Big Beat Steve

Referring to John S and Bill F's posts, could this be summarized a bit like the situation in other European countries (I can speak for Germany, France and Sweden where I do have quite a bit of period jazz mags which cover this subject too - e.g. in their review sections)? I.e. if there was a licensed issue pressed and released locally by a company for domestic distribution there was no direct import of the U.S. pressing (apart from copies that may have been imported privately - a costly enterprise - or brought over by U.S. servicemen, for example).

Yes the UK covers (and French ones, for that matter) were much thinner than U.S. covers. But on the other hand while U.K. covers tend to show ring wear rather fast they show it in the form of the CONTOURS of the LP only whereas ring wear on U.S. covers makes the printer's ink go away faster than you can say "Oo-bla-dee". And the technique of pasting two fairly sturdy cardboard sheets together with only a thin strip of paper along the edges to turn those two cardboards into a real album cover is something that has never looked too clever to me. Those thin paper strips practically BEG for seam splits! IMHO U.K. and other European covers shave fared a bit better in that respect too, including all those U.K. Vogue 12in LP 50s pressings of U.S. Contemporary LPs that I own.

Amazing that this sort of 80s reissue should set one back 4 quid in a thrift shop of all places. I bought my copy (slightly worn cover but pristine and therefore quite playable vinyl) for 2 quid at Mole Jazz (OK, so this was in the late 90s but still ...). And though the Behtlehem originals that this music was on tend to be pricy, these Affinity LPs aren't THAT rare at any rate so you should be able to get another one in better shape.

"Punk" before its time sounds a bit like it, from what I've seen in more recent rebroadcasts of the 60s b/w Beat Club shows (HR3 ran some a while ago). Maybe really too far ahead of their time, considering that U.S. garage punk bands of the 60s went largely unnoticed - especially in Europe - between the last vestiges of rock'n'roll, Brill Building pop, Motown, 60s Brit Beat and the rock acts starting up c.1968. Lack of accomplishment, on the other hand, is something that might be said of other bands of those 60s. But sometimes raw energy, spontaneity and immediacy make up for all that. And as for "LPs that didn't sell", isn't is exactly those items that are sure to fetch TOP money among collectors of the genre and give cult status to the artists (not least of all in jazz collector circles too? )

If you understand German, then read this: http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/musik/0,1518,619377,00.html Strange thing about this, though: In my younger collecting days in the 70s I did do a bit of collecting of British and German 60s beat music (as an extension of my interest in true 50s r'n'r/rockabilly) and grabbed a bit of documentation on that era too, but somehow all the sources on the music of that (by the 70s) not that distant past failed to mention the Monks and their vinyl legacy whereas others that overall were just as much a flash in the pan with limited record releases (but maybe a little bit less oddball) did get mentioned. And this was not the only case where bands of the mid-60s that must have a fairly sizable cult following never made it into the written documentation or record reference works of that era. Strange ... makes you wonder why the music writers of the 70s had such a selective and skewed look on that 60s era though it had only recently come to an end. Was it really so that whatever came along in the 60s OUTSIDE the beat/brit rock mainstream PRIOR to the advent of psychedelic rock, hard rock, folk rock, blues rock, "kraut rock" and whatever else started mushrooming 1968/69 just was off the radar of the music scribes?

As for those doings at the EU assembly ... really a farce indeed but not totally surprising. This has been in the pipeline for a while. Which is why I wrote to the effect of "as long as the 50-year cutoff date still is effective in Europe" earlier in this thread. Let's just see what becomes of it. I dont expect ANY major reissue projects (of music predating the hard bop era) by the big companies to see the light of day then that would otherwise have been shelved because those oh so bad Public Domain labels are around. I'd rather expect this to become a case of even more items gathering dust and rotting in some dark basements (because - P.D. reissues or not - this IS going to remain a fringe market without huge profit potentials to the majors). But if this is what the advocates of the U.S. limits of 70 years advocate and if the musical tastes of those are narrow-minded enough to limit themselves to those "major" artists and "major" items then so be it ...

Carnivore makes a good point. Instead of having the market flooded with reissues I think actually we'll see less re-issues(and re-issues of lesser quality) once this stuff enters in PD. Again, the lack of financial incentive will have a deleterious effect upon the re-issue market. Why should EMI spend the time and money to remaster their Blue Note catalog that was recorded before this date in 1959 if the Andorrans are going to put out a cheaper version using their material a few weeks later? I mean if sound quality isn't an issue for you than by all means go have a party but, if SQ is an issue for you well..... I am sorry but overall this is not true, and besides, it is EXACTLY that tunnel vision I mentioned earlier. I certainly won't condone duplicating reissue projects (launched by "legit" labels) by one of those P.D. labels but again, this is NOT a European or Andorran specialty (please read my earlier post and then tell me you never bought ANY of those all-U.S. LPs I mentioned - if you did not then this probably only was because you did not happen to be that interested in swing-era jazz, but if you had been then you'd snapped some of these up too , I bet ). But what is more, while it may well be that some majors think twice about this or that reissue project of a major artist this is just the tip of the iceberg of the reissue world, and we don't even know if those majors shy away from such projects because they fear a ripoff from a P.D. label or because they just cannot make enough dough on them even if no one else got in on the act. (Makes me wonder why that remastered Louis Armstrong Hot Five ever saw the light of day under these circumstances, BTW ). I guess no matter how well you rule out any ripoffs following legit reissue projects, that kind of jazz would hardly ever be reissued comprehensively by the majors anyway because it's jsut not profitable to them by ANY standards as it is waaaaay too much of a (minor) niche market, and I think it was THIS point Carnivore was making. But the statement "we'll see less re-issues" just is not true. I just picked a few CDs from the nearest stack here, and what do I have? "The Complete Lem Johnson 1940-53", "Felix Gross Complete Recordings 1947-55", Marvin Johnson - Jumpy Rhythm Jive 1946-51", all of them on Blue Moon (Barcelona and/or Andorra), and then "King Perry 1950-54" on Classics (Blues & Rhythm series). Now would you please tell me which MAJOR record company would EVER have considered reissuing those recordings in what you would call "legitimiate" terms? Please name just ONE recent project of those artists (picked totally AT RANDOM, and the list could be continued ad infinitum) on a MAJOR label! Heck, they couldn't have cared less - even in the case of Marvin Johnson who was on Capitol (a.o.)! Where would the collector be if there were none of those P.D. labels? And the same holds true not only for R&B. Would we ever have heard 50s jazz LPs from the Stepheny or other similarly oscure labels again if it had not been for the "Andorrans"? Which U.S. major would have bothered e.g. about the Stepheny label AT ALL? So really now, please rethink your statements! Not to mention the fact that it is easy to see those "Andorrans" jump on other majors' bandwagons (such as the labels previously catered for by OJC), seeing that the OJC reissue policy seems to be going down the drain fast. How many around here had been complaining of the mess caused to then OJC catalog by the current rights holders? And this was BEFORE P.D. labels jumped on that bandwagon. So in case like this you really can't say the P.D. labels had discouraged those rights holders from pursuing a comprehensive reissue policy. Anyway, some of you are really out front and real fast when it comes to breathing down the necks of "the Andorrans" (a pet peeve of some around here, it seems ) but how come I hardly ever hear "Brits" mentioned instead of "Andorrans"? May I remind you how often people have been drooling here on this very forum about a certain British box set producer, despite the fact that their P.D. reissue policy in fact duplicates a LOT of other reissue material on other labels that paved the way (of which some, such as Ace, definitely are the fully legitimate holders of the rights of material that is old enough to have fallen into P.D. a decade ago, and yet they have BOUGHT the reissue rights, and still the same artists crop up on those box sets on that other Brit label, and people keep drooling about it). More blatant cases can be found even in other of those box set projects, e.g. in the case of an "Accordion Jazz" box set. Now what would you guess if I told you about two thirds of another (older) accordion jazz box set issued in France by Fremeaux Associés happen to crop up on that box set too, and the remainder (intended to show post-war accordion jazz) comes from two LPs by one single artist (Mat Mathews), both records of which are past the 50-year limit too? Do you really think this is a case of not enough accordion jazz being around to avoid those duplications? C'mon, I could rattle off more than a handful in the very same vein that have never been reissued. Reeks more of a case of using what's EASILY available for re-reissue with a fairly limited amount of one's own work. Digging out all-new material that would not have duplicated but COMPLEMENTED that Fremeaux Associés project (e.g. by reissuing not Mat Mathews' material over again but maybe Angelo Di Pippo's jazz LP on Apollo or maybe Johnny Hamlin for samples of 50s accordion jazz), now that would have been something else for a change. But it would have meant more remastering work, so ... So the basic difference to the reissue policy of the Andorrans really is inexistent IMHO, yet people have been drooling about that label. Double standards around here? Looks very much so to me, sorry to say ... Postscript: Personally I don't have any problems with those P.D. reissue labels if they respect the 50-year P.D. cutoff limits applicable here in Europe but what I do find a bit annoying is how people single out certain reissue labels to put all the blame on them. If you want to nag about those Europe-based P.D. labels then go the WHOLE way, even if this means you have to forego the pleasure of adding this or that dirt-cheap "non-Andorran" but other "European" P.D. box set or single CD to your collection. And remember a LOT of the "Classics" series dear to the hearts of many U.S. forumists around here technicaly falls into the same category too as far as the P.D. cutoff dates are concerned (and whoever wants to see special protection from P.D. releases accorded to labels like Blue Note but couldn't care less about other original-release labels is definitely using double standards as long as the U.S. P.D. time limits are still being "infringed"). Enough of this rant now but it just had to be said ...

I agree with you on that point, of course. But that problem is not a recent one and not a specifically European one. Take the "Golden Era" or "Big Band Archives" or "Ajazz" and other related LP labels of the 70s. Far from all of them were hitherto unreleased transcriptions or airshots, many of them were studio 78 rpm reissues from the majors, and many Dorsey, Crosby and other big band recordings DID remain in print on the original labels too. So were all of those "collector label" reissues legal and fully licensed? And even renowned retailers such as Ray Avery carried the ENTIRE ranges in their mail order lists, so ... ? I also find it lamentable if specific reissue labels such as Uptown are ripped off by others (I wouldn't touch other labels with a 10-foot pole if I can get the material on Uptown, their booklets alone are priceless), but even in that field of specific reissue labels, double standards in that debate are at work there too (need I evoke a certain U.K. "box" producer? ). To me it all seems that people cry out loud when it comes to Hard Bop as their core interest (and probably the oldest style of jazz that they are thoroughly familiar with) whereas older styles of jazz where one reissue company plagiarizes another one's product (or even if some remastering of their own has gone into their project it still is so that multiple reissues in that niche marked steal sales from each other) are not nearly as much frowned upon as lots of people seem to like to take advantage of those "affordable" offers to fill niches in the fringe areas of their collections. It's this tunnel vision in the debate that I find a bit, well, debatable ...

Why? As long as the 50-year P.D. rule still applies and is met by the producers ... Can you name a good reason why a 2002 reissue of a 1951 track taken from a 78 is ANY different from a 2009 reissue of a 1958 LP release? The only thing that sucks is if those items still were sold in those countries where sale of such material would be illegal because a different P.D. cutoff date rule applies. But there the blame is on the distributors, not the producers. Besides, I still don't get all that fuss about those reissues that COMPLY WITH the 50-year cutoff date. I can only repeat what I said earlier: Did ANY of you ever have any guilty consciences about buying any of those reissues where it is universally known that the ORIGINAL artists were screwed in a BIG way the original company (e.g. Basie's 30s Decca sessions, many blues recordings, including that blatant case of Arthur Crudup being refused royalties for this earlier work (covered by El the Pelvis) at the VERY last minute by execs at a time when he already was an old and sick man, etc.). After all in these cases the bigger companies (that EASILY could have afforded those royalty payments, if only as a goodwill gesture that would have been long overdue) reaped the reward that they had only obtained by really screwing the original artists. Did I ever hear any "boycot MCA (Decca rights holders)" or "boycot RCA (for the Elvis/Crudup doings)" outcries from collectors? If not, why not, I wonder? Sorry to say this but as long as the 50-year P.D. rule still holds (and is complied with by the reissuers) it just is that a law is a law.

My question too. Been scouring the usual sites for it but missed the item a couple of times, unfortunately. I'd been hipped to that (as an "obscure item" of interest for my collection) by a friend who had a 45 (promo, I guess) of the "Swing with SML" (I think) but lost it unfortuinately when his kid (still a toddler then) inadvertently stepped on it ... ouch!).

The last LP you show (the Savoy twofer) only says in its liner notes that this session was made under the ledership of Johnny Guarnieri but gives no exact "band name". Michel Ruppli's Savoy discography lists it under "Johnny Guarnieri's All Star Orchestra".

No, Jutta Hipp never recorded any studio sessions as a leader for Brunswick. That session of April 13, 1954, included 8 tracks of which four were first released on MGN E3137. Two of these (Simone/Anything Goes) were reissued on L+R along with 4 others that were had not been issued in the 50s. The two remaining tracks on MGM (Lover Man/Diagram) were not reissued on L+R. I have the four MGM tracks on a double EP that includes the Jutta Hipp tracks on one EP and British jazz by "Mike Nevard's British Jazzmen" featung Don Rendell and others (Mike Nevard was a music scribe, not a musician) on the other. The liner notes by Leonard Feather say he had a hand in producing these recordings and the Jutta Hipp recordings were produced by Horst Lippman. Hence the link to the later L+R (re-)release.

Am getting PM notifications via the "PM" window that opens when I log into Organissimo so I see when a new one comes in and that would be fine, but the e-mail notification of new PM's seems to have gone haywire here too: I keep getting e-mail notifications several days after the actual PM (and sometimes in a weird order, not in the order they were sent) and ALWAYS in double. Strange ...

The Warne Marsh biog, An Unsung Cat, is Scarecrow, right? It's around $40 (and worth every penny, IMO). I guess they sell so few they have to make up costs some kind of way. So far I have two Scarecrow books only: Terry Gibbs' autobio "Good Vibes" which wasn't THAT cheap either (over 30 euros even at favorable Amazon rates which equal U.S. prices about 1:1) but is definitely worth every penny, and "Bob Inman's Swing Era Scrapbook" which basically is worth the money too beacuse its contents ARE a labor of love (but it suffers from abominable photo printing quality which IMHO is impoardonable in a book like this and by today's printing standards). So will the Fats Navarro bio with its annouced 300-some pages be 300 pages like Terry Gibbs' autobio or 300 of the size of Bob Inman's scrapbook, I wonder? The latter really would be sumpin', but I'll be looking forward to its publication anyway.

Ah, so it was that MGM session that contributed the other tracks. Wasn't sure snd did not check ... As for the missing titles, you are right (which is why I wrote about "part" of the 10" LP earlier) but I don't think it was a "hack job" in the worst sense of the word. Remember this CD is a straight reissue of an earlier LP with obviously shorter playing time (as the entire CD series seems to duplicate the earlier LP contents). And back in the late 70s you'd have to be EXTREMELY glad (I know I was, I got my copy in 81 or 82 or so) to get your hands on this material as neither the BN nor the MGM platters had been available anymore for a long time and I doubt Japanese vinyl reissues (if they existed) would have had anywhere near the worldwide circulation they had later on. Of course the cover was (and is) idiotic but those were the times ... and no doubt we've all seen worse hack jobs with more omitted tracks and much more erratic compiling "strategies" than this. Still it IS a pity that some tracks are missing.

You may well be right - Swedish jazz musicians had to be rather versatile during those times, it seems.

I would have to look up sources but I think this early Jutta Hipp session released on that 10" BN with the black cover with the pencil drawing of Jutta was one of several European recordings organized at that time by Leonard Feather in Europe for release on BN. No doubt some diehard BN geek would surely have all the finer details on hand, right up to the size of shoes of everybody present in the recording studio at the time and the meals consumed at lunch break? :D

If this is so then this only goes to prove once more that US-born Ernie Englund was a musical chameleon (or at least very adaptable). Whenever the occasion called for it (e.g. at live gigs in those Swedish folk parks) he seems to have been much more extrovert (if not downright exhibitionistic). BTW, he was one of the very first European (and certainly Swedish) artists to record outright rock'n'roll records. His 1954 recording of "Crazy Man Crazy" is extremely uninhibited and almost makes Bill Haley's original sound tame and lame by comparison. Quite astonishnig, considering the conservative tastes of European popular music execs of those times ...

Am not all that familiar with his work beyond the above 2-CD set (a GREAT one!) and some sideman appearances on other leaders' records but judging by his regular presence in 50s issues of JAZZ HOT he must have been a major figure of French jazz in those days. R.I.P. - think I'll spin that CD once more tonight.

I see your point, and thanks for making me sensitive to that point while I read on ... At any rate, I am fully aware this bio is a case of piecing together scarce snippets of info on an obscure figure, and I do take such writings with a grain of salt anyway when it comes to detail assessments and conclusions. But I cannot imagine he got all the assessments and all the basic facts wrong that give a a broad picture of Richard Twardzik and his fellow musicians from those circles (a broad picture for sure, yet much more detailed than what you would have found elsewhere, even after you discount possible misinterpretations). In short, whatever detail faults there may be I dont think this overshadows and invalidates the entire opus. And again, I guess a lot is open to debate if you trace a person's life long after he and most of those who would have been able to give first-hand information are dead and gone. I understand Levinson's Tommy Dorsey bio has its share of factual errors and misinterpretations too. A poster on another board (who definitely seemed to know what he was talking about) said so in no uncertain terms yet refused to post the errors on that public forum. Pity ... I've read that book with great interest (though I'm not the biggest TD fan in the world) and would have appreciated the corrections to clear up whatever there would have been to clear up.

The online "Svensk Jazzdisografi" names Englund, Björkman, Wickman, Gullin, Hallberg, Brehm and Edman - and AKE PERSSON on trombone (who else? )! But which Dragon CD are you referring to? I've got that session on DRCD 402 (Bengt Hallberg All Star Sessions 1953/54) and this one DOES list Persson too. So is Persson's omission an oversight on the part of another compiler on another CD or on your part? Anyway, I've never heard or read of Englund playing trombone, even in period mags he was touted as a trumpet man all the time (I've got all of Orkester Journalen from 1936 to 1963 and most of Estrad from 1939 to 1963 so have done a bit of reading).

That just about sums it up IMHO. If he had just said it was Curley Russell who had named the tune for this particular reason. Point. No babble about how Curley sicked it to P.S. of all people etc. But no ... that would not have been enough, it seems ... And no, somehow I don't believe certain hypotheses advanced around here as all this bigwig attitude of those who've come to feel they are absolutely indispensable in their field ties in with what you've heard and witnessed in many such cases. Coming to think of it, I've got all of Ken Burns' JAZZ documentary on video and just LOVE the period footage etc., but would I maybe be better off editing out all the "statements" by Schaap, Marsalis and Crouch when I transfer it to DVD? :D Any suggestions? :D

Got my copy of "Bouncin' With Bartok" last Friday and was immediately impressed as I from the start had a feeling this author did not leave a single stone unturned in exploring every facet of this short artistic life ... I must say this is one of very few musician biographies I would have devoured in one go (if I'd had more time) immediately after starting reading it (only Terry Gibbs' "Good Vibes" managed that in recent times - on a TOTALLY different level, of course )). So far I'm still in the chapter about R.T.'s boyhood and his family background, and as I am usually not overly impressed by whole family tree sagas worked into a bio of one particular person (in other words, some such background stories would benefit from being kept shorter) I still am not weary of that chapter as I feel it is vital in understanding his artistic background. So that's saying something... I noticed that "Bess You Is My Woman now" claim too and was half-tempted to check the tune indexes in accessible discographies so to see if that claim actually was true but then let it pass ... Glad to see that point's settled. At any rate, it certainly was not yet a MAJOR "standard" in 1954. (Was it at any point? ) I probably would not have noticed that misjudgment of Chet Baker, but OTOH what would one have to say about other bios if you start fine-combing things and go by THAT yardstick? Take Count Basie's autobio (a musician I HUGELY admire so I am willing to make limitless concessions) but this one does ramble on and on and get repetitive in its narrative, and since that autobio claims to have been written "with Albert Murray" I wonder how this "ghoster-editor-tidier-up" (or whatever A. Murray's function was) could have missed those misplaced dates and slipups in the post-45 section, in particular? And no doubt unkind things relating to this kind of details could have been said about numerous other bios too. But maybe all this is just because I'm judging this book just as an ordinary listener and collector and not a jazz writer or musician?

Amazing how things come full circle ... All those L+R records from the list in the first post were all over the place in record shops here in the LP days and remained in stock for very, very long at fairly low prices of some 9.99 deutschmarks apiece. Seems like L+R did not manage to shift them all THAT quickly ... Since the Jutta Hipp LP was mentioned, part of that LP is made up of part of the contents of her first Blue Note LP (10") so the current CD is a re-re-(re-?)reissue.

Agreed too. Considering the limited number of items that MODE released, they certainly had lots of high-calibre players. But apparently they were located on the "wrong" coast and did not have enough "angry young horn blowers" in their ranks to achieve anything like the BN cult status.