottle clinker and background (foreground?) talk during Bird's "Lester Leaps In", "Sly Mongoose" etc. nightclub performances on the "Bird Is Free" Lp.

As stated correctly at the very end of the entry in your blog, Hugues Panassié died in 1974, not 1964. I own and have read several of his books published in the very early post-war years (as well as his later "Bataille de jazz") in their original French version (important as far as I can see because who knows what might get lost in translated editions?) and find them very interesting in their assessments of the music, musicians and styles but they do need to be taken with a TRUCKLOAD of salt (or should only be read if you have a good deal of prior knowledge). Yet they are interesting if seen as ONE man's personal opinions. As for his involvement in the 30s French jazz scene and as for who accomplished what up to the big schism of 1947, I suggest reading this book (in addition to the earlier "New Orleans sur Seine"): http://www.amazon.fr/Charles-Delaunay-jazz-France-ann%C3%A9es/dp/2915118574/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329903535&sr=8-1 Apart from the credit is due Hugues Panassié for bringing back a few forgotten heros of classic jazz in the 30s, another point of merit is how, for all his narrow-mindedness when it came to the evolution of jazz into modern jazz, he did manage to acknowledge the lineage and see the musical links and continuity of a lot of 50s R&B and R&B-oriented "middle jazz" at a time when most of the oh so erudite highbrow jazz critics saw fit to denigrate anything that even remotely reeked of that oh so lowly "rock'n'roll". Hugues Panassié, OTOH, did realize that one mission that jazz after all still was entitled to accomplish was to provide music for pure, simple and unpretentious entertainment or dancing as an ongoing tradition reaching back to 20s jazz and that jazz even by the late 50s/early 60s was not all about concert hall atmosphere. So in his record reviews he for one acknowledged the work of R&B artists such as Fats Domino or the late 50s R&B-tinged Decca recordings by Cootie Williams that would likely have been given short shrift by other reviewers.

http://www.conelrad.com/media/atomicmusic/sh_boom.html

From within your house, a good way to do this is with an Airport Express: Apple Music streams from your computer to the AE; it has audio outs which can connect to your stereo. Going out? If your car stereo plays mp3 files, just burn a couple hundred of them to a CD. Leeway's response is also interesting. There are so many technological innovations going on in this space that half the time I don't even understand the responses posted on this board. I don't at all download from any "unofficial" sites. I only frequent eMusic, Amazon, and when they have sales, 7digital. Thanks for the info! Only ... I am all PC, not Apple ... I agree about your comment re- unofficial sites (especially with the now-acquired benefit of hindsight , but what can you do if the others blissfully ignore those areas where downloads could REALLY come into their own in the reissue field, i.e. NEVER before reissued music? Though that particular site has been into this for so long with their monthly instalments of new additions to the download files that I guess it cannot be a systematic problem with their downloads being bug-infested or else they would long since have shut down. But I cannot afford to let this turn into a hit and miss affair. Once bitten twice shy. There's enough music to listen to anyhow.

Amazing discussion ... I find I agree with virtually ALL of what has been said above because there are so many angles from which this subject can be seen, and each one has a grain of truth (especially the "eternality" aspect of the vinyl as opposed to erasable digital bits and bytes ). To me, to fill gaps that cannot be filed with vinyl (or are unaffordable), CDs play a major role. I'd love to go for downloads where the music is not available elsewhere (i.e. the Amazon mp3 vs CD alternative is not one for me; CDs will remain the way to go there for some time to come) but I've become exceedingly wary of downloads ever since I recently ended up with major malware on my PC during one such download attempt. Incidentally, in that particular case the site itself was OK and reputable and their download offers (from collectors to colectors) appeared to have been made in good faith but apparently the externalised server where this collectors's site apparently had hosted their digital files for download was not so OK, according to the PC whiz-kid who'd luckily happened to be at my home at that time to streamline my PC setup (and who then spent quite some time on eradicating that bug, which made for a noticeable increase of the overall servicing bill Bad luck I guess and a bit of brave new world ...) And since I do not fancy limiting my listening to the PC or other computer-based media, I'd still have to convert the files to some format suitable for any CD player so where would the overall gain be for me in the case of the music where a MP3/CD choice exists? And if no such choice exists (downloads of never-reissued music) but the above threat lurked ... ?

Not with that kind on (non-)description, that's for sure. Exept if there's an Ike Quebec completist nut out there who'd be able to see from the date scribbled on the label what that kind of performance MUST be.

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?