Big Beat Steve

I've seen it too. I think it's either in "Honkers & shouters" by Arnold Shaw, or the sleeve notes to a compilation set of R&B records made in Nashville (which I haven't got - but I saved it on the computer but can't remember where). MG That wouldn't be the "A Shot in The Dark" Nashvile R&B set by Bear Family? The accompanying book is a fat one but I cannot recall that Etta James was featured there. Neither was she on the Nashville R&B vinyl comps on the Krazy Kat label IIRC.

I'm afraid neither Buchreitz nor me will understand ANY of that - nor will anybody else. Whereas Swedish/Danish/Norwegian are lumped together in MANY printed media, for example, in Scandinavia where readers' contributions come into play (as you undoubtedly know ...) . OK, just to round off the debate and get back to Lbuchreitz's latest post (this time in English so Chris will spare us an avalanche of Icelandic ): Of course I see your point and I agree. But neither will you get a totally realistic appraisal from any moderately sharp-witted collector either who would be interested in BUYING these records himself. If he is to pay the items FULL PRICE that's not exactly an incentive to buy because it is not really a good buy (much less a bargain) for him. In short, try to get an appraisal of the value from an impartial third party (if there is anybody like that). But moaning about the fact that dealers (and even the keener type of collector) will not provide you with the info that will enable you to push up the prices of the items that THEY might be interested in buying from you is just natural. It has always been like that and is something to be reckoned with at all times IMHO (in EVERY part of any market where the price is dictated by collectability criteria). Good luck!

As long as there are fans who (just kidding, but with a grain of truth) go about boasting that they'd "gladly buy a 10-CD set of (insert favorite artist here) brushing his teeth" there will be a market for items such as this.

Not wanting to sound cynical, but hasn't this been known for as long as people have handled diskettes (remember how they used to come down from 8" to 5.25" to 3.5"?) and have copied their favorite music (or data) on CD's (CR-R's)? I have some music in my collection that was burnt onto CD-R's more than 10 years ago and they still play fine but honestly, I would not want to trust them forever. Especially since even the life of commercially released CDs might be (relatively) limited too. And seeing how often my assertions that the pictures I still take on good ol' film rolls (with negatives being developed 'n all) will certainly outlast most photo files stored on some hard drive (external or not) have been met with condescending smiles I have now come to the point where problems such as those described in your post will raise nothing but a sneer from me. These people MUST have known better and acted accordingly or else they are just way too DUMB to manage archived materials at all - unfortunately!

Ah, I see - but now that's tricky. The title of an oft-recorded tune as the ALBUM title. Not the first thing that comes to mind when you read the THREAD title and are not that much into that period of Gillespiana. And amazingly not an album included in Goldmine's Price Guide (listing artist albums up to 1969).

MG, unless this is read by a real Dizzyphile who knows every track ever recorded by Diz inside and out and rattles off the reply, it might make a reply easier if you tell us which version of that tune it is exactly you are talking about (recording date, release, original release/label etc.). Because Diz must have recorded this tune I don't know how many tmies. I have two versions of this - one recorded for his Dee Gee label in 1951 and another one recorded live at Salle Pleyel in Paris in 1953 for Vogue. But these are not the ones you are talking about, of course.

Nice compilation for those who are totally new into the music but all others will probably have almost all of it. And uh oh ... turning the Cab's "Pickin' The Cabbage" into "Pickin' The GARBAGE" in the track listing. Hopefully not in the booklet. The Hi De Ho Man won't like it! And "Woody And You" is odd too.

So how come, then, that it has been possible to release such an extreme, immense quantity of transcriptions from that period for the enjoyment of collectors in (more or less) recent decades? Just wondering ...

I did not say your post was an endorsement but I did feel any such repeated presentation of this pseudo "reasoning" to be ... well ... ambiguous. You know ... there might be those who, upon reading these statements BEFORE having seen the JAZZ series, might indeed be too much in awe of the oh so sublime motivations of K.B. after all.

@cih: With all due respect: It is pretty silly to pretend one can go about presenting HISTORY in a way that skews, distorts, misrepresents and falsifies this same history in the name of "spirituality" (or whatever). If K.B. had wanted to do a film about the (in HIS VERY OWN opinion) supernatural stature of Louis Armstrong in jazz then he would have been welcome to do his own portrait of Pops. But do it all while pretenting this is a history of "Jazz" at large? Nah! (And yet the somewhat excessive spotlight on Pops is nowhere near the most criticable detail about this series). I am not as overly bugged by all these misrepresentations in this series as some other around here seem to be as this problem of diluting and trivializing history prepared for showing it to the masses on that little screen is a recurrent one and I have long since come to take it more or less for granted that hardly anybody goes to the trouble of really presenting the facts in a historically balanced way anymore. A hefty grain of salt and and/or some "beforehand knowledge" of the subject is always called for. So series such as this just aren't to be taken at face value. Because EVERYBODY of those who do such productions (and who usually are not diehard lovers of the subject but rather are "in it for the story") has his OWN "agenda"! And that might be a VERY far cry from any historically adequate presentation of the FACTS. What makes it worse in this particulary case IMHO is just that blurb that you quoted. I for one won't buy into this one bit. To me the essence of what the skewwed narrative is all about is just one thing - effects for effects' sake. Reminds me a bit of that quip heard elsewhere: Expert spectator says to self-appointed historian: "That history did not happen the way you presented it!" Self-apppointed historian replies to expert spectator: "No, it didn't, but the story was too good to pass up!" Except that K.B. probably believes that what he screened was indeed the real thing. So increase the dose of that grain of salt, everybody!

Prez and Basie and no Decca involved? Would this give the entire picture, then? As for the rest, I am afraid I am quite happy with my run of six 2-LP CBS sets of the Columbia material.

Just to make sure and since the description on the mosaic website isn't quite clear to me, does this set contain ANY TOTALLY NEW TRACKS, i.e. not just alternates but tunes that have NOT been released anywhere before? Either from the Decca or the Columbia periods?

Honestly, I don't know. These tracks would have been ideal for a compilation in the Classics Blues & Rhythm series or on the Blue Moon label but if they haven't made it there then I don't know.

Actually that's not quite so, MG. Annisteen Allen (as she was mostly billed throughout the 1945-55 period) did record quite a bit for Capitol in 1954-55 (with backing probably by the Howard Biggs orchestra) after her tenure with Lucky Millinder had already ended. They have been reissued in the 80s on the "Fujiyama Mama" (eat your heart out, Wanda Jackson! ) LP on (French) Capitol/Pathe Marconi. According to the liner notes of this and another LP of her slightly earlier sides she also recorded for Decca in 1956-57 and for Todd and Warwick in 1959/60.

That's all quite possible. Some parliamentary initiatives have already been launched in that respect so something might well be cooking. But this door swings both ways: NOTHING except eternal buyers' greed and extreme laziness and unwillingnes on the part of the distributors of the "real thing" forces ANYBODY to pay ripoff releases that duplicate, triplicate well-known reissue stuff such as KOB and other big names. And besides, all those remastering geeks among those of you out there who keep drooling forever about the umpteenth re-re-re-reissue and re-re-re-remastering of this or that so and so much-bit engineering trickery of this or that reissued-to-death platter on this or that major predictably collectible label and cult engineer make it all so easy for those ripoff labels. Because ANYBODY who follows this kind of debate on forums such as this here and sees how easily all those remastering and bonus tracks geeks will gladly dump their previously bought CDs because "upgrading" is all the rage will easily see that there is a huuuuge bite of the cake for them because the more reissue variants there are, the more anybody except the very, very shrewdest buyer will be confused forever and fall for any "bonus" trap that there is, for example. S they knwo pretty well where to go to cash in. OTOH, where things will REALLY hurt (if the "Beatles-triggered" copyright extension comes through) is when all those countless reissues that thankfully were done (BIG THANK YOU to Fresh Sound!) because NONE of the bigger label conglomerates ever gave a rat's ass about those semi-obscure and never-reissued items by artists known mostly to very advanced collectors only - but valuable music cherished by those in the know it was anyway. Things like that are likely to dry up and only the big, big, big names will continue to be listed. Because those who officially hold the rights (if any) to the other, more specialist items will never bother to reissue any of that anyway because there just ain't enough bucks to be made. So those of you who complain oh so loudly about ALL aspects of those "Andorran" labels have been warned! (Oh, but I forgot - those specialist reissues of niche products don't feature Miles or Trane or Mingus et al. and they are not on BN or Impulse or the like - so why would many of those engaged in this kind of debate care anyway?) But oh yeah - if the "Beatles-triggered" copyright extension should come to pass, then say Goodbye to your cherished Proper boxes too! No more cheap way of filling in your stuff from the 78rpm era that many of those dudes whose core jazz interest begins with hard bop only favor when looking tentatively into earlier periods of jazz but could never be bothered to pay at full price (shady label practices notwithstanding). BTW, and finally - has anybody ever given some serious thought to how long this royalty stuff is supposed to go on anyway? I am all in favor of enforcing the 50-year rule and making sure artists get their money during that entire time frame but isn't that PLENTY, PLENTY, PLENTY time for those artists who at one time way back when (50 years was a long time ago after all) happened to perform something to make some more from what they did one day way back then? No real need to pamper subsequent generations just the same way IMHO. About time their kids and grand-kids etc. get busy earning some money of their own! Just like people in other professions are quite naturally required to do too.

Quite OK IIRC. Been a while since I spun it. In a pinch I could compare the fidelity as I also have part of this "Little Man" album on an original Capitol EP in very decent condition. Not familiar with these tunes but the combination of Bluebird and Joe Williams sounds very much like "Big Joe" Williams - THE one and only Joe Williams to hard core (traditional-style) blues fans, especially given his extremely long and fertile recording career.

Very interesting review. Thanks for the link! A bit acidic but much to the point, I'd say, to all those who really are into the music and not just casually interested in the subject. Will print it out and file it with my copy of the JAZZ book.

I'm just an "ordinary" jazz fan and collector (though of relatively long standing ) and far afield from the States so of course I DID take in the series from one end to another. As for its relative merits, I guess I am somewhere between the "naysayers" and the "aye-sayers" (though maybe just a WEE bit towards the "Nay" side ). Being sort of on the outside (of the producers/behind the scenes jazz in-crowd people), I'd summarize my impressions like this: - Narrative to be taken with a grain of salt - yes (but only to be expected when something like this is produced for general public media consumption- YES, CONSUMPTION! ). - Historical facts: A bit too much slanted towards Pops and Duke as the all-encompassing continuum. A few stereotypes - yes, but to those who are moderately knowledgeable the presentation of historical facts is fair enough to spur them into doing their OWN reading. Again, a grain of salt is in order. But would the newbies remember the oversimplified facts as such later on anyway? So the harm done isn't THAT immeasurable IMHO. - Interviewee bigwigs: Marsalis, Crouch and that other one (white, short-bearded assistant college fesser type - can't think of his name right now) often came across a bit as "I am so important that only I can give you the lowdown on this" to me, but a lot of their comments made me automatically think of "To whom are they again and again stating the obvious"? Which in turn calls for that grain of salt as oversimplification goes with mass audience target groups. Not perfect but all too normal and to be expected. BUT - the footage is priceless and deserves to be taken in again and again. And this footage alone is worth the price of admission (free in my case as I taped it straight off the TV set ) And the image sequences do conjure up a fitting atmosphere IMHO. Now as some feel the narrative is doing the subject a disservice and as the music does not very often come directly from the footage but is a (non-sync) overlay of studio music, the excellent footage might even work with different (but stylistically related) jazz sounds after all. In fact, these visual impressions that might even work with slightly different sounds remind me of a rock club I used to visit for live concerts quite often in the 90s. They had a habit of having MTV run continuously on their overhead TV sets all across the dancefloor - video clips of hit parade fare, Beavis and Butthead toon sequences in between, and it did make for some nice stimulation, even though the music spun by the DJs was quite different style-wise. So why not try this with the Ken Burns series for a change in the same manner? Just turn off the sound, let the film run and put on your favorite jazz from the respective era yourself? It's all there. Imspiring jazz stills and footage, sequences that do create an intense atmosphere at times, Beavis and Butthead in between , it's all there. So what more do you want?

Did I sound like I'd want to do THAT? Otherwise, I agree with your comments about the value of the material included on Hep reissues, for example, as a probably better starting point for somebody who'd start from scratch.

O.K., thanks for the confirmation. As I have not been able to find a track list during an initial search, I take it from what you say that the set has a fairly large share of later recordings?

Wilson was great in the 30's & 40's - got a little sleepy in later years. This set appears to be a mixed bag. One of his finest later performances was with the Benny Goodman quartet reunion, recorded for RCA in 1963. In which respect do you consider this to be a mixed bag? I guess a lot of his prime leader dates of the 30s/early 40s have been reissued a zillion times (e.g. his big band on Tax and elsewhere, his small grups on various CBS twofers) but what exactly is there on this set that would be exceedingly hard to come by elsewhere among his earlier work (even for those who've been collecting for quite some time)? Or is it just there are too many of his later dates that you find "sleepy"? (I see what you mean, though - beyond a certain dose polishedness, politeness and gentlemanliness can be a bit too soothing).

So would the lineup indicated on the back cover be correct for ANY of the tracks at all?

As it happens I have that one too (bought by an aunt of mine on location during a trip to the USA in 1974 that happened to include a visit to a club where Max played - and, though not a jazz fan, she thoughtfully had it autographed by Max Kaminsky and a few of his band members). Will give it a listen later to see what it's all about. Bruyninckx' discogaphy isn't of any help as he lists the mjusicians from the back cover as the line-up (and a rec. date of c.1955) for the entire LP. Would be a bit surpised if copycat Lord listed anything substantially different.

Jeez, what did you smoke, all of you?