Big Beat Steve

Can you please list EVERY SINGLE PERSON who plays on the album??? No problem, but I am afraid the others do not really have a leader track record to speak of ... Session of 17 Feb. 1948: John Dankworth (cl), Eddie Thompson (p), Bert Howard (b), Vic Feldman (dr) Session of 12 June 1951: Vic Feldman multiple records vibraphoe, piano and drums Session of 19 March 1954: Vic Feldman (vib), Stan Watson (g), Lennie Bush (b), Freddie Manton (dr and Indian drum) Session of 14 July 1954: Vic Feldman (vib and congas), Tony Crombie (p), Lennie Bush (b) See what I mean? P.S. I COULD list my first Johnny Dankworth and Tony Crombie leader LPs ever purchased but I am not sure this is the idea behind this thread in the long run ...

Enjoyable indeed, but recycled in various reissue guises a zillion times. Or to put it another way: High-class R&B for sure but anything but uncharted (or overlooked) territory. So do enjoy it but don't be surprised or put off later on when you try to investigate these artists deeper and find out you end up with DUPLICATING EVERYTHING from that series on other, more comprehensive reissue series.

O.K., MY first Victor Feldman: "The Young Vic - Victor Feldman Studio Recordings Vol. 1" (Esquire 327) 1948-54 small groups featuring above all Johnny Dankworth,Lennie Bush and Tony Crombie. Brit jazz lovers, please go from there.

I agree, and probably we're not that far apart in our opinions. However, on quite a few occasions I have bought this or that LP (or even CD) on the strength of a "killer" record cover (that just struck a chord with me) or, in the case of box sets, for their packaging, booklets, etc. and this despite the fact that in many cases I really had just a basic idea of the contents (in the sense that I was familiar with the basic style but not with what to expect of each track and artist). So as long as I was vaguely aware of the musical style the cover often had a decisive function in my buying decision (and I was rarely disappointed). The funny thing is that in my early collecting days (long before the internet and after the demise of listening booths) this was way more difficult to do because in the 70s nondescript covers with ineptly modernized or totally "out of tune" artwork on reissues with music from the 50s were all over the place whereas the age of "facsimile" reissues of the original LPs or reissue packagings done in a "retro" vein that managed to make the atmosphere of the music come alive just by looking at the cover had not yet arrived to any significant extent. So, again, this kind of "physical" discovery can be valid (and gratifying) too. Being able to listen to online samples is convenient and reassuring and I certainly would not want to discourage taking advantage of that but as long as one is willing to take chances and has an eclectic enough taste (and some basic knowledge of the subject on hand) it is not mandatory at all, IMHO. In fact, I do remember several recent purchases of CDs where I was just slightly underwhelmed by my (previously untried) purchases because they just did not immediately jell with me yet upon repeated listening I did warm up to the contents. I doubt I would have gone to that trouble (of giving the tracks a 2nd or 3rd listening chance at certain intervals) if I had actually listened to online samples before deciding to buy. And in the end it would have been my loss. Strangely enough, in the days when listening in beforehand was more or less impossible this kind of disappointment did not happen any more often either.

I still am trying to figure out if there is any contradiction in these diverse ways of "discovering" and I cannot see to what extent any "physical" discovery mentioned earlier in this discussion really is "purely" physical. Referring to this thread, my purchase of that Shelly Manne LP, for instances, mentioned in post #139 was triggered by the fact that I just HAD to have it after having heard "Grashopper" and "La Mucura" on a jazz radio show. But as my curiosity about (almost) anything Westcoastish at that time had already been aroused sufficiently I would just as likely have bought it after having read about it and its merits. So to me all these different ways of "discovering" are complementary, not contradictory. The "physical" aspect in all this invariably comes in if you want to preserve your item beyond sheer digital mass consumption on some hard drive (which might go bust at the worst moment, you know..., and re-burning CD-R's every couple of years might be forgotten and can become a nuisance anyway). So if you intend to keep and preserve your music for any substantial length of time the "physical" aspect invariably comes in.

My first one by Shelly: Shelly Manne & His Men - The West Coast Sound (Contemporary) also feat. Bob Enevoldsen, Art Pepper, Bob Cooper, Jimmy Giuffre, Marty Paich, Curtis Counce, Joe Maini, Bill Holman, Russ Freeman, Ralph Pena. Now THAT should get us somewhere (else) again!

Don't you think that's because not all people are and think all alike? Isn't that what the essence of our species is all about? Is there a contradiction? Isn't it so that "discovering" can also include the discovery of a track or session you "discover" in a discography, in a book or article on an artist or a musical style that makes you curious enough to go out and track this down for you to buy? The physical "discovery" of the actual recording is just ONE (though essential) aspect of your hunt and search for your own preferred "collectible" items. But don't you think this boils down to the same thing after all? I for one cannot see any basic difference between discovering something on radio or maybe in some written source first and then "discovering" the actual product in a shop (or - today - in an online catalog). Do you actually think seasoned collectors such as us here are really gullible enough to fall for THAT? Sorry but THAT "argument" just doesn't hold in our circles where it in almost every case is a matter of minority niche releases or reissues on labels or release channels usually overlooked altogether by the record COMPANIES. The turntable thing was nice (I experienced the tail end of it in my earliest collecting days too) but it wasn't always decisive to me anyway, though i cannot have been that knolwedgeable of the entire spectrum of music yet. Very often I would have bought the record anyway just because i had a pretty good idea of what to expect within the genre that music was part of, and besides, way back it was a matter of taking the whole LP or leaving it. As long as the gems among the individual tracks outweighed the duds it was a deal. And haven't you ever experienced that it took you some time to warm up to what you initially might have considered to be "duds" (and later would not have wanted to be without)? You may accuse some around here of overromanticizing the discovery and purchase of the physical object in a store. Maybe you are right but OTOH to me it looks like you are overromanticizing the listening booth experience of listening to this or that track over not-so-high fi headphones in quite a rush (unless you knew the shop clerk very well). Again, no contradiction here IMHO. If digitized donwloading is good enough for you then so be it but this isn't the only option. You know there still are SOME where the actual PHYSICAL product (as embodied by the good old vinyl in its sleeve) was an entity that was to be considered as a unit, not just as an expendable packaging of some digitized mujsical product. Which would not rule out the convenience of downloads or CD-R's for those who want the sounds only either.

...... in order to get into a slightly different area I am going to list my first BOBBY JASPAR (from the Hank Jones Savoy MG-12087 lineup above) record ever bought: BOBBY JASPAR REVISITED (Inner City IC 7013) Lineups feat. H. Renaud, J. Gourley, B.Quersin, Fats Sadi, J.-L. Viale, Nat Peck, M. Vander, P. Michelot, A. Migiani, D. Pochonet etc. Anyone care to go up THAT trail? (JAZZ IN PARIS CD series collectors reading this, maybe? :D)

OK, so I'll try (had already considered posting after the Ron Carter disc named earlier) but since we are turning in circles name-wise it's going to be the same record anyhow: My first Hank Jones disc(s) (discS because I bought both at the same moment in the same shop and cannot really recall which one I picked first ) either Bluebird - The Hank Jones Trio with Guests (Savoy MG 12053) or Hank Jones Trio - (Savoy MG-12087) Lots of the usual hard bop suspects in the lineups again ( we are really turning in circles, it seems) but .... (see below)

A bit of both, I guess. BUT - I know very well that in the fields of music that I do collect (the vast majority of which really is off the beaten tracks of the "major" or "common" fields of reissues of collectible music - I am not talking about droooling about the umpteenth remastering of this or that BN or KOB reissue ) there still are artists and recordings that would give me the same thrill of discovering just because they have not been available for so long. You keep learning about the music that is of interest to you and the more you learn and the more in-depth knowledge you acquire the more you discover what there is that you have never heard. And the same goes for other fields of collecting. Even if you are not a completist. Neither did I experience that a great deal but occasionally the frown (or knowing smile) upon the sales counter clerks' face as he entered the totals of my "oddball" (by hit parade standards) vinyls was a bit of fun. This would be true if you were to buy mostly off-the-shelf new items or "current" "name" recordings that are the big and predictable sellers (either pop hit parade fare where the companies want you to crave for the "next" release or "major" and "safe" reissues such as the examples named above). But odd niche market music on collectors' labels that the record stores DID carry DESPITE their (extreme) niche market status? I'd rather rate the experience of shopping around for that kind of (new) goods on the same level like searching secondhand bins at garage sales or fleamarkets for any sort of collectible fleamarket items. Which is why - in my fields of collecting - I've hardly ever made a conscious distinction between buying new or secondhand.

Thank you! That would have been my first Red mitchell leader date purchase too (but i did not and could not reply to myself). So here is my follow-up: My first Lorraine Geller leader LP bought was "The Gellers" (EmArcy MG 36024) (feat. Lorraine and Herb Geller, Red Mitchell and Mel Lewis) (Wonder how it is going to be before we will be back in Thad Jones territory? :D)

Exactly my experience and my feelings from that period (I started buying and actually collecting records in 1975 at age 15). During that 1975-85 period (and for a time thereafter) we had at least five (sometimes seven or eight) excellent and - among each other - well-stocked record shops downtown that always carried interesting items in the collectors' departments (jazz, blues, rockabilly, 60s beat, etc.) and you indeed had to snap up the items very fast if you saw something because they might never turn up again afterwards. I remember two cases where it actually took me 15 and 20 years, respectively, in those pre-www and pre-ebay days to finally get a copy of a record I had postponed buying when I saw it in the shop back then (and by the time I had made up my mind it was gone, which I regretted ever after). Nowadays only one decently stocked (secondhand) record store is left and the CD selections in other chain stores are nothing much to write home about. So while I am grateful for the new opportunities that the internet has opened up in the past 10+ years and take huge advantage of it, the thrill of making discoveries (that make a lasting impression on you) just isn't there anymore if everything is available that easily (even though lots go OOP too fast or are unre-reissued) and often only a mouse click away. Rummaging through lots and lots of vinyl bins in search of an item of interest just isn't the same like keeping your fingers crossed to see if that Amazon Marketplace seller will live up to his promise of having this or that CD available. Sometimes I wonder about the availability of the music we have come to take for granted these days. If everything is there to to be bought, do you listen just as intensely to EVERYTHING you can (and do) buy (as opposed to back then when what you found often really was a FIND)? Yet I am happy, of course, to combine the best of both worlds, i.e. the pleasure of filling gaps of long-sought recordings AND the convenience of being able to fill other gaps much more easily (as long as funds permit) in the CD era, though it often becomes a bit too predictable and assembly line-like. Somehow, as long as you DO find things, searching for items for your collection makes up half of the fun of actually buying them. Which maybe is one of the reasons why I never really felt a desire to get into the CHRONOLOGICAL CLASSICS series wholesale (and used it only to fill a few glaring gaps) and would NEVER have thought of dumping my vinyl of the same recordings in favor of that series - even if that meant that some gaps remained.

OK, now I will try to take this back a bit further in history: MY first Jimmy Rowles leader date ever purchased was this: "Let's Get Acquainted with Jazz (For People Who Hate Jazz)" on Tampa TP-8 (1957) also feat. Red Mitchell, Larry Bunker, Pete Candoli, Harold Land, Mel Lewis, Barney Kessel Lots of "first leader date" potential there among the sidemen of that session ...

More oddities (by the standards of THIS forum ): One that might make Brownie smile: Back in more familiar teritory: Would this series count too?

Here are a few oddities (underground collectors' releases from the early 90s) none of you are likely to have ever seen before:

I had a hunch all along this was going to run in circles. Trane just seems to be the most unavoidable musician on a jazz forum when it comes to name dropping. Had to look up who is on "Chambers Music", but I am going to pick the only way out of this "closed shop of jazz names" and state that my FIRST Kenny Drew leader LP ever bought was "New Faces - New Sounds - Kenny Drew Trio" (BN 5023) feat. Curly Russel and Art Blakey.

And yet we shouldn't consider ourselves totally "inarticulate" about music - that is, unless you assume "articulate" to equal ethereal ramblings about perceived spiritual qualities in musical details that no mere mortals would ever be able to figure out for themselves. I mean, one could probably ramble on and on and on about how this artist achieved the highest levels of sophistication by blowing that triply flattened 97th with that very special kind of "attacca" that only this or that older master had ever attained before him but would this leave even the ambitious and truly interested listener who is NOT a musician (or a musicologist) any wiser and add to his enjoyment of the music as such?

Same here. So you beat me to it. To carry things on, my first Wynton Kelly LEADER record I ever bought was the KEEP IT MOVING Milestone twofer (M-47026). Kosher (or halal ) enough now? So depending on your preferences use either "Wynton Kelly" (Riverside 254) feat. Burrell, Chambers, PJJ, or "Kelly Blue" (Riverside 298) feat. Nat Adderley, Jaspar, Golson, Chambers, J. Cobb to carry on now.

Dizzy Gillespie - In the Beginning (Prestige 24030) (My first purchase of a record including John Lewis and Milt Jackson, but it's a 2-record set with lots of different sidemen on all those tracks so there should be plenty of directions to go on from )

Didn't I say it?

OK, my fault, I got this wrong ... mea maxima culpa ... So I will herewith go on as follows and bring things back a bit further back in time: Tadd Dameron - MATING CALL (Prestige) (And it will be interesting to see if things keep revolving around "Trane" as the "easy way out" in this game ... So anybody want to go the Dameron, John Simmons or PJJ route? )

Dan not only has some valid points but he nailed it and hit the spot IMHO. The reason appears quite evident to me: There are a LOT of people out there who, the way, this term is commonly understood, can really be called collectors but are EONS away from anything resembling completeness, maybe because of lack of funds, maybe because they have only recently gotten started. And yet they listen to their music intensely, add more music regularly and constantly, are probably interested in the lives of the artists and the history of the music (ESSENTIAL if you want to find out more about what other related stuff there is you'd want to collect). Isn't that typical of ANY collector? IMO completists as described in JAW's post (i.e. going beyond sheer completeness of the recorded works, for example, into mastering/version/pressing/release trivia etc.) not only are "ultra-completists" but are really getting near the status of GEEKS or FETISHISTS or whatever. :D

OK, I am going to get back to Art Farmer. As I explored modern jazz more or less chronologically (I had developed a liking for bebop early on so started from there onwards) when charting (for me) unknown territory (artists) I tended to start with the "early works" of 50s "name" jazzmen. My first Art Farmer record therefore was "The Art Farmer Septet - Plays the Compositions and Arrangements of Gigi Gryce and Quincy Jones" (Prestige P-7031). What did the trick for me in this case, I think, was that I had already owned the Clifford Brown Paris sessions 3-LP set of 1953 for a long time and had always liked the compositions and scores of Gigi Gryce. And I wasn't disappointed here either.

If only they (i.e. the reissuers) always knew who owns what among the collecting fraternity and would be prepared to make it available ... I'd bet they often are up against a "No, nobody is going to listen to my pristine copy except me - can't let everybody out there benefit from 50 years of carefully cherishing my exceedingly carefully played copy" attitude Don't we all know one or the other selfish collecting hermit of that kind? BTW, I have no real complaints about Fresh Sound and similar "niche market" reissue labels but as mentioned above, it indeed is odd that the disclaimers often found on reissues in the past are now increasingly dispensed with, as if they all adopted a sort of "take it or leave it" attitude. That said, maybe some of those who complain about LP needle drop reissues ought to listen a bit mroe often to 78-rpm era vinyl or CD reissues to get their ears tuned in to some real hiss, pop and crackle. Not everybody is (or was) a John R.T. Davies, not every reissue project can be given the full treatment (as in the case of those hot Five box sets, so one hears) and very, very often the music warrants even a bit of effort to "listen through" that "period noise".

If I'd stumble across that one (or the like) in one of those clearout bins it would probably make me say "UGH" :D So it might as well be in that thread over there ...