Big Beat Steve

I saw a fair bit of the place in the early days and more occasionally in the mid/late-80s. Only really frequented it again once I was back from N. America in 1997-ish, when they had relocated and vinyl was starting to be 2nd-fiddle to CDs (by this time I had started to get interested in vinyl again after some years dominated by CDs). On my first few visits the auction lists were still up and running and I put a couple of optimistic bids in - totally unsuccessfully. Around the end of the decade though it used to be common to see 'auction quality/rarity' LPs in the 'Collectors' bins upstairs, including a sprinkling of decent Blue Note Liberties/NY USAs at reasonable price and the occasional Brit Jazz gem (for example I picked up Frank Ricotti's CBS album this way - an unexpected delight). Those last few years in the 2nd location were without doubt the best years for good finds - when most people were more interested in CDs. Some of the nicest finds for me were upstairs in the ancient overhead racks, where the non-modern jazz stuff was placed (and lingered for years and years collecting dust). Stashes of Herman, Basie, Ellington etc. Although the stuff was incredibly dusty (a copy of 'Jazz Wave' 2LP on Blue Note had me sneezing for weeks - but, heck, it was £2 !) those items could be bought for incredibly little money. They also had a turntable with amp and speakers upstairs but eventually the needle was nackered and it was never replaced. Great times ! :rsmile: Very much my impressions of the c.1995-2000 period of my visits. That upstairs LP department took up a LOT of the time of my stay in London each time!

I guess I was one of them (maybe we did cross paths there, who knows ...). I seem to have missed the "early" Mole days as I did not become aware of Mole's until 1986 or so and did buy one or two items from them via mail order. But from 1993 until 2000 I made numerous visits to Mole's as I made a point of including a 1-2 day stopover on the way back to the Ramsgate ferry or the Eurotunnel each time on my trip back from those 40s/50s music weekenders I attended over there. In a pinch aven a half-day (afternoon) halt in London would suffice to make the rounds at Mole's (combing through ALL bins), Ray's AND possibly the Compendium bookstore before beating it towards the Dartford flyover before the evening rushhour traffic out of London set in. It wasn't rare for me to leave the shop with some 50 LPs or so, so a good deal of my collection came from Mole too, and I can confirm what MG said about the plastic bags (I also must have some of them somewhere). As for their selection deterioration, I cannot realy confirm that. The first time I was there in 1993 they still were in what must have been the original shop (and the prices did look a bit steep to me even for ordinary 70s reissues), but the next time I made it to London they had moved a few blocks on, and though you clearly could see what was "ex-auction" (which was sometimes priced a bit steeply), their vinyl bins always held lots of fairly priced or downright cheap goodies in clean condition for me (but I was and am more into swing and West Coast than Blue Note and Impulse first pressings anyway). To me at least it seemed like their prices had gone down overall vs. my first visit. It must have been in 1995 when I really hit the big time there. Mole Jazz had opened a second shop across the street because (as the staff told me) they had gotten such a huge amount of secondhand records in stock that their shop simply could not hold them (must have been the time when many seasoned collectors went the CD route wholesale). At any rate, they had that shop only for a time and the day I was there they had started downmarking EVERYTHING in the store. While I combed through all the bins from A to Z I was starting to get afraid I'd overtake the staff busy with reducing the prices but he told me smilingly not to worry as he'd mark everything else down at checkout and that I'd sure had come in the right place at the right time. That day I definitely felt like in vinyl heaven! Too bad I didn't have enough time to check through the racks and racks of 78s too. Though in retrospect (and seeing what was/is possible on eBay) I have to admit I sometimes bid far too steeply on their auction lists I found shopping at Mole Jazz always very enjoable right up to the last time I was there in 2000. Too bad the page is now turned; Mole Jazz looked like a worthy successor to DOBELL's shop to me (which I was lucky enough to check out in 1975/76/77 but with a school student's budget you could only afford a few select items each time ). And there were other legendary places as well. I remember marveling at the astonishing selection of music books at the BLOOMSBURY BOOK SHOP around 1976/77 as well, and of course at that time I was totally unaware of the fact that John Chilton was a seminal figure in British jazz. In fact I did buy from them through mail order later on but with limited funds missed out on a few now rare items. I recall inquiring about the newly published "To Bird With Love" book and receiving a handwritten card from Theresa Chilton saying verbatim "We can order it for you but the price is 56 pounds - UGH!!" By the time I next got to London in 1993 both shops were long gone and now Mole and the Compendium Book Shop (IMO a decent successor to the Bloomsbury Book Shop) are long gone too. Amazon makes up for a lot of that loss these days but it still is a pity.

Too bad about Ray's. I haven't been to London in recent years (the last time I was there Ray's still were over on Shaftesbury Avenue and Mole still existed) but if even Ray's now is on its way out that will probably have been it as far as real store shopping is concerned. Too bad for a world metropole like this. Can't complain about brick-and-mortar store shopping in Paris, though. At least not as far as CDs are concerned. Joseph Gibert is chaotic in the huge secondhand department but worth combing through, Paris Jazz Corner (which still has quite a bit of vinyl) and Crocojazz are still holding out (and there are a few other specialist shops too), and even the jazz and blues departments at some of the FNAC store chain are worth a visit. For the time being, I'll keep scouring the special Jazz offer bins at the one large secondhand record store remaining in town but I wonder what will happen with this one when the building block where this one is located comes up for urban redevelopment sometime in 2010.

Was about to post this (one of my all-time Xmas musical musts) but refrained from it because the thread starter "didn't want no blowin' "

Then there is the "White Christmas" version by the RAVENS which makes a nice change compared to the usual suspects' warblings And of course those Cool Yule/Hipsters Holiday compilations and the "Mr Santa's Boogie" LP on Savoy. And finally, I admit I haven't head Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby" in a while either so it is not played out THAT much anymore for me.

Bessie or BASIE (which was what Shrdlu had asked about) ?

But this HAS been done, at least on LP. Cf. those six 2-LP sets in the CBS "Jazzotheque" series (produced by Henri Renaud) released in the 80s. My pressings are all by CBS Holland (bought some new here locally but Vol. 5 in France and Vol. 6 in the UK so it must have been distributed widely). And there there also were two 10-LP box sets that alos included alternate takes of the same material. Has all this been totally unavailable in the USA?

Ha, might well be mine comes from the same source. It has a cutout at the upper spine edge and I bought it secondhand at Mole Jazz in the early 90s.

That music must have clocked a bit of mileage on reissue vinyl too. 6 of the 8 tracks are on the "The Beginning and End of Bop" Blue Note LP B-6503 released as early as 1969 (coupled with George Wallington tracks). And wasn't it in the Japanese King Records "BN 10 Inch LP Collection" 12in facsimile reissue series of the 80s too?

@zanonesdelpueblo: I see you picked up that "exuberance" vs. "aggression"/"anger" comparison I made earlier in that discussion (and in my latest statement again). To get this straight: Of course I am not equalling Hard Bop with aggression but a certain kind of its output just might be perceived easier that way than a lot of swing-style jazz will ever be. And there is a limit of how much anger or aggression or whatever on that level you can take. I know there are a lot of people out there who'd never dig R&B sax men or Illinois Jacquet's JATP sax antics the way I do (when I feel like it) because they find it just monotonous honking. Technically speaking it probably is but to me it conveys sheer excitement and exuberance and you can picture yourself in a crowd that just goes wild to the music and you ... just let yourself go. On the other hand, while I do enjoy listening to a lot of Hard Bop horn men too there is a kind of Hard Bop where from a certain moment you just ask yourself "How much more of your anger or aggression (or whatever) do you want to belt out?" No doubt to the musicians it was a sincere way of expressing their feelings at that moment, but as a listener (especially as a listener TODAY) you can and want to take only so much of it and you feel it's all been said so it becomes formulair and repetitive to your ears too. See what I mean? (BTW - @all, and because I can sense that question coming up, please don't ask me to name specific examples. I can tell when I hear it - but most of the Miles Davis Quintet's music from the 50s Prestige era, for example, does NOT fall into that category, simply for Miles' playing).

"Recordings" in this context seems to mean albums, i.e. collections of songs on lp or cd, because you are talking about the sequence of songs in a collection. It seems like you are saying that hard bop albums were formulaic. What about swing? Well, swing was not recorded on albums in its heyday. Songs came out as singles mostly. So no, not formulaic in the same sense. Not formulaic in the same sense - no, but formulaic insofar as a certain (completist?) species of collectors has been complaining ever so often about those 78 rpm-era recordings being rather repetitive when listened to today (remember that recent Slim & Slam discussion in another subforum here? Same for many early 20s or 30s blues recordings). Technically speaking and on superficial listening this may be so, but after all those recordings were NOT meant to b elistened to in a chronological run over 2 or 3 entire CDs. They were issued two (fromt and flip) sides at a time over a more or less longish span of time. That makes the listening experience quite different. Not so with albums. This can be rather formulaic in its own way right from the outset if you stick to the same type of programming such as described above. But again - could it be that the "feel" or the "message" of the music also is a key factor in making you tire of it or not? Some hard bop just is more demanding to lisen to than swing, and if on top of this the "angry young men of jazz" overtones (that I feel exist in some - though certainly not all - hard bop recordings) are perceived exactly as such by some listeners then you can only take so much of that. But will you tire just as easily of swing-era (or post-swing era mainstream jazz) recordings that certainly never tried to express such anger but rather more joyful vibes? Just wondering ... BTW, getting back to the 78 rpm era recordings again, what I said above is why I sometimes do feel slightly underwhelmed by those completist reissues and don't always find strictly chronological programming of the reissues such a great idea. It just might make you tire of that music more rapidly too. In fact there are LP reissues of some 78-rpm era artists or orchestras that I feel to be rather more rewarding to listen to than many of those strictly chronological A and B-side completist reissues because those LPs are only in very rough chronological order and apparently were compiled with more emphasis on coming up with a sequence of tracks that is interesting to listen to.

A good point you've made there about "variety" existing within one style ("Swing", in this case).

On the contrary ... if you have that many albums you invariably will end up being a completist of many, many artists and styles (!) (unless you have EXTREMELY eclectic tastes and will listen to a bit of literally EVERYTHING). And if you have 50 or 60 or 70 albums' worth of material of any "name" artists you either have to be a dedicated fan (and then repetitiveness won't matter all that much to you because in each case you invariably discover a bit that's new to you) or you will start wondering if maybe once you've heard the 10th album of this or that artist (that you appreciate but are not an all-out fan of) the 11th or 12th (or 50th or 70th) album will sound the same all over again and you just will tire of it?

Actually. MG, it's pretty hard to compare these styles in such generalized statements (exceptions to the rule abound). I'm not that the biggest fan of swing-style vocals, BTW, but what would make a lot of instrumental swing less tiresome for me than a lot of hard bop is the general feel, maybe. I may be wrong or not open-eared enough but there is quite a bit of hard bop the intensity of which DOES sound aggressive to me whereas even in intensely played tunes in swing and even R&B the general feel is not one of aggressiveness but of exuberance. A lot of Lionel Hampton's 50s live recordings, for example, ARE formulaic but the mood and feel they convey just is vastly different from that of similarly intense hard bop.

An interesting topic , and I agree with your observation. I've never considered myself a dyed in the wool hard bopper (but interested enough to add a representative cross-section to my collection through the years); at any rate, swing (and other jazz styles) rate higher among my personal jazz styles than hard bop does. Some time ago I picked up a selection of BN CD's currently on special offer at my local Zweitausendeins store as they had a few items that you might want to have in your collection. But when I got home I couldn't really bring myself to listen to any of them right away (except Horace Silver's "Song For my Father, and "Dial S for Sonny" a bit later on). Somehow I just wasn't in the mood for any "hard blowing" at that moment, and I haven't yet pulled those CDs out since. But the time for a "hard bop blowing spell" in my listening preferences will come again, so what does it matter right now? Overall, I'd say a lot of hard bop "all-out blowing" just gets to you in a way that's quite different from swing "all-out blowing". I know for sure Roy Eldridge's blowing (either his 30s Three Deuces or his 50s Verve material) won't wear me out in the way relentless hard bop horn blowing does from time to time. Yet I don't think you can pin this down only to some jazz styles being more "demanding" than others. I know I'd not tire of mid to late 40s Bebop (certainly not an "easy" jazz style either) as rapidly as of mid to late 50s Hard Bop, so ...? Maybe the formulaic, repetitive blowing character of many of those blowing sessions that Prestige has been blamed for wasn't just limited to Prestige but included a certain amount of BN's too? Or was it the "angry" character of a certain kind of Hard Bop as conveyed by those "angry young men" of Hard Bop that is still getting to the listener today and might set off some neg vibes if you're just not in the mood for that angriness? I don't know ...

A drummer who did an LP under his own name for the MODE label around 1957 too. Nothing earth-shaking but quite nice (the lukewarm review in Down Beat was a bit too harsh).

did you know that every time i buy this sort of thing i think of you by now; you've posted this dozens of times and i agree it's so annoying there's not really a reason to stop posting... (ditto for the ethical divide between proper and lonehill) You know actually in most cases I am well aware beforehand of records that I now buy for only one or two tracks (because I WANT those tracks AND because those records are dirt cheap to begin with) but the ones I was thinking of within this thread are others: I.e. those records you once bought in your earlier collecting days and then, later on, you "upgraded" to other pressings/issues that are more comprehensive and more methodically organized and STILL when you do a track-by-track comparison you find there STILL are one or two tracks on this record that you DON'T have on others so you still cannot dump this LP and relegate it to the fleamarket/swap meet box (at least not until you've found those remaining tracks on other discs that fill this and other voids in a better way in your collection! Happened to me a couple of times last week when I brought home a huge stack of 2nd hand vinyl so the question came to mind here ... And no doubt it's a dilemma faced by many other collectors too.

Went to a record clearout sale the other day, and among a host of 60s/70s/80s jazz reissue LPs (mostly Swing) I dug out a bunch of very nice EP originals with picture covers and in very clean condition: Terry Gibbs - Terry (EmArcy) Lennie Tristano - Capitol Jazz Classics series Lee Konitz - Inside Hi-Fi Benny Goodman - B.G. In Hi-Fi Vols. 1 to 4 Sonny Stitt (Roost masters issued on Sonet) Harry Arnold big band on Metronome Jazz West Coast Vol. 4 Buddy Collette (on Sonet) etc. etc. Sure, some tracks duplicate what I've already got on LP/CD but at 1 (ONE!) Euro each, how can you go wrong?

Would albums that duplicate others in one's collection except for one (or at most two) tracks and that you keep for this one track anyway also qualify for this thread?

Thanks for that info, Jack. Admittedly that adds a bit of a new twist to it all. So maybe I ought to file my Ellington Orange disc under D like Maxwell Davis?

It's not a Kenton disc, it's an ELLINGTON-related disc (and it WAS filed at the end of my Ellington discs). And my record racks along the entire wall of my music room are ALL rather crowded by now (if I want to keep them at least halfway in proper order).

Exactly!! (On both counts! ) This character that Durium (who I hope does NOT have these reservations towards Slim & Slam and Slim & Bam etc.) quotes fails to realize one MAJOR aspect: Those 78 rpms were NOT intended to be listened to in one single series of 16 LP tracks or, what's worse under these circumstances, 24 CD tracks one after another. They were self-contained miniatures to be "consumed" and taken in one pair (A and B-sides) at a time. The same holds true for a LOT of early (pre-war) blues records, for example, that might otherwise sound fairly repetitive on first listening too if you just looked at the superficial structure and instrumentation of the songs and listened to a huge bunch of them in one uninterrupted row. It seems, though, that today's CD and Mp3 completist listening habits prevent the listeners more and more from grasping the essence of the music of some 60 or 70 years ago - at least as long as they don't really open up their ears and minds and listen to the music individually and on its own terms. Remember this was a LONG time before all those LP-size "concept" albums came along. Besides, a point could be made for a lot of hard bop (on LP) tunes sounding like all alike blowing to all those who don't take the time to get into the finer points of the music. Not to mention other more modern jazz or rock styles and their musical output ... That aside, Slim & Slam rule (and Slim with post-Slam Bam too )! And as for the music being all alike, that character quoted by Durium who said that clearly hasn't done his homework. If he had listened e.g. to the live recordings of basically the same repertoire by Slim & Bam released on the Hep label he'd see how that music was worked with and elaborated on when the musicians stretched out on stage.

As for that "Bright Orange" item you mention, I guess they did a whole set of cheapo cash-in LPs in the 60s/70s. In fact I have similar item featuring Duke Ellington tunes (played "...by members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra") which also lists a lot of fairly prominent jazzmen in the lineup, including some Westcoast men but also some ex-Ellingtonians. Probably a studio band affair. Actually I removed that LP from my LP rack yesterday and relgated it to the "Odds and Ends" corner as the D to H section of my Swing LP rack got overcrowded folliwng a huge recent purchase. Re- the names in capitals you mention, most of them are familiar from the big bands, etc. They probably all held various studio jobs at the time these records were made.

Chris, may I just add another question regarding those 2-LP sets you did back in the 70s? I have the material from those LPs on a 10-LP box set (CBS Special Products LSP 14100) which at the time was available in this box form only from the Zweitausendeins mail order service. The overall presentation was slimmed down compared to the individual 2-LP sets but on the back of the box it says in small print: "Produced by John Hammond, Chris Albertson" I therefore assume that what you said about mastering of the 2-LP sets also applies to this box set and that the same masters were used?

Went to a local vinyl clearance sale today and among a huge stack of jazz LPs and EPs by sheer coincidence also I picked up a 45 with another instrumental version of "Madison Time" recorded by one "Eddy Williams" on the Philips label. The flipside has a track called "Madison Beat" with calls (with a typical dance school teacher's voice) in GERMAN! Boy, you ain't heard nothing corny about The Madison until you've heard THIS!! :excited: