Big Beat Steve

"And the like" or not, those who seem to be complaining about "those Andorrans" all the time (and may now be silently approving that ther may get "what's due them") would do well to be much more concerned about the PROPER boxes and their ilk than about those Andorrans. The fact that the Proper reissues cut off the music on their boxes as soon as - oh wonder - the 50-year threshold is reached does not sound like they'd place an exceedingly huge priority on paying royalties in a big way. And the selection of a lot of the material on their boxes reeks quite a bit of previously reissued material that avoids the trouble of having to dig out NEVER previously reissued stuff from scratchy 78s etc. Rehashing, in short. Is that going to stay that way if the 70-year limit were enforced? Whereas Fresh Sound (and Blue Moon in the R&B field) do reissue their share of real "orphan works" that would otherwise go totally neglected and they therefore fill niches quite nicely. Or when did anybody last hear anyone crying out loud about the big corporations promoting music coming from labels such as Unique or Urania?

Check out these well-done reissues for the core of his 50s jazz output that put his name on the jazz map (at least to us over here): http://www.bear-family.de/index.php?sid=27c9f42633f3652577b0313bc99cadd4&cl=details&anid=670595d78b1e3ea2fe43acc00370939a&listtype=search&tcinterpret=wolfgang%20lauth&tcexact=0 http://www.bear-family.de/index.php?sid=27c9f42633f3652577b0313bc99cadd4&cl=details&anid=982c77a89709beb5e48bb558124cb6c7&listtype=search&tcinterpret=wolfgang%20lauth&tcexact=0 Sorry to hear he passed away but this only reminds us all how far back in the past the 50s are by now. RIP and thanks for some fine contributions to the "Eurojazz" legacy.

Now that's a Mosaic set I'd buy in a second! They've all been around the reissue block (at least on vinyl) so often that I am not sure what market there is left that would warrant a really lucrative market. Especially since I have a feeling that (as far as collector appeal goes) mainstream (or "middle") jazz even is a "niche" market within the greater jazz niche per se.

Sorry to disagree but while I have no doubt about the excellence of the Hawkins date I really have no complaints about the enjoyable standards of the Buddy Tate and Budd Johnson dates either. As for the producers being too "deferential" (won't look it up right now but IIRC they explained their approach in more appropriate - and quite plausible - terms in contemporary issues of "Jazz Monthly"), I cannot really see what's wrong with letting the old men have their way instead of trying to coax them into a mold that may not always have been 100% theirs outside the recording studio. Which is maybe what left me a bit puzzled with some of those Swingville dates (some of those I have heard more closely anyway). I can see the appeal of those Swingville dates to those who at the same time have explored the Prestige/Riverside etc. catalogs from the Hard Bop end of jazz, so sessions where (except on sessions like the "Basie Reunion" dates) the producers' rule seemed to have been to "let's make those oldsters show off to what extent - comparatively speaking - they have absorbed their hard bop" certainly will be fine for that target audience. Yet if you aproach "middle jazz" from a chronological/evolutionary point of departure of late 30s and 40s swing then the reaction would rather be "What's the point?". So the Felsted dates sound more like a logical evolution to me, but of course I can see why those weaned on Prestige/Swingville etc. will find them just not quite adventurous enough. But in the end it all boils down to a matter of personal taste, I guess.

You forgot to mention Slim Whitman which (to my surprise, as discovered during my stays in London in 1975-77) was almost as well-represented as Jim Reeves in the country corners of the record shops.

Guess it was/is a case of geography too. In Europe older coutry music (ranging from 50s "honky tonk/hillbilly bop" right back to what is referred to as "oldtime" country music) has been a subculture of its own for a long time and has amounted to a relatively small but constantly active and apparently viable niche market. No overly negative connotations to the "hillbilly" term either, as far as I can see. Since "country" music has become so diluted, insipid and "mainstreamized" into something only superficially "rural" or "non-pop" since the 60s, the "hillbilly" term is often employed to describe the "real thing" (i.e. older country styles that are perceived - correctly or not - to be more "sincere" and "handcrafted" styles of country music) in ONE SNGLE broad sweep. Stylistically inaccurate and superficial too, but there you are ...

:lol: :tup

It all depends ... If you feel that you already become a "creature of wider social forces" in the very moment that you decide for yourself that the musical fare blaring from your radio day in day out does not satisfy you and then discover some "special-interest" music off the mainstream of Top 40 pop that DOES hold your interest (and often happens to be some musical style from the past) then does this mean that this individualistic or nonconformist attitude is part of those "wider social forces"? I wonder ... After all nobody but I MYSELF forced me to discard the mainstream mass-media music. And the preferences for this or that "niche" music are nothing but my own choice. Especially since there would have been a dozen different retro niche music styles to choose from so what wider social forces could possibly have pushed me towards THAT PARTICULAR retro music I happen to prefer? Those who turn towards some "retro" music style just because this "retro" thing is all the rage might be under the impact of those wider social forces indeed (much as those who always go for the latest "hits") but those people uusally don't last in that niche music. If you listen primarily to music that even in its ORIGINAL form of release was released in an album format then I'd bet you do. And it does make sense if you perceive the album as a coherent entity. But isn't this totally different in the case of that pop music that has always been geared towards the 45 rpm or "chart SINGLE" format? Albums were and are pretty much of an afterthought there. And I think with downloads or iPods where you can make up your personal "albums" all the time this is even more so. But I cannot really see this as a drawback as long as you really are interested enough to LISTEN to the individual tunes and absorb them instead of just using the string of individual tracks as a sort of background noise (much in the way those old 50s easy listening "Music to do your needlework by"-type LPs were devised). And besides - in some instances it is quite sensible to stick to an individual track format. Remember how often people have to readjust their listening habits when absorbing music from the 78 rpm era. In its original release form that music often was designed to be consumed one record (2 tracks) at a time, and to many of today's listeners listening to it in a string of 20 tracks on one single CD in one go may produce a feeling of sameness and of lack of variety. So this is the reverse of the "concept album" case where the original way of listening to the music again plays a role in order to be able to appreciate it fully. So I think the barrier is not between individual tracks vs. albums but rather between intently listening and just "grazing", and you can just as well "graze" on an entire album without really absorbing it IMHO.

Strictly speaking it's the same here too. When I explore and enjoy (mostly) 30s to 50s music (almost the whole gamut from hillbilly fiddlers to big bands to R&B to west coast jazz to mambo, which makes it a wider stylistic choice than what MOST of TODAY'S music listeners would embrace wholeheartedly anyway) I am still way behind 70s or 80s or 90s music (the resurgence of which is of course being promoted as "retro" again today). @King Ubu: I have tried to work my way through that writeup you linked but admit that somehow I cannot see what the reviewer is getting at. Except that this statement really grasps the fact that many revivals are not just revivals or carbon copies of the past: "Hier beschreibt er klug und kompetent, wie Retro die Geschichte nicht nur wiederholt, sondern schärft und in gewissem Sinn sogar nachbessert: Das Revival definiert einen Stil oder eine Ära passgenauer, als es das Original je konnte." ("Here he describes in an intelligent and competent way how retro not only repeats history but renders the past more concrete and in a way improives upon it: The revival definies a style or an era in a more axcurate way than any original could ever have accomplished.") Which indeed is the essence of many revival music productions, e.g. in 50s rock'n'roll. Many of today's rockabilly subculture bands at FIRST hearing sound like carbon copies of the old originals but if you listen closer you find that not only are they much superior to MANY of the 50s recordings in the way the musicians master their instruments but they also go out all the way and sharpen and condense the musical contents where the originals either did not dare to go all the way in making uncompromising musical statements lest they sound too shocking in 50s puritan USA or just plainly were too awkward and amateurish in their recorded efforts. And today's musicians achieve this even WITHOUT trying to show off at every second guitar lick that they have listened to their Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck or Rory Gallagher (which would have been inappropriate anyway if you wanted to produce something in the spirit of FIFTIES rock and would only have resulted in a garish stylistic mishmash which is neither flesh nor fowl). Same for those recent "Brit pop" bands. In case you remember that European chart hit "Lemon Tree" of a few years back, wouldn't it have been right at home in 60s British pop charts soundwise too, yet added something new that is hard to pin down but remains within the musical limits set by the style of 60s pop so does NOT sound out of place even under retro aspects? Of course it's a fine line between perpetuating the music of that era in an "authentic" way by sharpening and condensing its essence beyond pure copying on the one hand and turning the music you are trying to keep alive into a caricature by going all overboard yet grasping only the superficial elements of that style. But those who succeed in sharpening and concentrating an earlier musical style today do manage to create something new while remaining within the credible stylistic bounds of that musical style. So it's not only "retro" ALL the way.

Couldn't it just be that those who prefer yesterday's music (i.e. yesterday's musical STYLES) do so because today's "new" music (or whatever is being touted by the music makers and promoters as the "latest" "must-hear" thing) just does not strike a chord (literally) with them? Either because to them it does not offer anything that new (who was it who said about a given musical style that "whatever could be said muscially has already been said"? It could be said about many styles, I'd venture to say) or just does not happen to fit their musical preferences. Or maybe those who prefer yesterday's music just are soooo tired of all those fads and that hullaballoo that often boiled down to empty packagings with not the kind of substance that the listeners would have expected. So why force yourself into bending and deforming your musical tastes just to please those who go about touting this or that new musical fad? At any rate - and this may come as a shock to some musical practitioners - "newness for newness's sake" just isn't enough anymore to a certain bunch of listeners. Empereor's clothes effect, I'd say. And I cannot see this is all THAT bad as long as there is enough music to enjoy anyhow. And let's not forget in some cases the music from the past may also stand for what is perceived as a "better", more easily manageable era (especialy with the benefit of hindsight) when everyday life evolved and progressed (!!) one step after another instead of jumping, spluttering and hopping about in a seemingly unmanageable zigzag course like it seems to do today.

Oh, you've got to read the Gennari; it's a hoot, though no doubt dangerous as hell if it becomes the version of things that gets passed down through time, as might well be the case. So would you say the Gennari book would be an entertaining read, assuming that I consider myself able to take things (historical or factual) with a dose of salt where needed and have derived a certain amount of pleasure out of reading several of Hugues Panassié's books too (by taking them not at all as the Gospel but as a source of what one MIGHT think about this or that musical development without the reader having to agree with it at all)?

The HMWV shop as shown here http://voicesofeastanglia.blogspot.com/2011/05/streets-of-london-1976-1978.html must have been exactly like I first saw it as my first stays in london (14-day stays at host families organized by our school in cooperation with the YMCA) date to 1975-77. I dimly remember the staircase too but am pretty sure there were no listening booths anymore by that time. Otherwise I seem to have been rather underwhelmed by that shop as I cannot remember having bought much there. Probably their selection of 50s rock'n'roll, jazz, blues and R&B that would have been of greatest interest to me was nothing compared to Dobell's, those small shops along Portobello Road, a pretty nice shop (the name of which I forget) at a street corner not far from the Bloomsbury Book shop operated by John Chilton's wife, and several "neighborhood" record stores too, plus several more that I did check out but cannot remember their location anymore. Or else everything was "full price" at the HMV shop and no special offer bins anywhere there (which would have been of greater appeal to my small student's purse ).

Uh oh ... how many "absolutely coolest" LP's have you dug up in recent months, judging by your posts here? Must be freezing cold by now in your record rack by now if one platter is cooler than the other among those you've bought. :g But Gene Ammons is the real thing, of course. Though I'd be a bit wary of some of these compilations, seeing the mass of Jug recordings that Prestige has churned out through the times. So why go for repackagings?

One of those dreadful, artificially "updated" 70s covers that invariably put you off if you were out for substantially more "vintage" jazz and just got lost in the flood of items that hit the market in those years. I am pretty sure I have seen this set (or others from that serieS) but it just did not click with me when browsing through record stacks so I did not even bother to check the discog details. Seeing what was on this twofer I'd likely have snapped it up if it hadn't looked so horribly "70s funky-ish" (so you did not even imagine there'd be classy 50s stuff on it, especialy since the Impulse logo immediately made you think "cannot be older than early 60s" which by and large was a bit too recent for my PRIME jazz buying targets in my young days )). I picked up the Peacock Crossroads LP by Sonny Criss quite a while later when it was reissud in FACSIMILE form by Fresh Sound but somehow never managed to grab the Kenny Dorham album on vinyl.

I don't believe anyone has guessed who this is yet. O.K., I see that not much is going to be forthcoming, so here is the reply, and I SWEAR I AM NOT KIDDING! This is him TODAY: During his student days in the mid-50s he was the singer in a group called The DOCTORES. One or two of the other band members went on to make more of a name for themselves in more famous Italian bands, and him ... we all know the rest ...

Johnny Ray? Looks like him, but Wikipedia has him as Johnnie Ray and American. ding-ding!! thanks, Bill. actually knew the correct spelling but thought maybe he was British. bottom line: wrong answer! Wrong on all counts. Sorry. Feel free to try again. Too few shots in the dark yet for me to go ahead and spill the beans.

O.K. so let's see if you know your celebs really, really well. Only hint: He is NOT American but I'd guarantee that ALL of you around here know him!

The "Tenors Head-On" LP was reissued on (Liberty-owned) Blue Note in 1978 (in the "The Blue Note Re-Issue Series" program that also had those famous twofers). But certainly not because of the "Lighthouse series" tag. The first vinyl reissue of "Double or Nothing" that I am aware of is the Fresh Sound facsimile LP of the 80s.

I checked Part 1 of the Liberty discpography linked above qhen i posted my< message yesterday but did not see any other mention of either the LIGHTHOUSE band name nor of Howard RUMSEY except for a 1963 sampler that included tracks from previous releases. So ....? And the Goldmine 1949-1969 album guide does not list any Liberty LP except Howard Rumsey's Vol. 1 (LRP 3045) under his name either, so if there ever was a Vol. 4 (or more) the Lighthouse connection must have been even farther fetched than No. 2 and 3. But who knows ...? Maybe Calvin Jackson's Jazz Variations (LRP 3071)? But NOT the Hollywood Saxophone Quartet's Sax Appeal (LRP 3080). I haven't got the record on hand right now but cannot recall any "Lighthouse Series" mention. Maybe Teasing The Korean would know about any others that may not immediately come to mind to fans of jazz in the stricter sense? A lot of the Liberty catalog from those years seems to fall straight into his areas of preference.

O.K., I see - so it seems like this was more of a marketing gimmick than an actual recording involving the Lighthouse ALL STARS. But after all two thirds from the rhythm section (Red Mitchell and Stan Levey) had indeed been held over from Vol. 1 of that series. And Howard Rumsey seems to have provided the name only. Which OTOH would explain why Jepsen (inexplicably at first sight, if you did not pull out the ORIGINAL album cover) listed the Tenors Head-On LP in his discography under "Rumsey, Howard".

Headman, I think Romualdo was referring specifically to the LIBERTY releases. The Contemporary items are rather well-known fare, not to say common knowledge. @Romualdo: Could it be that what you describe as Vol. 3 is the Stan Levey-Max Roach shared date released on Liberty LRP 3064? Check the listing on this site: http://www.bsnpubs.com/liberty/libertya.html I really cannot find anything listed between LRP 3045 (vol. 1 as per the original record sleeve) and LRP 3064 (Vol.3 as per your statement) that would fit a description of a Lighthouse/Rumsey-led or backed date. LRP 3051 (Kamuca-Perkins' Tenors Head-On) would not fit the bill either. For more Liberty discographies, see here: http://www.bsnpubs.com/liberty/libertyb.html http://www.bsnpubs.com/liberty/libertyc.html

I find this kind of e-mail rather irritating and the light it sheds on its originator really is odd. Really sorry to say this, especially since - after having bought the Serge Chaloff, Allen Eager, Charles Mingus and Bird & Diz at Town Hall Uptowns and being VERY satisfied with their musical and booklet content - Uptown really did look like one of the more thoughtfully done labels that really tries to fill gaps in collectors' record shelves instead of rehashing previously done reissues with a minimum of new material and living off the (often rather subjective) "improved sound quality" argument. I'd been looking forward to the Charlie Christian CD but after having read the info on this board it seems I'd be buying it mostly for those few jam session tracks that start off the CD as most of the Goodman stuff has been around indeed (and I probably have a fair bit of that on previous reissues). And if Frank Driggs' liner notes really are that much off the mark (anybody care to confirm or refute Allen's assessment of those liner notes?)... In short, my enthusiasm for this particular item has waned a bit. Too bad (my loss, maybe, I know, but still ...) Getting back to that mail: I haven't come across any of this in small collectors' record label "customer service policies" yet but in a way it DOES sound familiar, unfortunately: I've witnessed several cases of small businesses catering to niche markets and selling to customers largely perceived to be "collectors" or "enthusiasts" where complaints about product quality that was perceived by the customers to be substandard (and may have been even less of a case of personal preferences there as it related to goods not fit for their intended purpose of use, not giving the expected service life, etc.) had been voiced publicly on forums such as this. Not in threads started specifically to downgrade the items but just in the course of exchanges between forumists when the topic of users' experiences with this or that item came up and where pros and cons obviously went to and fro. Dissatisfaction with the goods (even if the causes for dissatisfaction were provable) was invariably countered by the sellers of those goods by berating the complainants, in a tone not too dissimilar, the gist of which often seemed to be "Hey, we are doing you FAVOR by supplying you with these items, whatever we put out is top notch because the items are being put out for this NICHE market and if you are dissatisfied then you just are not qualified to use them" (or indeed even by attempting to sue them for slander etc.). Really seems like niche producers of niche items for niche markets where the sellers perceive themselves as being "enthusiasts selling to fellow enthusiasts" are particularly touchy when it comes to handling complaints about their products' features, even if shortcomings could be proven. Too bad ... but what can you do as a customer ...?

The lonely woman on the Atlantic/London cover was top model Sondra Peterson . Saw her a number of times when she was French jazz radio broadcaster (and director of Jazz Magazine) Daniel Filipacchi's companion. Filipacchi later headed Hachette Publications in France and the USA. Always wondered who was on the cover. Amazing what one can learn here. Ha, for a second I thought Wanda Jackson had made it onto a MJQ cover!

The liner notes of Xanadu 172 specifically state this session was recorded for Cosmopolitan. Jepsen's discography (compiled before any reissues were released, as far as I can see) includes all four tracks but neither a matrix number nor a release label and number for tracks 2 and 4. Which seems to indicate that the existence of these tracks was known but that they had not been released.

While I am somewhat less enthusiastic about that label (they are O.K. by my taste but not more, especially their pop stuff of the 50s really is VERY middle-of-the-roadish, and while their jazz output has a lot of gems it still is more of a matter of "special interest" jazz if you dive deeply into it), there must be something to that label. About 6 years ago I bought a collection about 700 78rpms of 40s and 50s jazz/r&b/U.S. pop, and while the collection had already been picked over (but not in a targeted manner nor excessively as far as I could ascertain) before I got hold of it, the lot I bought had a really extraordinary share of Capitols. Pretty amazing since none of the other majors were nearly as well represented in the lot. Seems like the previous owner was a sort of Capitol nut too. So now I have plenty of Kentons (not that I would mind), Les Pauls, etc.