Big Beat Steve

There is no need really to limit Hutta Hipp's recorded legacy to her cooperation with Zoot Sims. Her two Blue note albums recorded live at the Hickory House are fine too (you don't necessarily need hard bop jam session horn blowers or skin beaters to enjoy BN LP's you know ... :D). And there is no need to overlook her recordings made in Germany before her departure to the U.S. either. Some of them are collected here, for instance: http://www.amazon.de/Frankfurt-Special-Jut...4501&sr=1-5 http://www.bocksmusicshop.at/detail.asp?art=3741 And as rightly pointed out in the Wikipedia entry on her, she has had a cult status among fans of German jazz throughout all those decades (though she probably was unaware of this herself).

Aw sheeeet ... And I figured WTF is he talking about vinylite (pressings??) or whatever? Seems like I goofed myself in a biiig way ... Serves me right ...

Yes of course, I see what you mean, Jazzbo. And "interesting" certainly is a fitting term. But isn't it so: No doubt we all miss out on all too many discs through our collecting years, and in all too many cases there is reason to cry out loud because we didn't act fast enough before they went OOP. But crying about a Mezzrow disc? Hardly ... So don't worry too much, Bluesnik, if you dont' get your hands on this.

this is one i almost picked up years ago. i had read his book and was curious. i remember holding it in my hands (together with the AEC) several times but i never kept it in the end. and i think now i would like to have it. Are you a masochist or something or are you just out for a good laugh? I don't think anybody would qualify Mezz as such a supreme musician that any of his discs would have to be considered essential purely for HIS playing. I bought one or the other of his LP's in my earlier collecting days too and upon listening to them (after a long time) I find the quips and put-downs the scribes (except Panaissé, of course!) made of his playing still are quite accurate (even if somebody as acidic - but very much to the point - as Boris Vian wrote it! ) Ted Lewis was't the only one whose clarinet said "please put me back in my case!" :D

Cannot find a track listing but would this have ANYTHING that cannot be found on the various Roy Milton CD's reisued by ACE in the U.K.? I didn't check if all the Ace reissues are still in print but they did quite a few of them so they should cover the ground rather well.

That's bad news about Red Lick. Any suggestions for a good online mail-order substitute that carries a similarly wide range of collector blues/R&B labels? I agree about the unwieldiness. It just struck me that the Penguin guide does include a fair share of 40s/50s R&B but this part is far less comprehensive than their more "traditional" entries, and the exclusions seem a bit arbitrary to me (and this cannot possibly just be due to the fact that all the missing entries happen to be OOP). But its a VERY useful guide anyhow.

By all means check out the catalog of the KRAZY KAT label (INTERSTATE) from the UK too. http://www.interstate-music.co.uk/krazykat/krazykatindex.htm Even if you limit yourself to pre-war recordings only, you will find very nice "Hot string band"/Western Swing stuff there that would be very hard to find elsewhere. And have a look at their Heritage and other subsidiary labels too. Enjoy!

Got my copy a LONG time after ordering it (due to circumstances beyond my control) so browsed through it all the more extensively. I agree with the positive comments by everybody here, and my only (minor to most, a bit major to me) quibbles are not in what is in there but what isn't. While the sectarianism between "blues" (of the more downhome or urban quality) and "Rhythm&Blues" (with a BIG "R") no longer seems to exist to the extent it did when Messrs. Leadbitter/Slaven looked down on the oh so commercial R&B artists in their earlier discography editions, I feel that there still is a slant towards more "downhome" blues (even of the electrified variety) which is a pity in today's reissue market. Or to put it another way, when it comes to minor artists (who still are essential to diehard collectors), the Guide tends to dig deeper in more traditional fields than it does in R&B. Pity ... Another minor quibble is the arrangement of the "compilation/various artists" section. The categories that this compilation is broken down into appear a bit odd to me. Inclusion/exclusion in certain categories does seem a bit arbitrary at times and I've had a hard time finding certain compilations that normally still ought to be in print and that I felt sure must have been in there (and often weren't - but then again most of them were R&B compilations ). And finally, seeing the huge number of really odd small labels not likely to be distributed widely, what would be the best one-stop mail order shop for EUROPEAN buyers? I haven't dealt with Red Lick Records in a very long time; would they still be No. 1 for us in Yurp??

Don't know, but Jack McVea did. Man, I sure wish they had a band like the sax gang in the video at Eurodisney near Paris where we'll be for a couple of days' family vacation in May.

I read Bill Crow's account of that tour a while ago when the link to that site came up in conjunction with another story and, to put it mildly, I was baffled. If you take all this in along with Terry Gibbs' tales of "The Fog" in his autobiography as well as Milt Bernhart's account of the 1950 Las Vegas stint of the BG band that included Wardell Gray you are beginning to ask youself questions ... a LOT of questions, in fact. People (including musicians) rarely ever are saints, but THAT ... ??

Very fitting, Dave. Especially since actor Klaus Kinski would have fitted in nicely with Zorn and Jarrett. He was a great artist but, as is often the case, a very eccentric one, and the tales of how he did everybody verbally in who happened not to suit his whims are numerous.

Did John Zorn and Keith Jarrett ever play in a jazz group together? Might have billed themselves as "The Irascibles". :D Anyway, knowing what "Zorn" means in German (where the roots of this word comes from) I am not really that surprised by his outbursts.

I can't find anything really wrong with "The Swinging Guitar" but maybe that's because I usually listen to it along with other of Tal's Verves and I take any differences (if there are any) just as differences that are bound to happen with human beings. But I'll listen closer next time and try to analyse a bit more ... The Fuerst sets are maybe not the ideal comparison, even if the lineup is the same. As you know after-hours private jam sessions are a setting that's not necessarily comparable with studio productions.

Reading this, I guess I will have to do a bit of aural comparison later on. In the 80s we got a lot of German pressings of those Prestige/Fantasy/OJC facsimile LP reissues (Mikulski or ZYX or others; distributors' addresses given at the bottom of the back cover). Didn't notice any significant difference in general sound quality vs. the U.S. OJC pressings. I have a few Carreres among them too; don't remember if they overall sound thinner. All in all I always found the OJC reissues very good value for money - just like the slightly earlier "not yet OJC" reissues of Prestige LPs. Their prices do not seem to have inflated unduly around here (to the extent that vinyl is still carried by the (secondhand) shops).

EXCELLENT disc indeed! Though I'd not agree with the "Les Paul" thing you mention. Barney Kessel would be more like it. In fact the liner notes point towards that too. Nothing against Les Paul but this disc has more than just virtuosity. It swings - to the extent that even a couple of diehard Western Swing fans around here who had heard the LP complained it was just too jazzy for them. Oh well, you can't have 'em all, and taste-wise they came from the hillbilly side of Western Swing anyway...

No, they don't. No Whitey Mitchell anywhere in the lineups of the two Sutton groups that produced those recordings. The bassist on both sessions is one Mark Trail, and no other Sutton recordings are known to discographers. The Whitey Mitchell LP (his only one) on ABC Paramount was done about 2 years later.

And yet she saw fit to reissue "Don't get it twisted" by the International Sweethearts on her Rosetta label. :D Anyway, the music she reissued on her label certainly wasn't bad and filled a gap. So what stuff (and where) did she put to paper outside her label liner notes?

If you want to really appreciate the music, by all means take it in by viewing the movie. Listening to it alone is fine and the music can stand on its own but obviously you only get the complete picture (literally...) if you see the movie. But then again the impact of the movie may well be different here to us Continental Europeans as the 50s Paris setting conjures up images that may be differ from those experienced in the USA.

Yes - a bit steep for a reissue CD, even with the value of the $$$ dwindling right now. Missed original LP's of this a couple of times but will keep searching (including reissues).

Speaking of Steve Lacy, his early recordings on Jaguar with the Dick Sutton band (reissued as "The Complete Jaguar Sessions") just left me speechless when I first heard them (after having bought the twofer on a whim as I figured that combination MUST be interesting). Probably some of the strangest "free Dixieland" ever made (but very accessible and enjoyable, and the soprano sax sound is just perfect for that combination).

I'd be pleased to (for a couple of other Jazz Oracle reissues too) but can ANYBODY tell me why their Dutch distributor, TIMELESS Records steadfastly refuses to acknowledge, let alone answer my mails inquiring about shipping costs? And this even after sending several mails? (They are closest to Germany among all non-US distributors, hence my inquiry with them) Has anybody had any dealings with them?

Go visit him on AAJ (or has he departed there too?) :D

That recent thread about "Moten Swing" prompted me to give Terry Gibbs' version issued on his "Lauching A New Band" LP released on Mercury in 1959 a listen again. I have the Trip Jazz TLP 5545 reissue of that album. Putting Side 1 of the record on, something odd I had not really noticed before (or forgotten) became evident (had not listened to it for a long while; and if so, only Side 2 for his excellent version of "Jumping At The Woodside"): Instead of the 6 tracks starting with "Opus 1" that are supposed to be there, Side 1 of that particular reissue inlcudes only 3 lengthy tracks by a trumpet-led quintet recorded live at some club. The first track is "Caravan" (NOT the Brown/Geller All Stars version also reissued on Trip) and then 2 ballads (the first one of which is an oft-reorded standard but I just cannot put the finger on the title right now). I have no idea if the entire pressing run of this reissue has this fault but is there anybody who has this reissue and noticed the same discrepancy and is anybody who's heard this able to identify the actual recordings on Side 1? I have a suspicion but the discographies do not bear this out so I am sort of stuck ... Thanks!

Well, Gents, if you steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the existence of that "Memorial" CD on Fresh Sound you will of course deprive yourselves of that session - because it's on that very CD! I've listened to the entire CD once again last night, and as somebody said before me, her playing is very agreeably swinging all the way through, and not feminine at all. In a way she has a somewhat harder touch than her West Coast surroundings might imply; the Feather "Encyclopedia" where Bud Powell and and Horace Silver are cited as her influences is quite correct. BTW; as for the Dot label, I'd be interested in finding a source for an affordable reissue of Eddie Costa's "House of Blue Lights" LP too. (Or do I have to check the Fresh Sound catalog closer? )

What do you expect? Tal "evolving" in the sense of turning out glib, soft pop/funk pap like Messrs. Montgomery/Green/Benson? :D For somebody who'd been virtually off the scene for over 10 years his "Return" album certainly showed he still had his chops totally intact, and the same goes for what I've heard of his Concords. No mean feat if you consider the high level he had achieved in the 50s. (P.S. I prefer the Verves etc. from the 50s too)