Big Beat Steve

:tup :tup :tup :tup ... although those Prestige twofers are far from the worst. There have been LOTS of really, really BAD ones in the blues and R&B field. Talk about some late 40s, early 50s biting, ass-kicking' smoking small-group R&B, and on the cover you get a pic of some elderly character attired in the worst, bell-bottom trousered, striped, garishly cut mid-70s out-and-out disco garb and outlandish Afro haircut that would have made Shaft look subdued and restrained, might perhaps have fitted some pimp on the wrong side of the track but looked just oddly out of place on somebody approaching retirement age (and looking the part). Sometimes all this almost resembled some widespread "Let's shove some photographer credits over to Norbert Hess" (who must have taken a zillion stage photos of those elderly gentlemen at the sunset of their careers) trust effort. And then there were those reissue covers with nondescript, awkwardly modernized "art"work that bore no relationship to the (earlier) music whatsoever. Correction: The photographer's name I gave in my first version of my post above was wrong. confusion on my part. Hereby corrected.

It may not actually be the Marsalises' main problem (though some of that Jason wrote points in that direction) but it is or may be the problem in some circles, including in the case of a lot of what had been labelled and marketeed as jazz over here since the late 70s or 80s and especially when everybody (or at least a lot) started jumping on that " world music bandwagon" (and I am not talking about Tony Scott or Albert Mangelsdorff here). The bottom line just is that why should music that does not fit any other stylistic description automatically be "jazz", of all musical genres? Small wonder that a lot of the audience did not follow and even diehard jazz fans (no matter what there "core" jazz preferences are) felt that things went too far. And this simply because the discernible references to decades of where this particular style of music (in all its variations and evolutions) came from not only weren't there but were rejected and ignored by the musicians in every respect possible. If, say, Stockhausen or Kagel had insisted on their music being labelled "opera" or "classical chamber music" (of the day), do you think that all - or even most - lovers of that kind of classical music would have exclaimed "Oh so this is what this music is all about now and this is where we are heading in this music now" and would have accepted these claims at face value?

Good points. and no less valid even if a Marsalis said the same (if he's got a "political" agenda behind what he says the that's an entirely different matter but it doesn't invalidate his statements taken by themselves). I don't know what's behind the 1990 cutoff date (to European jazz ears - with all the European brand of "Free" and/or "World Music" mixup that has been going on since the 70s - the date might be a bit earlier) but at any rate I don't buy into this "If it doesn't fit any other category, call it jazz, and if it doesn't swing one bit then so what" pseudo explanation/justification either.

Me neither. Can't say it has done that much for me beyond the fact that it's easy to recognize. There are lots of labels (mostly other indies) that have a much more lively impact on me and tell me (based on my own tastes and not on "what everybody says") that "if it's on that label you can't go wrong", for example.

Depends on what your preferences were. Nobody claims they were the cream of the crop by any yardstick. But I guess you in the U.S. lived through the Beat era in quite a different way from the way it was experienced over here anyway (both in the UK and on the continent). So you can hardly gauge the impact many of those groups made on stage and in the musical sourroundings they came up in and presented themselves. BTW, do you actually think all those Garage Punk bands that were there in the US during the Beatles era sounded "all that good" or were that great as far as musical and instrumental proficiency were concerned? On strictly musical terms, many of those 3-chord bands were just nowhere. But isn't a lot in the musical immediacy, energy and overall sound but not necessarily in individual accomplishment? Which is where the risk of misjudging things with the "benefit of hindsight" comes in again. A lot of music that mirrored an era really needs to be seen, heard and appreciated from the vantage point of that era wherever possible.

Not any more (or less) than you had to be there in those 50s R&B juke joints to esxperience THAT music first hand - or whatever music from "before your time" strikes your fancy. It's all a matter of being able to imagine yourself into those settings through the suviving/existing music and not projecting too much "benefit of hindsight" into it all.

Somewhere on some other site (can't recall where) I read that somebody who did manage to talk to June Eckstine about this accident in recent times more or less only obtained the statement that this accident "was the tragedy of my life". Little wonder she doesn't want to go into all this again. As for Bob Redcross, somewhere on the site linked by Bichos there is a still from the movie that shows Bob Redcross when he had returned to the exact location of the accident.

Of course it is. Look under "Hasselgard movie".

Up to the cutoff date of 1962 Jepsen's discography does not list any "In The Mood" among the Cozy Cole leader dates.

Very interesting news, though it is not easy to find out which of the tracks are actually new (and not only new to CD) as some tracks seem to exist in several (live/non-commercial) versions so you do not always know which is which from the track listing on the Dragon website. I'd certainly like to know definitely which of the tracks are not only new to any previously released Dragon and Phontastic CDs featuring Stan but are also not to be found on Spotlite SPJ134, Cupol CLPN343, Dragon DRLP163, DRLP16, DRLP25 and DRLP29. Am not really sure whether those two Johnny White tracks really warrant buying the CD but oh well ... the for once completist might win out again ...

Exactly my impressions upon listening to my copy of this record (RVG edition CD by EMI). I really cannot make out anything that could really be called "SEVERE flutter" during the vast majority of the tune. A slight raggediness (which may be intentional?) in the way some instruments sound here and there but nothing distracting and no discernible change of fidelity vs the subsequent tunes on the CD. (And my ears cannot possibly have been damaged that badly by listening to too many French DMM pressings of BN's? ) I realize it is frowned upon in circles that probably consider themselves particularly "enlightened" to speak out against what would be considered the "accepted wisdom" of BN-ism but honestly, to me all this is "much ado about not all that much". Maybe these characters ought to tune in their ears to a hefty dose of CD remasters from the 78 rpm era where you often just cannot eliminate all the hiss, pops and crackles without flattening the sound. That would teach them a lesson about music that is worth "listening through" a wee bit of surface noise any time!

Maybe she actually was Bill Wyman's sis? But you are right ... one might start wondering ... (see on the left below) But AFAIK their line-up remained the same while the band existed so maybe this might be a bit more convincing:

OF COURSE they were real! Very real and quite good among the Merseybeat groups (though not as good-looking IMHO as some made them out to be). No, I wasn't there (far, far too young and geographically removed anyway) but this British beat band was a staple on the Hamburg scene in the Beatles era after the girls had made the trek from Britain to Hamburg. Photographic documents of them abound in books about the legendary Star Club in Hamburg, and I do remember seeing quite a bit of footage from the just as legendary Beat Club TV show recorded and broadcast by Radio Bremen (a couple of months ago a German TV station broadcast an all-night special on this Beat Club, unfortunately I failed to record it on video). Am not sure what their status was on the British mid-60s beat scene but they did have a sort of cult status in Germany for sure. BTW, if you wonder whether this or that band from that period and location was real, why not check (google) out THE MONKS and wonder in amazement how come THEY were real? (And ask yourself the question in the process what kind of oddballs and weirdies the Yanks let loose on the overseas world at that time ). FWIW actually the members of the Monks were and still are pretty cool and down to earth (if recent interviews with members who've stayed in Europe are anything to go by)

So how many different masterings and pressings are we talking about that are plagued by this so grave problem and which exactly are they (release numbers etc.)?

My first Grant Green: The Latin Bit with Ike Quebec, Johnny Acea, Sonny Clark, Wendell Marshall, Willie Bobo, Carlos Valdez, Garvn Masseaux (with bonus tracks, hence the presence of Ike and Sonny).

O.K., then ... ... my first purchase of a Roy Haynes-led disc: Esquire EP featuring these: Stockholm, Sweden, October 3, 1954 1. MR757 | 11422 Little Leona 2. 11423 Miss Mopsy 3. 11424 He's Gone Again 4. 11425 Hagnes Ake Persson (tb -1,2) Sahib Shihab (as, bars -1/3) Bjarne Nerem (ts -1/3) Adrian Acea (p) Joe Benjamin (b) Roy Haynes (d)

Sorry to interupt you and take you elsewhere again but here's my first Kenny Dorham leader date: Kenny Dorham Memorial Album (Xanadu, reissue of a 1960 session for the Time label) Charles Davis (bs), Tommy Flanagan (p), Butch Warren (b), Buddy Enlow (dr).

"Chet Baker in Paris Vol. 2 and 3 1955-56" (Blue Star) feat. Dick Twardzik (p), Jimmy Bond (b), Peter Littman (dr) plus Raymond Fol, Benoit Quersin, Jean-Louis Viale, Bobby Jaspar, Rene Urtreger, Jean-Louis Chautemps, Francy Boland, Eddie De Haas, Charles Saudrais, Benny Vasseur, Armand Migiani, William Boucaya, Jean Aldegon, Bert Dahlander, Teddy Ameline, Pierre Lemarchand.

Not necessarily. If you get to be more demanding it can be comforting to listen in beforehand and make sure it is what you expect. But OTOH (as explained on another thread) it did happen to me that I was slightly underwhelmed with records or CDs I had bought "blind" (or "deaf", if you prefer) as they did not turn out to be 100% what I had expected. However, in virtually all cases I did warm up to them upon repeated listening, i.e. they really "grew on me". I doubt this process would have occurred if I had listened to a sample first (because who would listen to the samples 2, 3 or 4 times just to "make sure"?). SO I might have missed out on some music that owuld have been enjoyable and would have opened up new horizons after all.

Same here. I distinctly remember I bought this totally "blind" when I came across a copy of the vinyl release of this in a local record shop in the early 80s. I wasn't disappointed at all either (your Lee Konitz comparison is very fitting for those who are not familiar with Swedish cool jazz). But OTOH Swedish jazz of 1945-60 era is one segment of my jazz interest where I ALWAYS have bought anything I could get my hands on without ever bothering to listen in first (so this one - at a time when reissues were thin on the ground outside Sweden - was a "must have"). Ever since my first purchase (Lars Gullin's "Danny's Dream" twofer LP on Metronome) I at least had a general "feel" of what to expect and knew I could not go wrong (and never did).

He did. He was featured on all of the tracks. Not the nominal leader on all of them at the time these tracks were recorded but it would be hard to pin down anyway because some were all-star lineups and others were jam session airshots. Your admonition will be heeded, I promise. So we will go on from Red Norvo if you want to allow the entire LP contents as a basis - O.K.? My first one by Red: "Red Norvo Sextet and Trio - Chamber Jazz" (Vol. 18 from the "Jazz Lab" series by German MCA (mid-70s) with those garish "chemistry lab" covers): June 23, 1944 session: Aaron Sachs (cl), Danny Negri (p), Remo Palmieri (g), Clyde Lombardi (b), Eddie Dell (dr) 1952 sessions: Tal Farlow (g), Red Mitchell (b) 1953 sessions: Jimmy Raney (g), Red Mitchell (b)

@Dan Gould: I'd be happy to jump in on that one (being a long-time Red Norvo fan) but Red Norvo was not on the Bill Harris leader date I listed. (He had a leader date of his own on that LP) Sorry ... But I'll move on like this: My first Billy Bauer-led record purchase: "Billy Bauer - Plectrist" (Verve) Andrew Ackers (p), Milt Hinton (b), Osie Johnson (dr)

Bill Harris Septet session of Sept.5, 1945 for Keynote, feat. Pete Candoli (tp), Flip Phillips (ts), Ralph Burns (p), Billy Bauer (g), Chubby Jackson (b), alvin Burroughs (dr) reissued here:

Exceedingly pleased to oblige: "Ben And The Boys" (Jazz Archives JA-35). For further routes, see here (didn't feel like typing it all): Now if that isn't quite a list to choose from...

Hee hee ... good one. You asked for it, so here is my first (fleamarket) Ray Bryant find of about 25 years ago: "Madison Time Pt. I + II" (Philips 45 rpm) feat. (so sez Jepsen) Harry Edison (tp), Urbie Green (tb), Buddy Tate (ts), Tommy Bryant (b), Bill English (dr). Mainstream jazz, anyone?