Big Beat Steve

I did not, Dan ... Read on here ... This is quere I "quoted" from. But in fact that's a minor point anyway. I just wanted to point out that collectors' points of view (especially when blessed with the benefit of hindsight or wishful thinking of what "might have been") sometimes don't line up with the realities of the "business" side of the music as it was (for better or worse).

OMFG indeed ... You and your "Hank" obsession ... Did it ever occur to you that maybe at that time he had become a "has-been" from the point of view of producers and record company execs? Personal problems that make handling such a man rather difficult in a music-producing "business" environment must clearly have spoken against the person concerned if there were so many competent and thoroughly professional session musicians around (and no doubt there were...). Sorry to say this, but isn't it time to shed those rose-colored glasses? As for those gospel records, I am not too familiar with them either but if you take a look at Michel Ruppli's SAVOY records discography you will see that gospel records constitute the bulk of the latter-day new-recordings output of the label. Nuff said for an explanation of why these are around?

The first one from that series I ever bought (almost 15 years ago). An intriguing release, because he is one of that kind of obscure artists that usually defy reissue and because he was enough of a chameleon to also cut and release a couple of early rocking tracks (for Savoy as well) in the mold of the Alan Freed house band recordings. Quite unlike this Savoy LP, though.

I am afraid not - my e-mail exchanges with the author's son (prior to ordering my copy) revealed that two copies have already gone to Austria and three to France. @BillF: Interesting to read your comments. Must indeed have been a great time to be there and witness all those legends live on stage. Something us young'uns (well, young-ish 'uns ) can only dream of.

I admit I dont understand the initial question, then, either. There are lots of ways of playing melodically without playing "corny". Especially in the case of ballads. Or else no jazz ballad would swing or just "be jazz". (Or is "corn" jazz?) But like I said, I have a hunch we would first have to agree on a definition of "corn". Playing melodically and conveying emotions is one thing, but playing melodic, emotional tunes in a way that makes them sound saccharine, lachrymose or just overly sentimental is an entirely different case but quite a possible occurrence. But would THAT be "corn"??

Just out of sheer curiosity: What kind of "corny" is this supposed to be if it becomes corny when EMOTIONS are being poured forth? Wouldn't this rather be "schmaltzy"? Tiny Hill was corny, Lawrence Welk was corny (O.K., no pianists, but you know what I mean), but were they so primarily because they dispensed overdoses of emotions? I don't really think so.

So how 'bout this for a follow-up by The Man? Though you might say both sound almost tame compared to "Puddy Cat".

Thanks for that link, Shaft. Very interesting and a nice addition to the corresponding part of the Birka website. As you mention loose covers floating about, indeed that does happen. Even some record sellers seem to dump the LPs (considered worthless? trashed?) and use the cardboard covers as PADDING when they send out their goods!! So through the years I ended up with a handful of rather nice 50s U.S. covers without their contents, e.g. Billy Eckstine on MGM, Harmonicats on Mercury, Billy Vaughn and others. Nice wall decoration anytime but still a real pity for those who happen to like that music.

Well, Shaft, if there had been a cover of that BARBEN 1004 LP "Sax Apeal" by the Swedish Modern Jazz group feat Lars Gullin in that lot, I'd be very glad to snap up the cover only. I do have the music on a 70s reissue LP but with an EXTREMELY nondescript cover (Telestar label, I think) so the original one would be a LOT nicer (even if we don't count the cheesecake factor). :D And YET I am able to enjoy the music for what it is, original cover or not ...

Sure there are two different (and not necessarily, though often) related aspects: - Enjoyment of the music per se - Collecting the music in the way it was marketed (original releases or not) Maybe Mr Christensen was just adressing the enjoyment of music a such but in the context of my original question and the subsequent answers it did come across as something like "pointless worrying about the packaging at all, it's only the music that counts". Well, in THIS (collecting) context it is not, at least not in the way such a categorical statement would imply, hence my reaction. We all know fanatical collectors (who might see those platters more as investment objects and not as items that actually get regular spins on the tunrtable) are overdoing things, but aren't we all sometimes? I'd bet that almost ALL of us forumists here (who usually are collectors in a way too) value a nicely packaged release or reissue (maybe reproducing the orignial artwork) higher than one with shoddily and clumisly "updated" sleeves/artwork etc. But except if you are really a fanatical "first pressing" fetichist you will be able to get enjoyment out of the music even if the packaging is so-so. E.g. the "Jazz in Paris" CD series is nice, but wouldn't we all just love to be able to at least look at many of those items in their original 10in LP releases, if only for the artwork? So I do consider myself a collector too yet I couldn't care less about OBI strips, for example. But as for just "enjoying the music", how far can you cut down on the packaging goes with the music? The other day I attended a lindy hop record hop here in town, and the DJ spun a track by the Ina Ray Hutton big band, and obviously he (and the dancing crowd) enjoyed it too. Very nice, and as reissues are thin on the ground, I asked him what track it exactly was. His answer: "Don't know, just burnt me a CD-R one day but have no info on the contents at all." WTF???? Like a track but don't even care enough about it to find out the TITLE of that track? Just fodder for hoofing on the dancefloor? So this is what full anjoyment of the music amounts to? So if we are at least halfway interested in the music, don't we almost automatically end up with wanting to find out about the artists too? Which leads to sleeve notes and then to recording dates etc. etc. Just to put things into context and be able to explore more music like that from a knowledgeable starting ground. Yet all this without going haywire about first pressings etc. Which in turn should make it easy to understand why that foolishness of DUMPING the covers that I described in my opening post just left me so exasperated ...

FWIW, I did not mean to really ridicule anyone but I take offense at being ridiculed or belittled - even if it is by someone made out by others to be claiming "seniority" (though I doubt Mr Christensen himself made his statements based on his "seniority" - of which, incidentally, I was largely unaware when I replied). And please do remember what the original question and the initial replies were all about. Don't you think that denigrating the very concern about throwing out those covers as if any regrets about this were an oh so silly thing to do almost automatically calls for an answer if one really cares about the subject on hand? In short, if respect for differences in personal preferences is being claimed then this clearly is no one-way street and respect should be due both ways. Besides, I for one am not THAT much of a youngster in my own listening myself anymore (for better or worse!) Or do 36 years of active collecting and real interest in the music amount to nothing? If so, boy, do we have a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears youngsters around here ... That said, I still agree with Shaft's latest statement above about what constitutes a "complete" product. Hence my regrets about the state of affairs in my initial post. Is that really that hard to sympathize with, even to seasoned listeners?

Sure, no doubt, but wouldn't this lifelong experience make it even more obvious (and understandable!!) that others may have an ever so slightly different attitude about it? Especially since this "slightly different" attitude is not exactly one that is shared by an infinitesimally small minority only? So again, this (statement) explains that (reaction) ... Besides, if Mr Christensens's point had only been that there is little point in drooling about original first pressing covers, ears in wax, deep or not so deep grooves, small print addresses etc., I'd be in total agreement with him. But don't tell me, tell all those BN/Impulse etc. geeks out there. While I understand their collecting point and of course am glad to get my hands on an early pressing at a BARGAIN price here and there too, to me a decent facsmilie reissue usually gives just as much pleasure. HOWEVER - the sheer act of THROWING AWAY those covers needlessly (which is what THIS thread is about) is just so incredibly, unfathomably silly that there hardly are any words to describe such folly. Hence my original question about what would remain of such stripped records if one would want to avoid overpaying for these items.

Sorry Shaft, I really did not want to downplay Mr Christensen's enthusiasm for the music. But putting down and negating ANY importance of the covers of the records (as part of the COMPLETE object) in such an outright and uncompromising manner really struck me as very, very odd. Like you, I'd see things like this: For me an LP cover is part of the experience of listening to a record. A nice laminated cover with information and nice pictures adds to the experience. Of course the music is the most important part and therefore I've been known to buy reissues of desirable music with garish, atrocious covers if you wanted the music badly enough and nothing else was available or affordable (a common occurrence in the 70s and early 80s) but THROWING OUT the covers in the first place (like in the case that started this thread) is just utterly foolish. Oh well, maybe I can bring myself to having a look at this "naked" collection ...

With all due respect but this is silly. Or else this post is a hoax, a put-on, trying to pull one's leg or whatever ... The music is what counts - true, but the album cover art (in its ORIGINAL size!!) is not to be neglected either. On the better items it forms a unit with the contents of the vinyl. Not to mention the "rest" of the cover information. Especially since there is no REASONABLE NEED AT ALL to separate the record from the sleeve in this manner anyway. OTOH, Mr Christensen, welcome to the world of cassettes. The music in its purest form and totally uncluttered by unwieldy album covers. Or much better still - downloads. No jewel cases or booklets to contend with either. Just streams of musical bits and bytes that will fit easily on any ipod. Time to dump your CDs. Or to put it yet another way ... you surely must have been kidding???

Thanks for your inputs (more will be welcome, of course). Instinctively I'd also tend to pass without much regrets, especially since it is likely to be a hard battle convincing the "non-initiated" why the lack of covers renders most items virtually worthless without coming across as being rude (particularly if you are talking to one's heirs). But while I would not really bet on the presence of any deep-groove Blue Notes and the like there are a couple of late 50s/early 60s "Eurojazz" releases where I'd even welcome just the vinyl even without its covers so I'd grab any straw for these. Beyond that, though, it would be interesting to hear what else might be worthy of consideration without overpaying. Hence my question ...

May I ask for some guidance on the following matter related to vinyl collections? A friend of mine recently told me about a colleague of hers whose husband has died and who now would like to dispose of his "jazz collection". Not a big one (some 200 LPs or so) and I have no idea yet about the actual contents nor the jazz styles covered or the period during which the records were accumulated. The only name my friend was able to quote was "Miles Davis" (no idea if Birth Of The Cool, KOB, Electric Miles or whatever, though). Now the BIG snag is: It has also transpired that the owner wanted to save on storage space and has stored the records in some kind of crates or boxes. As a result, ALL THE COVERS HAVE VANISHED!! Unbelievable, galling, especially with this kind of collection. We've all seen it with pop and MOR 45s from the 50s and early 60s stacked in record racks now on sale at jumble sales, but THIS??? My question therefore is: Assuming that this gent bought these records when they were fairly current, are there ANY jazz LPs/labels/styles/artists from the, day, late 50s to the 80s, that would be worth more than, say, a buck or two at all, if they were clean and early pressings but, alas, minus their covers? I have no intention of speculating with this kind of stuff at all but of course would like to avoid overpaying if I really took the plunge and went for a substantial number of these. Offhand I'd say in this situation the entire stock isn't worth more than a token amount but I may be wrong. Of course any sort of reissue or very much later pressing would disqualify at once but what kind of records would you advise looking out for anyway? If I can bring myself to taking a look at such a heartbreaking mess, that is ... How can ANYBODY be so dumb, especially in RECENT decades of record buying?

If you've "been there, seen that", Bill, then I'd almost guarantee you'd not even regret shelling out for the book to have it as a permanent keepsake of those times on your bookshelf.

Received my copy of this masterwork yesterday, and while I do feel sort of flattered by the fact that my copy seems to have been the first one shipped to Germany (according to what the publishers said), this is not the main reason for these lines but rather the fact that this book deserves every plug that it can get! Whatever in-print and online reviews of this book say - they do not exaggerate one bit. Don't be misled by the title - the regional aspects really will probably be secondary to most readers (except those chosen few who "have been there") and to "non-locals" (read: "non-initiated") this certainly does not detract from the contents at all but will rather deepen the info provided as they provide an example of flourishing local or regional jazz scenes that unfortunately often remained unrecorded and therefore undocumented. The narrative is fascinating (even if you are not familiar with the local scene at all), the photos and memorabilia fascimiles are varied and excellently produced (and while I have doubts about the accuracy of 1 or 2 captions this does not detract in any way) and most will be new to any reader, and the information on the entire British jazz scene of this era (and even of jazz at large, because the pictorial and text coverage of the local concert and jam session appearances of numerous U.S. jazz stars will provide added info to their biographies) is priceless. So even to non-locals, this is a "Must Have" a for anybody interested in this key period of British jazz. Put on some Esquire vinyls or Jasmine CD reissues of Brit modern jazz from those decades, browse through the countless "action shots" of British jazz notables and relive the music with an entirely new, added visual dimension! 100 out of 100 points in my book anytime ...

Speaking of the Capitols and their unavailability in Denmark, seems like the Kentons did reach Danish soil not long afterwards after all, as in the case of this recording of almost exactly 60 years ago: Amazing, too, that they still used the older pre-1948 spelling of their language (use of capitals in nouns, aa instead of å etc.) for the copyright "small print" at this later date... Makes the record look older than it is. The transition must have been slow.

Please bear with me for insisting about that point once more, but what makes you think that music that is no longer in print will "never be heard again"? - What makes you think the awareness of those interested in the music is limited to "in-print" items only? - Isn't there a substantial market of secondhand OOP or even LONG-OOP original releases and aren't these recordings available SOMEHOW (for those in the know anyway, and for the most part it is those in the know who care enough about the music who'd go to lengths in sourcing these OOP items, thereby making them "heard" again)? - Hasn't it always been so that part of ANYBODY's favorite music (jazz or not) has been OOP at one time and therefore had to be sourced by some other means? But is this a contradiction or an insurmountable problem? Hasn't the fact that part of the music one would like to hear has gone OOP ALWAYS been part of the music searching, buying and listening habits? In short, I still am not quite sure what your are getting at except trying to come up with a percentage figure of the music in print that might perhaps be used to see if the reissue market is healthier (or worse off) these days than it was at a randomly selected earlier point in time. So for the time being I'd tend to agree with .:.impossible's statement above.

Same question here. Somehow I am not really sure I understand what the thread starter is after. "Jazz lost" is probably a matter of perspective anyway. Just imagine the old-time blues recordings of the 20s where there were a good many recordings that purportedly exist but no surviving copies of the records seemed to have been found. And then ... THIS: http://www.amazon.com/Stuff-That-Dreams-Are-Made/dp/B000E6UK9Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1300713988&sr=8-2 (And similar reissues) I am not sure, of course, but to me it seems that virtually everything is bound to come to light again one of these days. And with today's media it then of course is all over the place (to those who are looking for it). So the key question seems to be: Are we talking about COMMERCIAL recordings or aren't we? Of course, if you count in transcriptions, acetates, Jerry Newman/Boris Rose type live recordings/airshot dubs (what's the name of that engineer again whose collection came to light recently??) or other private/semi-private recordings (and all these ARE recordings after all, though not commercially issued), then there may be a substantial amount that has indeed been lost forever. But to the (collecting) public at large it never really existed anyway so whatever comes to light is a sort of bonus (and may or may not be counted in) ....

Getting back to the BIRD movie, I am sort of surprised at the reactions (even recent ones) by many of those who commented. For goodness sake, this is HOLLYWOOD - what do you expect from ANY sort of bio, especially if it involves a musician celebrity? There's BOUND to be a good deal of stereotypes, headline-catching sensationalism and clichés being thrown in. Hard to imagine this is ever going to be radically different. Especially if it should be true that in this case personal vetos may have prevented certain persons from being portrayed in the plot. It's been a couple of years since I watched "Bird" (the video cassette still is around, someday again maybe ...) but I distinctly remember I was fairly satisfied with the overall results. Because IMHO with this kind of Hollywood fictionalizing you can only hope that fiction doesn't win out totally so you do have to make concessions from the outset IMO. The only recent musician bio movie where I remember the scores were distinctly higher still is "I Walk The Line". Though I admit that I haven't bothered to check up on the facts in the Tina Turner bio (am not that much of a fan so don't really care, but at any rate the actor who played Ike Turner fitted the bill even less - visually, above all - than Forrest Whittaker fitted the Bird persona ).

Could it be that this is a question of "not losing one's face"?? Interesting report and comment on this aspect (of evacuation politics and people leaving Japan now) on a German news site today (in German so no use providing a link here): The gist of it is that according to what's part of the way the Japanese see themselves the basic rule is: "As a Japanese, you stay put". Hard to imagine elsewhere what do we really know (and understand)?

What do you mean, what's the story on Michel Ruppli? I'd not really have associated him primarily with BN anyway as I came acoss others of his discographies much earlier (labels I was/am particularly interested in). He just seems to have been digging deeply into label discographies (well before the internet era), including sections with various LP/45/78 other release series to cross-reference things beyond mere session details. Others may have gone down the same route. Otherwise, I agree with what Chuck Nessa and Chris A said about discographies and the work involved (and I DID notice the ones Chuck Nessa mentioned and - more tellingly so - did NOT mention among those who did the PIONEERING groundwork before the lifters came along). I for one did not mind shelling out e.g. for a (secondhand) set of the Jepsen discographies, Leadbitter/Slaven's (original and then the updated 2-volume) Blues works as well as for specialist works in more recent times such as Harry Nicolausson's Swedish Jazz discography or Ginell/Coffey's Discography of Western Swing and Hot String Bands 1928-42. A lot of work went into these and they were worth the price of admission in my book. Though it can add up indeed ... Some may be available online, e.g. on hindsight I could have avoided buying the Nicolausson discography if I had become aware much earlier of the much-updated complete works accessible and donwloadable online on the Visarkiv website. And others are an ongoing group effort as other collectors contribute to and deepen the research findings, e.g. (to get back to the Michel Ruppli label discographies) in the case of the Chess discography, for example, a lot of which (covering early Chess 78s) was developed in much greater depth on the Red Saunders Foundation website. But IMO it is always up to the compilers to decide if they want to make this accessible to everyone and it should never, never be taken for granted. This is one area where the urge to want to (and feel entitled to) get everything free through the web ought to have its limits.

Yes! By all means!!