Big Beat Steve

Not being a beer drinker at all, I had to look up what IPA exactly is. I understand the problem, though of course taste-wise I do not have an opinion. But ... no more airplay for this one, then?

Yes, exactly. When leafing through this catalog I was surprised to see how many of the Decca/Coral jazz items listed there had indeed been part of the reissue programs I mentioned. Some that were not (but that over time I've obtained as originals, though not because they were on Coral, of course ) included the Dick Marx/Johnny Frigo LPs, Eddie Costa's "Guys And Dolls Like Vibes", the "Jazz Best Coast" V.A. LP and Al Jazzbo Collins' "East Coast Jazz Scene" - and (as R&B/R'n'R/mainstream Swing borderline items) the Alan Freed Orchestra LPs.

Seeing that electric vehicles (EVs) are slated (by politics etc.) to eventually replace internation combustion-engine cars, I wonder when motorbikes will (mandatorily?) be ordered to be replaced by e-bikes?

Eartlier this week (while the forum was down for some reason) I browsed through a Feb. 1959 copy of the "Jazz'n'Pops" catalog (some kind of "Schwann", it seems) and checked out the Decca acts. I can do a more detailed list if you want me to but the gist is: Among those in print at that time that were on Decca (not counting Coral this time) and had a sizable number of LPs on that label, in what rated as "pop" with the editors of that reference book you were stuck unless you had a liking for Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr., the Jack Pleis Orch. and a small handful of others. Other labels (particularly the ones you mentioend) indeed were far more frequent across the entire stylistic board. Checking the jazz section I found that indeed a large part of what was on Decca and Coral in the 50s had been covered by reissues on German MCA in the 70s and Fresh Sound and Jasmine in the 80s. So few items/artists were really scarce (but you had to look actively for them). BTW, as for Leith Stevens, another item I'd give a plug is his (expanded) soundtrack version of "The Wild One". A friend had an original Decca LP which I dubbed on cassette in the 80s (as he would not part with his copy, though he was far more into R'n'R) and I was very pleased when I found a copy of the Fresh Sound reissue years later.

Unless you compile one yourself I think it is going to be difficult to find one with a MINIMUM of the jive numbers. Why would any compiler deprive himself of the ESSENCE of the Cab Calloway band from that period when jazz meant entertainment and dancing above all? So ... for your specific question I'd sugest you search for a Chu Berry compilation that features a maximum of his feature tracks with the Cab Calloway band. There were a couple of vinyls of that kind and their contents may have been re-reissued "as is" somewhere in the CD era. One was a CBS reissue billed to Chu Berry and His Stompy Stevedores (with one of the two sides featuring Cab Calloway Orchestra recordings) which had several repressings, and another one was "Chu Berry Featured with Cab Calloway - "Penguin Swing" on Jazz Archives JA-8. But even there the Cab Calloway jive vocals aren't totally absent.

Very nice. But a pity they did not include the 5000 series.

IMO definitely yes.

You mean, the masters were destroyed then, so this may have completely nixed any incentive on Universal's part for reissues? I agree that even among the majors Decca was not at the forefront of jazz with its 50s catalog but there were interesting items. Though I tend to lump in Coral with Decca when thinking of the Decca catalog, two specific Decca items I'd single out are these: https://www.discogs.com/de/master/569863-Various-Das-Is-Jazz https://www.discogs.com/de/release/10002630-Kurt-Edelhagen-And-His-Orchestra-Jazz-From-Germany My appreciation may also be so because it was hard work obtaining the "Jazz From Germany" LP. I had won an eBay auction in 2000 or 2001 for this item (VG++) but due to the clueless (non-)packaging by the hick from the US sticks seller (sorry to put it that way) it arrived halfway broken through. Quite a shock because at that time it would have been anybody's guess when you'd be able to get your hands on another copy. A couple of years later I scored another copy from the US at a good price (which this time arrived safely) and to make up, this second copy turned out to be a first pressing with the black label (whereas the first one that had arrived cracked had the rainbow Decca label which AFAIK makes it a somewhat later - early 60s? - pressing, though the covers are 100% identical). And like I said, MCA reissued a lot of "Decca jazz" in Europe in the 70s (most of it originally on Coral, of course), Fresh Sound did a few more in the 80s, so the ground was covered at that time to some extent as far as availablity of the music itself was concerned.

Considering everything (from the 50s when not all musical styles were primarily geared towards LPs yet) I think so too. Another indicator: I just checked my copy of an "Al Smith's House of Jazz " catalog (dating from sometime in 1953 and arranged by label in its contents of jazz and more or less jazz-related LPs), and it has the following (approximate) numbers of pages allocated to the labels mentioned here: Decca - 2 p. Coral - not quite 1 p. US Brunswick - not quite 2 p. but OTOH ... Capitol - 6 p. Columbia - 11 p. RCA Victor - 5 p. (Liberty wasn't in the running yet) So could it be that this explains that to some degree?

An interesting question - one that I've been wondering about (thinking of the jazz or jazz-ish catalog) recently too ... BUT .... when you say "Decca", do you lump in "Coral" along with Decca or do you draw a clear line between the two? I know over here Coral and Brunswick (ie. European Decca) releases from the 50s (that are of interest to me) do come up regularly, and who is on which label is rather interchangeable or seems to have been a random decision by the A&R people at the time. OTOH most of the original or very early US pressings on Decca or Coral came my way through the internet, at least as long as it wasn't country LPs. But maybe I am biased with regard to my awareness of their catalog because MCA reissued a fair lot from their 50s Decca/Coral catalogs here in my formative collecting years in the the 70s. BTW, yes - TTK, I do think that your limited exposure to older Decca LPs may well be so because they had fewer artists that you would search actively for.

Wow, that sounds like a lot!

How many pages do they dedicate to Paul Gonsalves' rabble-rousing 27-chorus solo (on you know which tune)?

Yes, that's not impossible - see the following statement I made in my original post: "So I attributed this to someone having put a more recent vinyl pressing inside the original sleeve (was the original record shot, maybe?)." As I explained in a later post I did this myself in the case of the Mulligan/DEsmond LP on Verve. But in the case of the Impulse LPs evidence mentioned by others in this thread (and on Discogs) makes me believe this mismatch wasn't due to this reason but part of the sales practices, with an apparent (intentional or accidental?) overflow of covers printed beforehand and used up over time. A bit like in the case of other labels such as Blue Note and Capitol where it seems that during the 60s and possibly later U.S. covers were printed and shipped worldwide and then used with LPs pressed in the respective country. So you ended up with an LP that clearly had a comparatively thick U.S. cardboard cover but a vinyl marked "manufactured in West Germany", for example.

Not wanting to unduly continue the pastime of just rattling off what one owns of any given artist's platters 😄, here is a slightly different aspect to how to explore an artist or what to keep an eye on. In the field of Modern Jazz I've always been particularly interested in the early, formative and/or "youthful" years (call it whatever you may) of a "name" artist when he was in the midst of the scene and musical happenings, with decidedly less emphasis on their (much) latter-day works of "hey I'm still around" (as they might lead into any random direction - or at any rate into one that is rather removed from what originally attracted me to the artist). So in Dankworth's case I essentially and so far ended up with the following (dictated partly by availability, but I did and do not have any completist aims). - Johnny Dankworth 1953-58 feat. Cleo Laine (EMI Retrospect Series - a nice introductory compilation LP to the artist - the first by him that I got my hands on, back in the 90s) - Swinging In the 50s - IAJRC 39 (1953-57, rarer tracks often overlooked in the reissue market) - Bundle from Britain (Top Rank, 1959 - one that I had to have after having read various reports on the 1959 Newport Festival) - The Big Band Sound of Johnny Dankworth (Roulette, 1959-61) plus the - Waxing The Winners 1952-53 and 1954-55 LPs on Esquire (which include some Dankworth-led Melody Maker All Stars sessions) - a clear case of the "early period" of the artist, but in an atypical and interesting all-star setting

Exactly ... you nailed it IMHO. Like I tried to make this point in another discussion a while ago ... Anyone from the "free" (or "avantgarde") players who considers himself on a muscially or artistically higher level than everything that (stylistically) came before him (within possibly more formal conventions) would have to be able to (for example) "out-bird Bird" (on Bird's musical ground) first before he could lay any claims to have attained an artistically higher level. If he cannot or isn't able to (and at any rate, "I don't play like that" would be a lame excuse - or attempt at an explanation - for not being able to), then he may well have branched out SIDEWAYS into a DIFFERENT or NEW direction but certainly not into one that (by itself) is on an artistically higher level.

Paywall ... But anyway ... Some recommended JAZZ listening here: https://www.discogs.com/de/release/4131168-Bernie-Nerow-Trio-Bernie-Nerow-Trio One of the few Mode originals I have in my stash of Mode LPs.

I've owned this book for about 20 years now. Good value for money and recommended. I must admit I had omitted this from the list in my initial post because its contents go beyond jazz. But the jazz content is high indeed. Of course those who own the Alex Steinweiss, David Stone Martin and Jim Flora books will not find much that's new to them here but overall it is a very good overview, particularly of the 78rpm album and 10" LP era.

OK, I understand now ...

Really sorry to contradict you, but the book DOES have quotes (in fact, it largely consists of quotes, though the layout and the lengthiness of many quotes may make them harder to remember as such - see excerpts below; my copy is the 1955 printing by Peter Davies Ltd., London). However, I am not sure either how much of the contents still stand up as substantial eyewitness accounts and are not rather lore or anecdotes (time to re-read it, I guess). And I still consider "Swing To Bop" superior because it its more in-depth and focused - which of course is easier to accomplish as it covers a narrower time frame. and I admit I may be biased because both Swing and Bebop are among my main areas of interest in jazz (including the transitional recordings that straddle the stylistic fence).

Very interesting ...

Not so sure about the invalidity of the "pre-history" tag ... I understand this in two ways in THIS context: On the one hand: The elements and sounds of the music were there but not (or at least not enough) out in the open for the general music-buying and listening public to be really aware of it on a wider scale. You had to look (i.e. listen) for it hard to really notice it. Which gives rise to the existence of tomes like "What was the first Rock'n'Roll record?" by Jim Dawson and Steve Propes (incidentally feat. Ella Mae Morse with Freddy Slack and their "House of Blue Lights" in chronological place #4 out of 50 ). So at the time the "music in the making" did not yet go under a name of its own that would have identified this "new" style (and made it an entity easier to market, as you say). And in hindsight this was why the term "pre-history" later came into use to give these early blossomings of a style a name (or categorization) anyway. Like in MANY other areas of facts and events that eventual become part of history. E.g. the Minton's Playhouse sessions can be (and are, really) considered the pre-history of Bebop but wouldn't it be a bit of a stretch to claim this style as such actually started there and then as a FULL-FLEDGED style? On the other: I do realize a term like "pre-history" (that is coined after the fact) is also used because it may convey a touch of special "insider's awareness" to those who explore this niche music. A kind of "enlightened musical archeologist" feeling. Human nature ...

Some accounts of the career of Ella Mae Morse (and her place in the pre-history of R'n'R) point out that she did have some stylistic influence on Wanda Jackson.

You nailed it and your reaction is spot-on. This is one that I have already read more than once and yet would enjoy picking up again at ANY given moment (as one of surprisingly few among the MANY jazz books I have on my bookshelves), starting on it again and continuing without any urge to put it away again too soon afterwards just because I've read it before. It's instructive and entertaining in equal doses over and over again. If it is not on "recommended reading" lists (surprising - and all the loss of the compilers of such lists) then the only explanation I have is that these lists were compiled too long ago or the compilers (cluelessly enough) figured they'd had the "oral history" base covered by "Hear Me Talkin' To Ya" (which was fine in its time and still is nice but IMO "Swing to Bop" towers sky-high above it today). If there is to be reading on desert islands, then this is a desert island book for me. Or to make matters clearer, I have owned this book for about 25+ years and remember packing it in my summer holiday gear at least once (possibly more often) on the premise that if the worst should come to the worst and I'd be stuck in my caravan on the campsite on one or more rained-out days then this book would enable me to let my mind wander for as long as the book lasts. Even though I would not have the music handy that goes with the book. Nuff said? I think so ...

I saw several copies of these through the years. However, since at least the 1949-1959 volume was likely to overlap with most of what I already had I passed them up. I have a different pressing with a different cover (BN-LA-158) of the 1939-1949 volume, though.