Big Beat Steve

Seems like this "post-war swing - or swing-based big bands" thread has passed into a "post-1960 all sorts of jazz big bands" thread that zigzags quite a bit. All very well (and of course it reflects each forumist's listening habits), but - Rabshakeh, if you still have an eye on post-WAR (meaning: starting with post-1945) swing-based big bands, I'll draft a more detailed vinyl list ASAP. But the direction of this thread is getting a bit hard to follow now so I am wondering where and what to focus on ... So I for one will try to be at last somewhat chronological. For the time being, starting with Lionel Hampton, those recommendations for later big bands are all very well, but if you want to get the full blast and experience the impact that the Hampton big band had in its day, take a shot at his post-war Decca and MGM big band studio recordings first of all. There have been at least two good reissue SERIES by MCA that cover the Decca period from 1942 up to 1950 (skip those "Best Of" albums unless you really want to limit yourself to a limited listening-in taster and feel the Hampton powerhouse band will be getting too much for you pretty fast - which can happen ... ). These two series were a 10-volume LP series on German MCA such as this one below (the Discogs listings of Lionel Hampton LP releases are a total mess so it is not easy to show the entire series under one link): https://www.discogs.com/release/6891400-Lionel-Hampton-Lionel-Hampton-Vol-4-1945-1946 And then there was a 6-LP set in the MCA "Jazz Heritage" series (as US or French MCA Coral pressings - this Vol. 3 incidentally truly ROCKS!): https://www.discogs.com/release/7855746-Lionel-Hampton-Lionel-Hampton-3-Sweatin-With-Hamp-1945-1950 The German series (covering the recordings chornologically) is for completists,the Jazz Heritage series has almost as much (the "essentials" and more), and both have their merits. The subsequent MGM recordings have been reissued in various guises. I have them here: https://www.discogs.com/master/1578506-Lionel-Hampton-And-His-Orchestra-Oh-Rock And then, to get an idea of the concert atmosphere of the 50s (there are PLENTY of records of these - but above all DON'T be discouraged by the blabber of snooty period reviewers who found all this was just some lowly "rock'n'roll circus"! ), have an eye on the following (going by the Discogs listings, for example, as there are numerous packagings so availability at the right price might dictate your choices): Apollo Hall Concert 1954 (N.B: NOT the N.Y Apollo but an excellent concert in Düsseldorf/Germany! ) Trianon (Chicago) 1954 Olympia 1956 (Paris concerts during a lenghty stay in France) "European Concert 1953" (IAJRC 31 - Paris, sept. 53, one of the very few documents of the great 1953 band that included Clifford Brown, Art Farmer, Gigi Gryce etc., though even here they are not very much in the foreground) Lionel Hampton in Vienna 1954 Vols. 1 and 2 (RST label) Of course you don't need all of these (unless you are evolving into a Hampton fanatic) but a sampling cannot hurt. Among the countless "odds and ends" live recordings by Hampton that have been reissued, one I think is worth singling out is this (regardless of which of the releases/pressings listed): https://www.discogs.com/release/2260684-Lionel-Hampton-His-Orchestra-Lionel-Hampton-His-Orchestra-1948 Fidelity is so-so but this is an intriguing and fairly bebop-influenced line-up (that includes young Charles Mingus and Wes Montgomery in the cast). So there you are for the (roughly) FIRST ten post-war years of the Lionel Hampton big band.

See here! 😁 Re- TTK's statement that there never was a good compilation of Sauter-Finegan, I'd stil recommend this LP as a starter/teaser (whatever ...): https://www.discogs.com/master/757317-Sauter-Finegan-Orchestra-Directions-In-Music In conjunction with Sauter-Finegan, I'd also recommend the recordings Eddie Sauter made for German radio in the later 50s. The record below AFAIK is the best compilation: https://www.discogs.com/release/10738993-Eddie-Sauter-In-Germany

@TTK: Which means Boyd Raeburn and Claude Thornhill would be on the edge between the big bands evolving from the swing era (as discussed in this thread) and an additional thread focusing on the decidedly more modernist ones you mentioned.

Seconded. And in a similar vein, this one: https://www.discogs.com/master/330274-Cootie-Rex-Cootie-Rex-In-The-Big-Challenge Not quite a big band, but a tentet anyway.

I will try to prepare a list but this will take some time and may in the meantime be partially superseded by others' recommendations (though, as you say, this era and style of jazz is in the shadow of the usual "first go-to accepted wisdom" within the jazz fraternity). BTW, I second JSangrey's plug for Harry James. There are few nice LPs of his post-war band that in part had a surprisingly modern book (e.g. his 1948-50 band featuring some arrangements by Johnny Richards and Neal Hefti).

Honestly, those Georgie Auld 50s recordings are a mixed bag in my humble opinion. Those that I've heard from that period of his recording career are O.K. but they are relatively middle-of-the-roadish, with In The Land of Hi-Fi clearly being near the top. So I am not quite sure how "advanced" (i.e. boppish/moderrn) you'd accept your post-war swing big bands to be. Would Boyd Raeburn, Elliott Lawrence or Claude Thornhill (or Earle Spencer, as an example where you need to dig deeper) be too "progressive" for you? Another one (though not quite as "progressive") would be Bobby Sherwood. Limiting myself at this time to "post-war" in the stricter sense, i.e starting right from 1945 onwards ("early post-war", therefore) and with working bands, how about - in a first step - exploring the 40s recordings by the Georgie Auld big band? One of my firm favorites of early post-war big band swing is anything by SAM DONAHUE. Both his transcriptions/airshots (released on Hep) and his commercial recordings for Capitol. Or TONY PASTOR (a personal quirk of mine, admittedly ... ) Or how about the modernized Benny Goodman band of about 1948 that has its bop influences? Or the Charlie Barnet Orchestra of 1946/47 on Apollo? Or how about trying the later 40s and 50s Les Brown orchestra whenever they were not infested by Doris Day vocals? 😁 (Butch Stone's zany vocals were more fun ...) Among post-war Black big bands, how about Gerald Wilson? Or the early post-war (mostly pre-R&B) big band of Johnny Otis? There are two nice LPs covering this period on Jukebox Lil, and (depending on how much of an R&B dose you'd accept), two 2-LP sets on Savoy that extend farther into the 50s. Same for Buddy Johnson and the 1951 big band recordings by Louis Jordan (yes, the one!). Other larger Black bands that kept going after 1945 such as Lucky Millinder or Tiny Bradshaw leaned much more overtly towards R&B. So it depends how much of that you'd be open-minded enough to file under "jazz". There are many more, particularly if you go on throughout the 50s but it is very hard for me to draw a line with regard to modernism and minimum size of the band. I am not sure what you are exactly looking for. Your "really great post-war swing records of the pre-war type" statement troubles me. Things and sounds DID evolve, and even tribute LPs to the old masters (such as those paying tribute to Jimmie Lunceford or Andy Kirk) were no carbon copy reenactments. If those 50s Georgie Auld items are THE overriding yardstick for you I'd almost have to point you towards 50s bands such as Ray Anthony, Ralph Flanagan, Jerry Fielding, Buddy Morrow or Ralph Marterie (which all have their swing highlights, but as for their total output ...?) Anyway ... the music is there, so yer makes yer choices and yer takes yer chances ...

Yes, this does sound amazing for a 1928 recording. I just attempted an aural comparison by listening to the same track on the French CBS vinyl reissue (The Complete Duke Ellington Vol. 1, 1925-1928, CBS 67264). And honestly, taking everything into account (and without any adjustments to the settings of my system for the LP) I don't find this LP reissue significantly worse in fidelity (not blatantly duller or more muffled). In a pinch you might find the banjo in the rhythm section a wee bit clearer to make out on this metal transfer (p.ex. prior to the scat solo). But that's only me ...

I wasn't totally serious either.

Project? Not really ... Just a suggestion (based on JSangrey's post) in case reading the lyrics piques your curiosity enough to listen to the actual recording. It is rare that anyone who reads a book based on a set of actual recordings offhand has ALL of these in his own collection. And in this case it is pretty much impossible. So just consider it a LONG-TERM part-time project, OK?

Maybe this will indeed work with "Blues Fell This Morning". Maybe TTK can let us know in due course if he tried this approach (following up the reference and source - in the annex - of each of the blues lyrics quoted in the text, and then checking out the recording on YT).

OK, this should essentially be the original version. AFAIK the profoundly revised edition was published in 1990.

@TTK: Does your copy have a printing or revision date ( year)? From what I have seen online, at one point in the past this book was republished in a thoroughly revised and updated version. This may or may not be the one you got. @JSngry: No doubt but who except Allen Lowe would be courageous enough to release in-depth writings in book form combined with a 30-CD box set (to comprehensively illustrate the music that the book discusses and make it accessible for listening to every reader in one go)?

@TTK: Yes and no ... About 30 years ago a chance discovery at a French fleamarket led me to (cheaply) buy a copy of the French translation of this book ("Le monde du blues", published by Arthaud in 1962). Being fluent in French and curious about how THEY translated this subject matter in every respect I read it (taking some of the French renderings with a grain of salt, of course) and found it entertaining and rewarding. But regardless of the actual language (and bowsing through it again now to refresh my basic impressions) I feel the book has its shortcomings: Oliver quotes and analyzes a huge amount of Blues lyrics (the French translations - done by Jacques Demêtre, a knowledgeable writer himself - appear to make sense and do manage to convey the message, though I have a hunch Madeleine Gauthier would have made an even better job of it) to show every facet of the lives of the Blacks as portrayed in the Blues. But with this book (which AFAIK ranks among his early works) he is very much a child of his time in that he focuses almost exclusively on low-down rural country blues (including at most older "Classic Blues" from the 20s as a BLues genre that was more "citified"), to the almost total exclusion of what happened later, particularly post-war and further up North once the big trek to the urban centers had happened. And in throwing these examples of Blues lyrics together according to a variety of different categories he depicts what he sees as the world and lives of the bluesmen (theoreticizing quite a bit along the way). So the very, very rural picture he paints of the world of the Blues almost as a sort of sharecropper character sitting in the gutter strumming his lonely guitar (which may well have been romanticised again in the Blues rediscovery period of the 60s when the blues had to be as lowdown and down-home as it ever would get to find favor with many among the white folksy audience of this revival era) IMHO makes this a lopsided and outdated affair that has its blind spots. No doubt this book was important when it first appeared and it still is nice for what is in there but be very aware that there is a lot missing that ought to be in there to provide anything resembling the FULL picture, even by the 1960 state of affairs in popular music for the Black community. Oliver continued along the same lines in "Screening The Blues" first published in 1968 and I find this one more varied and interesting and more to the point in his analyses. Though it still is geared primarily to the COUNTRY Blues side of things. So ... please make allowances for the fact that what I read was the French translation of this book, but since they did not change the core contents as such the gist of my (very personal) impressions should be applicable even to the English original. Not that anyone would have to agree with them but ...

Amazing (and not the best sign of things about diligent discographers at work 😕) that this "urban legend" is still circulating ... In my recent vinyl haul at a local record shop I purchased, among others, a copy of "Jazz in Harlem 1926-1931" on Arcadia 2008 that includes the two Trombone Red tracks. The liner notes of this record are dated May 1976 (47 years ago after all) and they strongly advise AGAINST the Ellington theory. The original printing of the Rust discography may be prior to that period but LORD?? (How much research of his own does Lord do after all?? Or is Lord still just a compiler of others' work?) As my curiosity had been piqued after I had read the liner notes, an online search yielded this (far quicker than I had ever hoped): http://www.harlem-fuss.com/pdf/bands/harlem_fuss_bands_trombone_red_blue_six.pdf Definite proof one way or another may still be outstanding (and certainly impossible to provide by now) but this reads like a thorough investigation ... At any rate it should be clear by now that these two tracks are out of place in an Ellington compilation.

And a useful detail to add to the session details in the liner notes of the Baron Mingus Uptown CD. (Check ... done ... ) I remember after I bought the "King Richard" LP (Fresh Sound reissue) in the early 2000s it took me a while and several spins to warm up to it. Time to relisten now ... "The Herdsmen Play Paris" on Fantasy.

Exhausted or not - thanks very much, sgcim, for bringing up the exact quote. I did not remember the exact context either (I read the Twardzik bio after it came out but have only browsed certain sections here and there since) but now see why it did not strike me as an oddity or a mistake at the time. I must have intuitively understood it in the sense of "hardcore" or "dyed in the wool" (which made perfect sense to me, particularly if you consider that figurative/illustrative terms are coined in colloquial lingo all the time). Interesting to see that it does seem to have been a Zieffian creation and not a mixup after all.

Somehow I have a hunch this Jack Chambers pet peeve might well turn into a(nother?) variation on the "take your turn at blasting Wynton Marsalis and you can't go wrong" theme. (I.e. "the target is out there and merits it - so let him have it ...") Cases of authors trying to convey that they are on the inside of what they write about but on closer examination (by those readers passably in the know) are not aren't that rare. I'd guess if every attentive and knowledgeable reader got started on cases like this they would find a lot to quibble about in books by any number of authors and/or historians, particuarly in "our" field of music books ... Including some details that others might rate as minor errors but that might just as well undermine the reader's confidence in the author(s) once you realize that these authors apparently are liable to commit gross factual errors as soon as they stray (even minimally) off the core of their subject matter. Even if this may only be due to carelessness (which isn't the best indicator to confirm the author's diligence either) And as for this "bone-fried" thing, it may well have been a mishap (but was it the author or some clueless typist who typed a spoken text, with the goof escaping subsequent proofreading?) but OTOH isn't it an amusing yet illustrative and understandable (to me, anyway) linguistic creation? And would it be the first case of an author making up a new term ?? A chance online search revealed, BTW, that this "bone-fried" had already been a "bone" 😁 of contention on THIS forum back in 2009 (FOURTEEN years ago! What's the fuss about through all these years?) I've seen rather more blatant errors in written documents throughout my professional life, not to mention in my leisure readings (wonder what those inheriting my library one day will think of some of my handwritten corrections in some of my books - and therefore of me ). Coming to think of it, I might well have to pay closer attention during my future readings and/or re-check what I've annotated in the past (just because it baffled and/or grated me at that particular reading moment) - if only to put into perspective your assertion of "funniest typos ever". At any rate, I wonder what else there is out there to correct in published books that despite these flaws are of merit anyway. To name just one example, there's one author whose books on music matters and whom himself I greatly admire for his knowledge, in-depth analysis and writing style but who could do a lot worse than to at long last take note that there IS in fact a difference between "then" and "than". So ...?

I had spontaneously thought of "Ascenseur pour l'Echafaud" (Lift To The Scaffold) too but on second thought I wouldn't be so sure. I think our own impressions are severely biased by our jazz knowledge. French "Film Noir" is a genre to itself, and this movie is a key opus within that genre. I doubt that overall there are all that many cinéastes (particularly in continental Europe and its country of origin, in particular) who, when this film is evoked, think "Miles Davis" first and NOT "Louis Malle" or "Jeanne Moreau". If you want to go down that route, I think that Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers' score to "Des Femmes Disparaissent" (literally: "Women Disappear") as part of the Jazz Messengers' discography is a more likely candidate. Particularly since that movie was considered more of a sensationalist "B movie" of doubtful eternal artistic merits at the time. Which is borne out by the "evocative" period titles of this movie in other languages: English: The Road to Shame German: Blonde Fracht und schwarze Teufel (Blonde Freight and Black Devils) Italian: I Vampiri Del Sesso (The Vampires of Sex) Spanish: Vampiros Del Amor (Vampires of Love) Nuff said? Next one up in that corner of the film world that I'd suggest to see if it is the movie or the score that is remembered best today: "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" (the film by Vadim, not that recent TV soap!). Less clear-cut than "Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud" IMO but open to debate ...

Congratulations on a certainly unforgettable evening!

I just checked this online. To the best of my knowledge, all of this material seems to have been reissued elsewhere before in the not too distant past before this CD was released (e.g. on Onyx/Xanadu LPs and on Savoy twofers). Like others in that CD series, you get a lot of material but since the leaders often were not the artist in whose name the CD was released you later find, upon checking your collection, that you already have most or even all of it on other records. BTW, there IS one other that so far has not been mentioned: "The Four Brothers - Together Again!" (RCA, rec. 11 Feb. 1957) This was Serge Chaloff's final recording date. Any opinions on this by those thoroughly familiar with it? I need to relisten to it to get an opinion again, but from what I remember from period reviews Chaloff must have been in great form and, maybe sensing his end was drawing closer, put everything in this date.

At the risk of this turning into yet another "in-due-course-every-record-by-the-subject-on-hand-will-be-named" thread , I'd give a big plug for the "Boston Blow-Up" LP (Capitol, 1954) as well. Its impact on me was as immediate as the Blue Serge LP, even more so (at least on first listening) than the Fable of Mable. I'd second the props for the Boston 1950 CD on Uptown in the opening post, and I suppose the SECOND Uptown CD (Rock Island February 1953) needs no added recomendations either.

Digging up this thread for a reason .... I continued digging through the jazz collection that a local record shop got in not long ago (which is where I scored the Complete Keynote Collection box set, as reported elsewhere ), and while digging I noticed the previous owner must have been an Ellington completist (of sorts). And among the records where you start wondering "How many Ellington vinyl does any one man need, let alone how many Ellington LPs can a shop shift within any reasonable time span?" there sit lots and lots of the "D.E.T.S." LPs with their generic white covers (that remind you of the Meritt label, paper inserts and all - probably they came from the same stable (Jerry Valburn?)). It may not be the complete run of the 48 (or so) LPs but certainly several dozen. Priced at 2.50 EUR each. Which looks like a steal. Now my question: Even at that price and considering that storage space isn't unlimited , how much of an Ellington fetishist would one have to be to shell out for this series? FTR, although Duke Ellington is not really at the top of my listening habits I already own quite a few of his recordings on vinyl, including the entire "Complete RCA" series on French RCA, the entire Columbia series reissued by CBS in the 70s, the "Brunswick Recordings" of the early 30s, some Musicrafts, a fair amount of 40s transcriptions (including all 5 "Uncollected" LPs), the Fargo, ND 1940 date, as well as assorted other non-commercial 40s and early 50s recordings - plus a cross-section of his later works up to the early 60s. So I am wondering where to reasonably draw a line ...

No ... But if I ever came across a copy at a good price I'd jump on it! This may be totally gimmicky but it sounds like a fun idea.

If it IS a good price and basically (at least in a wider sense) fits your style tastes, why not just file it in the "Obscurities and oddities" corner of your jazz collection? That's what I would tell myself as a "purchase decision-maker" 😉 if an item like that came my way at a price at which anyone would be able to take chances.

Went on a crate-digging excursion at our local #1 record store today, pulled a fair handful of Swing LPs from the (2.50 EUR) Special Offer bin at the entrance, and upon entering the shop the "resident sales clerk" told me "There is more where these came from" and pointed me to three more huge Special offer crates full of (as he described it) "Swing and Oldtime Jazz". Actually it was mostly Swing and some Bop and Cool, but this was only the tip of the iceberg of a huge collection they had just gotten in stock, so more visits are due later. Just as I had started on these crates he approached me with another item from the same collection, "Would you be interested in this too? Specially priced to sell ..." Whew ... the Japanese "Complete Keynote Collection" LP box set in excellent condition, complete with booklet, picture folio and the Tristano 45 😲 - priced at 75 EUR, which works out at something like 3.50 EUR per LP. And ready to haul away - no shipping fees ... Not the worst deal in the world ... Would I have been able to say No to that proposition? Well, NO ... So it looks like my Fresh Sound CD Keynote box set will be relegated to convenience listening when no alternate takes are desired or will (in part) go into the car to feed the car player. FWIW, I guess they priced it like that because regardless of how desirable the Keynotes are, objectively speaking, they knew this is not the fare that their typical jazz vinyl-buying customers usually weaned on Hard Bop, Jazz Rock, Fusion or Soul Jazz would easily spring for, so it would likely have sat for quite a while ...