Big Beat Steve

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.

Indeed! Must have been released after I bought a whole batch of that series.

Are there any accessible reissues of Arnold Ross' 10in LP recorded for Vogue in 1952 available these days? Can't recall having ever seen it in that black cardboard cover Vogue/BMG CD reissue series of French jazz that was around in the 90s.

Hm .... looks like this is the time to pull out my copy of "The Complete Clarence Profit" on Meritt 15 again and give it a spin. Been a while since I listened to it but what I do remember is that his interplay with guitarist Jimmy Shirley on his 1940 trio sides is EXTREMELY fascinating.

I don't know ... My copies of Atomic 202 (Strictly For Kicks/Wolf Song by Lyle Griffin's Strictly For Kicks Music including a.o. Herbie Haymer on ts) and Atomic 230 (David Allyn singing Snowbound/Penthouse Serenade, with Lucky Thompson a.o. in the backing band) have fairly little wear and pretty decent shine (maybe a visual VG+) and play with only a moderate amount of background hiss and crackle. I've heard 78s on major labels that sounded worse with the same amount of visual wear. So I guess they probably were not the very best and most silent indie pressings but a lot better than many of those "recycling shellac" noise platters often mentioned in connection with 40s indie labels. But a lot depends on the equipment you play those 78s on today. I've played them on two different Dual turntables (none of them high-end) and the background hiss is much more pronounced on one (the older one) of them. But that's not specific to those Atomic records.

Did you check the Louis jordan discography by Jacques Lubin and Danny Garcon? It is about 20 years old so may not be quite up to date as far as recent discoveries are concerned, but it includes a lot of tracks recorded in 1944-46 (mostly with personnel) with the World Transcription Services being indicated as the recording source. Some of the tracks on that CD are listed there, some are not. According to that discography some of the World Transcription recordings even made it to Decca and V-Disc releases at the time. World Transcription recordings (not the ones on that CD) were reissued on Circle LPs CLP-53 and CLP-97. Now the amazing thing is that CLP-53 has 12 tracks from 7 different sessions and the dates and personnes for all 7 sessions (Jan., 44 to July, 45) are given in the liner notes, stating "World Broadcasting Systems Files" as the sources. So clearly it could not have been THAT difficult researching the lineup and recording dates for most of these tracks??!

Yes I've been wondering where you've been lately too. Hope you will enjoy your faster web access once it's there. A couple of weeks ago I finally installed a new computer (the old one is close to 9 years old but is still doing fine for what it is supposed to do), changed over to a faster DSL (at last!) flat rate phone and internet access at the same time (wouldn't have made much sense upgrading the old one before that) and finally had an in-house "intranet" with up to 4 internet access points installed. So I won't have to rely on my office computer anymore for really FAST access to this and other sites. Hope you'll be able to experience the same difference, so hang on until then ...

I believe you are right (especially for what you said about the music being played the way it was meant to be heard way back then, why is why BTW I dont always believe in reissues doctored beyond all limits; I can live quite well with a measure of surface noise) and I AM interested in this thread. In fact it has prompted me to give some of my c. 1000 78s a spin again every now and then, but I don't really believe in listing individual tracks here. But maybe I'll change my mind, even though I don't (yet?) see the point of rattling off playlists as apparently there is hardly ever a substantial discussion of the tracks mentioned.

This 1945 session was originally on Atomic and vinyl geeks will find it on "Central Avenue Breakdown Vol.2" (Onyx 215).

Unless I am very much mistaken and this is supposed to be a plug for newly-released kids' books with jazz overtones (or jazz books with kids' overtones, however you look at it, cf. that comment on the Monk book above), I am surprised nobody has mentioned that "First book of Jazz" by Langston Hughes yet. Pretty timeless IMO. That said, I do like that Bird kids' book theme. Edit: Oops, Baker (who else? ) beat me to it. His post tends to get crowded out by the others with their color cover scans, etc. so another mention of Langston Hughes' book is in order I guess.

"Al Haig Meets The Master Saxes Vol. 3" (Spotlite SPJ 143), featuring a.o. Herbie Steward's session of Jan. 17, 1950 (Medicine Man/Passport to Pimlico/T'Aint no use/Sinbad the Sailor)

I guess Jay Cameron was almost better known over here in Europe during his early prime. He lived in Paris from 1948 and was a regular on the French jazz scene. His 1955 Album ("Jay Cameron's International Sax band") released on Swing (F) and Vigue (GB) and reissued on CD in the "Original Vogue Masters" series by BMG is an interesting one.

And why not, Chewy?? That record by Paul Bley was recorded in Feb. 1954, and 78s were commonly made and released until 1958.