Big Beat Steve

My first Lester Young leader LP: "Pres At his Very Best" (Mercury early 70s reissue of 1944 Keynote masters) feat. Johnny Guarnieri, Slam Stewart, Sid Catlett as well as Buck Clayton, Dickie Wells and Basie-Richardson-Green-Jones rhythm section

MY first Art Blakeys albums (bought the same day at the same fleamarket stall): Orgy In Rhythm Vol. 1 and 2 (BST 81554/81555) feat. drummers/percussionists Art Blakey, Arthur Taylor, Jo Jones, Specs Wright, sabu, Potato Valdez, Jose Valiente, Ubaldo nieto, Evilio Quintero as well as Herbie Mann, Ray Bryant, Wendell Marshall. MANY ways to go from here!

How come, JSngry, I never see your "posted images" (of record covers, I suppose?) on my screen (displayed through Mozilla)?? How about some other image hoster, maybe?

I see what you mean, and no, I would not want to dismiss his 50s small-group recordings (haven't heard all of them so I can only talk about what I am familar with). And in fact I do like the George Shearing quintet a lot (and I am talking about the MGM era of course, not about the "Capitol George Shearing"!). But essentially I stand by what I said: Enjoyable though this latter group was, by the standards of 1954 the Gramercy Five did not stand out as much from the mainstream of jazz as the 40s Gramercy Fives did when compared to (white, in this case) small band swing of their days. In short, the 1954 Gramery Five was much more part of the "mainstream" jazz sounds than the earlier groups were.

MY first Brookmeyer: "Traditionalism Revisited" (WoPa/Vogue) w/ Jimmy Giuffre, Jim Hall, Joe Benjamin, Ralph Pena, Dave Bailey (somehow we're running out of sidemen names, isn't it? )

MY first Zoot: "The Modern Art of Jazz" (Dawn DLP 1102) (OK, OK, mine actually is the Biograph reissue entitled "One To Blow On" but the contents are the same ) also feat. Bob Brookmeyer (tb), Milt Hinton (b), Gus Johnson (dr), John Williams (p, NOT the John Towner WIlliams!)

My first Jack Sheldon: "Jack Sheldon Quintet" (Jazz West WJWLP-2) with Zoot Sims, Walter Norris, Bob Whitlock, Lawrence Marable.

See my post #184 in this thread (same music, just different pressing), but never mind ... Is it OK if I use TINY KAHN as an arranger to go on by stating this: My first Tiny Kahn feature: Elliott Lawrence Plays Tiny Kahn and Johnny Mandel arrangements (Fantasy/Vogue) See here: http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/October%201958/105/793952/Elliot+Lawrence+Band++Plays+Tiny+Kahn+and+Johnny+Mandel+Arrangements+TNT+%3A+Blue+Room+%3A+Who+Fard+That+Shot++%3A+My+Heart+Stood+Still+%3A+Jeepers+Creepers+%3A+Tinys+Bow+MusicYou+Took+Advantage+Of+Me+%3A+Taking+A+Chance+On+Love+%3A+Tapeworm+%3A+A+Foggy+Day+%3A+Is+That+A+Fact++%3A+They+Cant+Take+That+Away+From+Me+%3A+Johnnys+Bow+Music. If arrangers don't qualify then please go on with Al Cohn, everybody (he'd be on that Elliott Lawrence LP anyway so you might as well go back to him from there if you want to).

Well, I found two V-discs (one was by Tommy Dorsey, can't recall the other right now) in the late 80s at a local fleamarket amidst a stack of totally unrelated other items, and the stallholder wasn't Americen either. Wonder what the story was behind those? Given by U.S. troops stationed here to relatives of the stallholder in an early act of "fraternization" in the years after 1945? No doubt most of these V-discs (as they were not "supposed" to be circulated through the usual channels) could tell similar stories. But as suviving copies in many cases apparently aren't that rare after all and originals regularly do come up for sale here and there and elsewhere and virtually all of the music has been reissued through the years I think the "sensation aspect" of their discovery has worn a bit thin compared to, say, this or that Paramount or Black Patti 78 or whatever other "holy grail" there is out there ... As Sidewinder hinted, setting up a Geiger counter near these bunker relics might indeed be "enlightening".

My first Nick Travis leader date: "The Panic Is On" (RCA 3-EP set) also feat. Al Cohn (ts), Johnny Williams (b), Teddy Kotick (b), Art Mardigan (dr)

I like this: I'd call it "proceeding off the trodden paths of the too well-known and predictable". Commendable IMHO. When will Vol. 2 be out, incidentally?

My first Tommy Flanagan leader date: "Trio in Stockhom 1957" (Dragon DRLP 87) fest. Wilbur Little and Elvin Jones

Already been named earlier (by me). Try again, please!

Must be this one on the Living Era label http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/6882395/a/Summit+Ridge+Drive.htm But somehow I doubt the (1949 and 50s?) tracks that go beyond the classic 1940 and 1945 Gramercy Five tracks (which should be available on countless reissues) really elevate things to unheard-of heights. One for completists, maybe. BTW, upon checking my records I found I do have some of the February 1954 session by the revamped Gramercy Five on an older LP (from the "The Later Artie Shaw" series on the Ajazz label) and am giving this a spin right now. The music is OK but nowhere near as special as the "real" Gramercy Five sessions of 1940 and 45. Describing the interplay, you might almost call it "Artie Shaw Goes George Shearing Quintet". So there you are ...

Maybe now. But once the father is no longer his son will probably kick the bucket before long too. Because even though health problems may be still some time away at this age, they will invariably accumulate later. There are moments when a "parents' drivers license" really seems to be called for.

What do you mean? The Gramercy Five recording? It must have been reissued a zillion times. http://www.amazon.com/Artie-Shaw-Complete-Gramercy-Sessions/dp/B000002WBD Never mind the sick prices charged THERE. Even disregarding the dopwnload alternative, this is potential special offer bin fare.

Ah, I see! Thanks for enlightening me. And a special THANKS for that website link! Right down my alley, the subject of that site!

A seminal figure. RIP

Maybe that's because Buddy Collette wasa quite different personality and epxerienced and handled the same period and location in quite a different way? I remember reading the first part of the Central Avenue Sounds book (gave up for the second half as the book IS a bit repetitive the way it's structured) and what struck me, among other things, was that most everybody (both in that book and in other sources too) semed to agree when talking about the early Westcoast years of Charles Mingus: He was gifted (though he seemed to have taken a while to really get on course), had great ideas but apart from the musical impact he left they all remembered him as a notorious hotspur and irascible person who wasn't one to avoid confrontations.

... which is another of those Fantasy twofers, judging from the catalogue number? Have you ever compared their contents to the OJCCDs? Is it all out on CD, too? I really cannot tell you. I compared the contents to the usual discographies, found it covered the ground pretty thoroughly as far as master takes are concerned and that was good enough for me. As you know I am pretty much a vinyl junkie so I felt no need to compare things with any later CD releases (as I had the music anyway). In fact, given the huge amount of CD reissues that you have to inspect for duplications with what you already have (if you want to get what is unavailable on vinyl or other reissues) you are glad for ANY CD reissues you do NOT have to worry about. Haven't seen or compared that one either but I guess you are just missing what's on the vinyl twofer but not on the single CD. And then the question if you are "missing" anything depends on how much you are into this early 50s Red Norvo trio music and how essential it is for you to go the whole way. I know I would have missed a lot. In fact a very long time ago (long before I got my hands on the Savoy 2-LP set) I bought a twofer on the French "Monkey" label (they reissued a whole series of jazz in the mid-70s with quite interesting vintage stuff unavailable elsehere at the time - it introduced me to the Fats Waller piano rolls, for example) that was credited to Charles Mingus and included mid-50s sessions done under his own name on one LP but Red Norvo trio sessions (with Mingus) from the Savoy catalog on the other. So arithmetically I already had almost half of that Savoy twofer and yet did not regret buying it one second. But that's just me ...

Somehow the original Aladdin covers don't look all that rare to me, maybe because French EMI did pretty nice facsimile reissues of the two LPs in the 80s (which I was very glad to snap up at the time). Now which of the ones apart from the yellow/blue and green/pink one here is NOT a Warhol-ish fake but existed actually?

You are right, my fault - the trio twofer with Raney and Farlow as well as Mitchell is on Prestige P-24108. Additional material from the 1955 Norvo/Farlow/Mitchell trio is on "Tal Farlow - Guitar Player" (Pestige P-24042).

I cannot comment on the CD reissue above but essentially I agree with King Ubu's comments about the track selection. I for one would not part with my Savoy twofer LP SJL 2212 which includes the entire commercial output of the trio with Mingus (the Raney/Mitchell trio output is on another twofer). It therefore corresponds to the CD, except that it has only part of the alternate takes (but honestly, are FOUR versions of Godchild that essential?). FWIW, there is at least one other source that adds to the recorded legacy of that trio: Natural Organic LP 7001 has transcriptions done by the trio in 1950-51 in Chicago; some tracks are versions of the commercially released tunes, others are totally new. These tracks are VERY interesting for an aural comparison. In many details they confirm the general trend of transcriptions vs commercial releases, i.e. they were just that little bit more free-wheeling (difficult to achieve with the virtuosity of the Norvo trio, I know ...). According to Bruyninckx, the (Italian) Queen Disc LP Q-061 has the same material plus even a few tracks more. As for the incidents described above, I would not doubt they were true, I just wonder if they give the full picture of the entire stay of Mingus with Norvo. You know you can be rightfully sore at two or three insulting incidents. But if you work yourself into a temper about them (understandable too) and gloss briefly over the "rest" (the "better days"?), making things sound as if this was what the entire tenure with the trio was all about, then does this really tell the whole story or will the resulting overall picture be a bit skewed?

In case you're referring to my post above, what I did was give the other sidemen with leader records of their own (to the best of my knowledge) that also appeared on that "Rib Joint" Savoy twofer. Who says only hard bop leaders will provide a chance to carry on the game? Hence my post above. That said, of course is your Sammy Price record valid. As for the rest, you are right, but what can you do if several forumists post at the same moment and it DOES take more than one minute to write and send off a post if a lengthy list of musicians' names has to be typed? (I must have typed my Lil Armstrong leader post while you and King Ubu typed yours - how is anybody to know?) As for my Lucky Thompson statement, this was tongue in cheek towards King Ubu's puzzled question. Feel free to ignore it. Any of the Sammy Price listings then to move on - fair game? (I'll be out in this case as my first Sammy Price disc has already been named)

Of course it is fair. I just wonder if this was a recurrent situation or a relatively isolated incident in a less than pleasant overall situation where probably one thing led to another. Maybe Mingus, being as hot-tempered as he was, really would not have been the person to state, for example, that the situation overall was fairly OK and a career step ahead for him (again, would he otherwise have stayed for more than one year if he had been confronted with that kind of thoughtlessness or degrading treatment day in, day out?) but that the situation deteriorated during that Southern tour and made things unbearable for him? That would have put things in perspective. The sad truth is that unfortunately this was no isolated incident. Just remember the shabby and downright "couldn't care less" behavior of Benny Goodman in the face of how Wardell Gray was treated in certain places while in his band. Let's face it, when it came to being articulate and outspoken in everyday life and assuming responsibility for their own employees many band leaders were just utter dimwits.