Big Beat Steve

Thanks for your input, everyone. I will try to contact the one shop specializing in collectible books that I think might be able to provide some advice. But my main question remains: What would those say who have some experience with dealings with collectible books of this type (and with their buyers or sellers)? Are repairs (however tidy they have been made) something that will grate with the typical book nerds or is this accepted state of the art (as part of necessacary improvements)? Similar in a way to the question of what is more aceptable: "neatly taped record covers" or "untouched but glaringly open spines that stand the risk of opening up more at each handling" ... Or to put it another way: Are there really ZERO people around here who are intimately familiar not only with collectible records but also with collectible books and other paper documents relating directly to that very music and can shed some expert's light on the points to take into account?

Actually, I had this book in my hands today when I dropped by a large bookstore downtown. But as it was sealed I was unable to look inside. What has kept me from springing for it so far was that I wonder what percentage of the contents is post-early to mid-60s. Cover artwork-wise, my main interest really are the entire 50s (as well as the earlier the 78 rpm album era). But beyond the early 60s it sort of fizzles out. So I can live without huge chunks of psychedelic or funk covers. The sample pages you can check out online are somewhat strange and inconclusive. And I guess I would have to see the entire book to make something of its methodology. The mix and the stylistic jumps across the decades look odd to me. And I find the visual impact of the artwork is lost to a great extent in an alphabetic artist mix (which the book seems to have). Unless the book wants to force a "you got to like all artwork from all decades alike" attitude unto you. There cannot remain much common visual ground if you just single out a scant few album covers by each artist from whatever decade. Neither would the impact be there if you arrange it by label (because most labels - that had longish existences - changed their artwork styles more or less drastically over time). "Jazzical Moods" with its "theme" layout makes more sense to me. But admittedly "that's only me".

Thanks for the hint about consulting a rare book store. This should indeed be a good starting point. There is only one shop here in town that would fit the bill AFAIK but I might give it a try ... BTW, as for having "never even seen a copy", I suppose you mean "for real" and "in the wild"? For as long as I have been aware of that book I've regularly seen it listed on eBay but even many years ago the starting or Buy It Now prices were in the 3-digit $ range, and not always with a "1" as the first digit.

Amazingly, except for the Manek Daver book your list includes none of the books I own, so here is what I'd add and recommend: - Ed. by William Claxton and Hitoshi Namekata, Jazz West Coast - Artwork of Pacific Jazz Records (it includes a chapter on other West Coast labels so isn't limited strictly to PCJ), Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha Tokyo, 1992, ISBN 4-568-50158-X C3070 - Ed. by Naoki Mukoda, Jazzical Moods - Artwork of Excellent Jazz Labels (relatively little overlap with Jazz West Coast), Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha Tokyo, 1993, ISBN 4-568-50150-4 C3070 - Ed. by Graham Marsh and Glyn Callingham, California Cool - West Coast Cover Art (some overlap with the Jazz West Coast book but not excessively so), Edition Olms Zürich (Switzerland), 1993, , ISBN 3-283-00259-2 - Ed. by Graham Marsh and Glyn Callingham, East Coasting - The Cover Art of New York's Prestige, Riverside and Atlantic Records, Edition Olms Zürich, 1993, ISBN 3-283-00264-9 (I am not sure if this maybe is the European edition of your New York Hot) I had my sights set on the two Blue Note cover art books published by Olms at around the same time as well but for some reason they were sold at totally outrageouos prices compared to the above California Cool and East Coasting books (regardless of the fact that they weren't even Japanese imports) - as if Blue Note alone warranted any inflated prices ... So I skipped them, particularly since Jazzical Moods includes its share of BN covers too. If you intend to go somewhat beyond jazz in the stricter stylistic sense to include BLUES and related album cover art too there would be a handful more of which I can supply details you wish. And of course there are the Jim Flora artwork books (including not only jazz covers, though) published by Fantagraphics - and that fat, fat tome on cover art by Alex Steinweiss published by Taschen (again with a lot of non-jazz covers).

Early last week I chanced upon a copy of the legendary "Jazz West Coast" folio by William Claxton from 1955 that I found impossible to resist. Though I do realize quite a few of the photographs have been "reissued" in more recent Claxton books such as "Jazz Seen" this has been on my Wants list for years. I had seen listings for this through the years every now and then, but at prohibitive prices. Now I found a copy in fairly decent condition in an online bookseller's listing over here in Germany at 80 EUR + shipping. Not a giveaway price for sure, but a far cry from the usual asking prices from $250 on up that grace the listings on eBay, Abebooks, etc. And for once a copy right here - so no exorbitant transatlantic shipping and customs fees to add ... (Lest anyone says this still was expensive - maybe, but remember this is on the other side of the Pond and the chances of finding a copy "for a song" at an early-morning tour of some local garage or estate sale or in some thrift shop run by a clueless shopkeeper - as no doubt has happened in the US and maybe still does - is exactly ZERO here ). So ... the copy has arrived and I am quite pleased. The cover has a bit of age-typical wear but the pages are quite clean. And overall from what I have seen in other and previous listings over time the wear is not worse on average than on many much more expensive items for sale. Yet I am wondering (or worrying) how to proceed next to preserve the book in its present condition and as a long-time "browsable" and "leafable" copy ... The spine (inevitably) does have some wear (see below) and is getting a bit bare in places. Stapling of the pages is tight and OK but the cover has loosened at the staples and I am afraid it won't be very long before it comes detached - particularly at the top staple. See second pic below. Unstapling, reinforcing the spine and restapling the cover to the folio is out of the question as I think it would be impossible to restaple it correctly without added deterioration. My idea now is to use clear acid-free bookbinder's tape to reinforce the spine of the cover from the outside and additionally run a strip of this tape down the inside of the cover (inside the front and back cover) to tape the cover to the adjacent page and keep everything together as durably as possible. Working very carefully to avoid any creases or bulges, of course (probably with a second pair of hands). I've done this before with quite presentable results on older magazines and stapled books, including the 1945 Esquire Jazz Book, my copy of which was relatively tatty round the edges and spine - and also on true "pulp quality" paper softcover books from the 40s and 50s that have become browned and brittle with age. If I proceed I intend to use professional bookbinder's archival mending tape: https://www.preservationequipment.com/Catalogue/Conservation-Materials/Labels-Tapes/Filmoplast I might in fact use the wider (4 instead of 2 cm wide) version for the spine. BUT - and this is the main reason of this post: The repairs I have done on collectible papers in the past were on items that are nowhere near the price level that this Jazz West Coast folio is. So I do wonder if any repairs of this type - however carefully done using profesional materials - might affect the value of such a collectible period item to any serious degree. Common sense should dictate that anything done correctly and carefully and to fairly professional standards to improve the actual usability of the item (no sense seeing the cover come loose for good 🤨 just because you enjoy browsing the book every now and then) should be if not an asset then at least something acceptable. BUT - the collector's fraternity can be a fickle bunch and there do seem to be those out there who will only have what clearly never has been "tampered with" by anoyone else. 😄 (Not that this folio is likely to leave my house again before my heirs will have to wade through my accumulated odds'n sods 😁, but still ...) So - I'd be pleased to hear from anyone who can offer any serious and well-founded advice on this aspect of handling this kind of collectables - be it pros or cons. In the meantime, this folio at long last completes the series of closely related period releases (see below 😉) and will occupy a special place on my bookshelf (inside a clear plastic sleeve, of course).

Thanks everyone. So I see that my mismatches are no isolated cases but did happen back then. At any rate, I am not unduly worried about this, and in the case of the Basie KC7 LP it wasn't even a brief nuisance because the price for the lot that this LP was part of was really "right". These mismatches just appeared odd to me as I wasn't sure how they came about. Not least of all because I myself have been known to put more recently pressed vinyl inside an older cover when dictated by the vinyl condition. E.g. in the case of the Mulligan/Desmond "Blues In Time" Verve LP of which I had found a copy of the original French pressing on Bel-Air a couple of years ago at a fleamarket at the measly sum of 1 EUR. I bought it just for the nicely preserved cover because side 1 of the vinyl was more than totally shot (and side 2 not pristine either). Some time ago I found a reissue of this on some budget label, so this clean budget vinyl now resides inside the Bel-Air jacket (though along with the original in P+ condition. )

His"West Coast Jazz" book is a safe bet. To me it ranks right up there with Ira Gitler's "Swing to Bop" as a re- and re-re-read (etc.) opus.

My generic cover is a different one but the record is exactly this one.

Your description sounds like one that I have as well: MUZA L0159 feat. the Emil Mangelsdorff Swingtett on the B side playing "I Got Rhythm", "Blue Room" and "After You've Gone". My copy has a generic Polskie Nagrania Cover, as do several other 10" LPs from the Sopot (Zoppot) 1956, 57 and 58 festivals that I have. So this seems to have been common practice. Emil Mangelsdorff playing ina style reminiscent of the Benny Goodman small groups wasn't uncommon (or to put it another way - it was something to expect ). See his "Swinging Oil Drops" LP from 1966 on CBS (later reissued on L+R). The cover you show above seems familiar. I may have seen it before. This must be the "export" sleeve. Contrary to the generic Polish label sleeves.

AM is "Mittelwelle" (MW), FM is "Ultrakurzwelle" (UKW). And AFN is "American Forces Network" (the radio station for the US soldiers stationed in Germany - though of course other local/regional AFN stations broadcast for US soldiers stationed in other countries too).

A telltale A telltale sign of how Ahmad Jamal was rated by some in radio - at least over here: The AFN radio stations in Germany of those mid- to late 70s had great music programs on AM that even catered to specialist and niche tastes with a heavy dose what then likely was called "nostalgia". But AFN radio on FM was an altogether differont matter, with background music doodling all day long in the style of "music to twiddle your thumbs off-duty in the barracks by" . The program largely consisted of MOR orchestras and (very occasionally) singers, and just about the only small group regularly featured (at least in those cases where I tuned in out of curiosity) was AHMAD JAMAL! Programmed right in between orchestra fare by the likes of Percy Faith, Mantovani, Hugo Winterhalter (yes! evidently some retro programming) et al. And in that context he did sound easily palatable enough ...

I wonder if that was Brötzmann that Volker Kriegel caricatured! 😁

Very nice, your cartoons! 😄 As for the "Flot Foot Floogie" (or "Floozie"): I may be mistaken but I do remember more than one slang-laden text from the 40s (or thereabouts) where "floozie" was used to refer to an "easily wooed chick" (to put it very politely). "Straight From The Fridge Dad" (The Dictionary of Hipster Slang) by Max Decharné defines a floozie as a "tart, dancehall doll, streetwalker". But with no "race" connotations in any of these uses. Or did you use "racy" just in the sense of "explicit" ("suggestive", "lewd" or whatever ...)? Didn't know about THIS meaning of "floy floy", though.

Some that certainly can't be googled via "jazz joke cartoon": Maybe a bit dated, but here's some mild fun from the pages of ESTRAD (1940 and early 1941):

Yes this IS odd. Looks like spuds indeed.

Actually at first sight the hairdo of the female figure in the bottom right corner of the 'Holiday in Trumpet" LP makes her look like a rear view of Billie Holiday (there are photos of her wearing a smiliar hairdo). But not nearly all the tracks (from the Keynote label) on the record are tunes that Billie Holiday ever recorded (except standards like "My Man" and "St. Louis Blues"). The artist credits in the small print are "Bedno - Siegel" on the "Holiday in Trumpet" LP and "Ed Bedno" on "Holiday in Trombone".

Juliet Prowse - a name probably best-known in many circles for her co-star role in Elvis' "G.I. Blues".

That would be a sure candidate for a topic(-to-be-created?) about "oddball/bizarre vinyl record cover inserts/inlay sheets". 😁

😁 I wonder if the Swiss audience of 1975 grasped the lyrics and (sexual) implications of the "Jelly Jelly" vocals (that were ultra-current and up to date in the 40s - in the Black community anyway - but certainly not much later anymore) or if they took this purely as a piece of nostalgia ... at most ... Luckily no Swiss radio would ever have been hampered by puritan airplay bans of so-called "explicit" lyrics 😄

It seems, then, that - seen from a jazz arranger's approach - with his "sketches" he had already "progressed" beyond later, fully written-out ragtime compositions.

Could it be that they had musical dealings with him primarily in his later years when he may have mellowed with age?

That's what I meant to refer to with my above comment - "not that I would have doubted it - given his account of the 1962 BG tour of the Soviet Union". I've downloaded this essay several years ago and immediately printed and filed it.

Am about to finish his book "From birdland to broadway". A great read indeed. And VERY refreshing to see a jazz musician who is also very articulate with WRITTEN WORDS (not that I would have doubted it - given his account of the 1962 BG tour of the Soviet Union) and can do his memoirs without having to be ghosted (to a greater or lesser extent). After all that's about as "straight from the horse's mouth" as things can get.

OK, understood ...

"EC album" = House of Blue Lights album? So that would have been Paul Motian. Now when did that story take place?