Big Beat Steve

Actually, it wasn't the Uptown site itself (sorry). I checked this release here: http://www.cduniverse.com/sresult.asp?styl...29&cart=506 http://www.jazzreview.com/cdreview.cfm?ID=5818 As for the BEFORE MOTOWN project, that sure sounds interesting and really would fill a gap. The BEFORE MOTOWN book by Lars Bjorn and Jim Gallert is just fantastic and really makes you want to hear the music of the local combos and bands mentioned throughout the book. I wouldn't even mind listening through the noise of some extremely lo-fi actates in a case like this ... Boppin' Xmas regards Steve

tell me you're joking. please... -e- Must have had a DIM moment when he asked that ... :D

I have their 1955 LP released by Liberty in the "Jazz in Hollywood" series (LJH 6005). I first became aware of them through the Liberty "Jazz in Hollywood" sampler that has one of their tracks and then picked up this LP through eBay just to see what it was all about. (They later did a second LP for Liberty but I've never heard that one) I can imagine that musicians will find this material intriguing; for me as a non-musician it is quite interesting to listen to but I'd qualify only part of it as jazz. (Neither Jepsen nor Bruyninckx list these LP's in their discographies, by the way) The musicians were Russ Cheever (ss), Jack Dumont (as), Morrie Crawford (ts), Bill Ulyate (bs) plus Mike Rubin (b) and Richie Cornell (d). According to the liner notes of LJH 6005 the arrangements were done by Marty Paich, Lennie Niehaus, Jack Montrose, Warren Barker, Russ Garcia, Billy May and Morrie Crawford: Lennie Niehaus contributed the arrangements to 4 of the 12 titles on the LP.

John, I realize all that. Yet it is only part of the overall picture: 1) What Chronological Classics has done mostly concerns "name" artists and bandleaders (even those minor-league stars they feature were at least that, i.e. minor-league STARS). And these chronological series just highlight the key problem: If you are just after one or two sessions that may have been routinely omitted elsewhere in reissues of an artist's body of work (because they were on some more unknown label) and have all the rest you might have to buy 2 CD's to add maybe 8 or 12 new tracks from 2 or 3 sessions. Fine for those who do not have anything yet or who are keen on dumping what they have to start all over again but disgusting and frustrating for the others. I may have missed some goodies from the Classics series but sadly had to skip quite a few others for exactly that reason. 2) What I was primarily thinking of was what you would call "minor" jazz leaders - not in a sense of artistical quality but rather those sidemen who only had relatively few sessions as leaders, and there were many of those in the late 30s to early 50s. This music mostly was found on those "indie" labels so it is not a matter of searching any "vaults" (because in most cases there aren't any). It would rather be a question of entreprising souls who round up decent 78s that will lend themselves to at least a decent level of mastering. One case in point that comes to mind now and then are the recordings by Ray Linn from 1946 (for the very simple reason that I once missed one of his 78s on eBay ). As far as I know only two of the eight tracks he recorded commercially were reissued (on a fairly oscure German LP from the 80s). And there are LOTs more like that. In short, this would concern MANY of those 4-track sessions done throughout that period for a great many labels and would make some pretty nice compilations such as the "Bebop Revisited" LP series on Xanadu and similar releases on Onyx, etc. etc. Is there really no incentive for compiling anything like that anymore? After all this always addressed a minority taste only and production costs probably were higher for vinyl than they are for CD's today. As for the question of "pirating" and the 50-year "public domain" limit, I'd rather not go into that here. It's not as clear as one might assume and it's no one-way business. So it really boils down to the question of whether the times of reissue labels such as Xanadu and Onyx or of the Japanese Pea-Vine LP's and others that were really covering mostly new ground on the reissue market are definitely over? (Except for labels such as Hep and Uptown, that is ...)

That probably explains why they called the 78 rpm release "Unfinished Bopera" (or so the Jepsen discography says; Jepsen lists "What is this thing called love" as a separate title with a Savoy LP release only; this was some 20 years before SJL 2242). I happen to have that 78 and the "Unfinished Bopera" takes up one side only, but I admit I haven't made an aural comparison with SJL 2242. Thanks for pointing this out!

Yeah, I admit I did not have the Swingtime LP on hand when I wrote that (as tracks like "This subdues my passion" rang a bell). 20 new ones out of 24 is an acceptable score BTW, I half expected hearing from you, seeing that you were involved in the production of the Baron Mingus CD on Uptown. Will definitely check it out and try to get it. Any other rarities labels/series besides Uptown?

Thanks for your suggestions, Jazzbo. Can' imagine there being a lot of 40s Parker or Gillespie studio recordings that have not been reissued and I don't have already. Quite a few early Baron Mingus sides have been reissued on vinyl on the Swingtime label. (Yeah, there we go again, you see? ) As for Allen Eager, the Uptown release sounds good as far as the description on their website goes. Seems like these are live recordings. Nothing wrong with that at all (I immensely like the Serge Chaloff CD done by Uptown) but it makes me wonder why lots of unreleased recordings are issued for the first time while at the same time hardly anybody seems to bother about REISSUING records for the first time ever that had NEVER been available on anything but 78s. No, I am not that hard to please at all, but it really looks like I am searching for labels that are daring enough to reissue sort of "The overlooked ...." single-artist or regional compilations aimed specifically at filling those permanent gaps that remain for anybody who does not have the original 78s. Anyway, any other suggestions warmly welcomed!

Summing up a few threads on recent and not so recent reissues, a recurrent topic has been that this or that among the Jazz music from past eras that's on currently hailed CD's has been reissued over and over again before in various combinations. As a result, anybody who already has a relatively substantial Jazz collection (and who - like myself - is certainly NOT ready to dump his vinyl!) is faced with the problem that he will almost never be able to add any new jazz reissues from the 78 rpm era where he does not already have a good deal of the music in his collection. So you actually are buying CD's for only about half the worth of the music (or even less). However, browsing through the usual discographies you come across a lot of never-reissued tracks and sometimes even artists whose recorded output has almost never found its way onto any reissues (vinyl or CD) yet, at least not any reissues that are not totally obscure (I think I am aware of a lot of what's been on the market since the late 60s/early 70s, although may have missed quite a few Japanese obscurities). Back in the vinyl days the problem existed too but at least there were some collector labels that even went so far as to proclaim in their liner notes that this and that title or session had expressly been omitted from any particular reissue on a single artist (or a compilation) because it was available elsewhere (even though that other label may have come from a totally different country and may even just have gone out of print at that time of release). So obviously those who compiled those vinyl reissues assumed that their buyer target groups were discerning and astute enough to have covered the entire market and would consciously like to avoid doubling up too many tracks, even if this meant that they would not be buying a "Greatest Hits" compilation of an artist's past work. Somehow I feel that whatever new reissues from the 78 rpm era are resurrected today (either in the field of small-band swing or bebop or R&B) will always be hidden among an even larger chunk of well-known and often-reissued material. The only exceptions I am aware of are certain reissues of European jazz from that period. So my question is this: Are there any (maybe not all that common) current reissue CD'S or labels featuring jazz from the late 30s, 40s and early 50s that really are compiled in a manner that does not recycle the usual stuff yet another time but consciously tries to dig out previously unreleased music in a rather consequent manner, e.g. sessions originally released on those numerous "indie" labels from the 40s? The music is there at any rate and is just waiting to be resurrected. Thanks for any hints on not so obviously marketed reissue labels you may have.

Thanks Brownie! So I wasn't far off the mark ... The "new" tracks would be interesting to listen to but buying a 3-CD set just for those few tracks and ending up with another CD set where you already have 75% of the music (or more)? I'd do that if it was a Membran CD set at the typical Membran prices (4 CD's for 9.99 euros) but that's about the limit. By the way, I wonder if one of the Wild Bill Morre isn't in fact the one issued as "Unfinished Bopera" (Bop 26).

A question about that BOPLAND 3-CD set with the Elks Club concert of 1947: What exactly does this set contain? Is this the stuff that's been out on those red BOP! 78s and has been known under the "Bopland Boys" tag and was reissued more recently on various Savoy 2-LP sets, i.e. the following tracks: Disorder at the Border/Cheroket/Byas-A-Drink/The Hunt (also known variously under other titles such as Bopera/Rocks'n'Shoals etc.) as well as Backbreaker/Blow Blow Blow/Unfinished Bopera ? Is there anything else on this set that's NEVER seen the light of a release before? Just wondering because in the long run it's frustrating how much material you keep doubling and tripling up ...

You mean to say the record label moguls let their laywers work out the fine print and then signed the document without even bothering to check what the fine print said? Or to put it another way, is this to say that those who set their laywers to work on this were not aware of things as important as who owned the rights to certain artists' creative output? I'm tempted to feel sorry for Stax ...

O.K., and what's the deal (price-wise) for overseas (europe) shipping of Vols. 3 and 4? Thanx, and till later Steve

Hee hee ... sounds oh so familiar! This "tooting and squawking" will apply both to Bird, Stitt, Criss etc. and to the all-out honkers such as Big Jay McNeely and Chuck Higgins (yeah but some so-called true jazzers won't approve of listening to that any more either ... ). My better half pretty well lets me have my way when I spin Jazz records (and related music such as R&B) in my "music room" that holds all my vinyl, 78s and CDs but does tolerate it pretty well. Yet occasionally she surprises me by visibly digging some of the late 30s/early 40s Swing sounds. And we do have a bit of common musical ground when it comes to 50s rockabilly, hillbilly and Western Swing so I am not overly complaining.

Yeah, it's a funny one. This edition of "I Like Jazz" (issued around 1960) was part of a series of cartoon books (covering various topics) called "Die Schmunzelbücher" ("smiling books") by Bärmeier & Nikel. Maybe this helps when you do an eBay search. As for the texts being of any value or not today, this all depends ... They are not to be taken too seriously anyway, but they do give an impression of how Jazz was perceived over here at that time. And sometimes Jazz of a certain era is understood a LOT better by reading about it in contemporary sources than by referring to more recent "history" sources that analyze the music to death.

According to the tracklist, the Sagajaz "Black California" compilation sounds like it draws a lot on the DIAL catalog from the 40s, and a lot of it is quite well-known as the tracks have been reissued a zillion times. Anybody who is into this music to some extent will probably have at least half of it already. Also, some of the music on this such as the Johnny Otis and Big Jay McNeely tracks, however fascinating they are, would be better at home on one of their R&B compilations, not on a Modern Jazz collection. Instead, I'd suggest searching for the two BLACK CALIFORNIA two-LP sets issued by SAVOY in the 80s (Vol. 2 was definitely available on CD but I am not sure about Vol. 1). Great stuff from the Savoy catalog of the 40s, including the Roy Porter big band tracks. These Roy Porter tracks have also been reissued on a CD with Teddy Edwards tracks from the 40s on the Blue Moon label.

One or two VERY early shots of Kenny Burrell are in the BEFORE MOTOWN book on the history of Jazz in Detroit up to 1960.

Yeah, there sure is something new to be learned around here every day ...

I don't think (and certainly don't hope) my ears are failing me that badly, but my copy of this OJC reissue (German pressing, Mikulski distributor address at the bottom of the back cover) sounds quite OK to me. No trace of wow or distortion. Which tracks are the ones that are particularly bad on your copy?

MG, I know and that's what I tried to get across in my French message. But it's a fairly recent coinage in French, unless I am very much mistaken (I cannot remember hearing it from French friends with whom I discussed music some 15 to 20 years ago but starting some 5 or 6 years ago it was all over the place). And of course it is oddly out of place in an English text (and that English text was too good to have been done by some automatic babelfish crap or similar so one wonders how it got in there).

Uh oh ... are you sure? There were TWO Al Caseys who played guitar. The "session" guitarist you are talking about is the one born in 1936 who worked mostly in the country, surf and rockabilly idoms. The one with Fats Waller has been dead since Sept. 2005 (he died at age 90!).

One Bird aircheck (including announcers' statements) that should fit the bill is the 1947 recording of the "Bands for Bonds" program that was arranged as a "musical battle" between "Barry Ulanov's Modern Jazzmen" (feat. Bird) and Rudy Blesh's (trad. jazz) All Stars. I have the "modern" part of it on some Musidisc LP but it's been reissued in various forms through the years. Otherwise, it's a matter of personal taste. Personally, I like the abvoementioned 1950 Boston broadcast recordings by Serge Chaloff very much (can't think of the title and label of the CD right now) but other forumists will have other items to recommend.

Amazing to see that the seller figures interest is in the U.S. only as he seems to ship there only ... Even more amazing to see that Sidney composed his "tubes" on this horn. So he was a plumber? "Ah oui, les TUBES que l'on écoute partout, n'est-ce pas, Brownie?" :D (Ils sont passés où, les AIRS d'antan?)

So what is it that you'd like to hear? If I go by the broadcast/airshot recordings (those where they did not edit out the announcer) it was indeed customary practice to have each tune introoduced by an announcer. Not only in Jazz in the stricter sense of the word. Take a look at old band pictures of Western Swing bands from the 30s/40s. Often you have not only the band members but also the radio station announcer lined up around the mike (as if he was a regular band member or at least somebody almost as important as the musicians) on those pics. Many jazz radio announcers of course tried to be hip and get some jivey talk in; some succeeded, some not and came across rather phoney (and many were edited out of the recordings you can buy today). Often those announcements give you a nice look right into that era. I have a CD with broadcasts of the Serge Chaloff band that were recorded live in a club in Boston in 1950 or so, with anouncements and all, including the announcer doing a short interview with Serge and mentioning who'd appear at the club next week, etc. etc. Quite fascinating, and it makes the music come across even livelier (like a jump back in time). Another one of those announcer characters I find quite amusing is Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman (also called "The Stomach that walks like a man") of the "Jubilee" shows. And then of course Al "Jazzbo" Collins.

So the last surviving participant of Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall concert and another link to Jazz when it was at the peak of its popularity is now gone too. R.i.P.

Amazing? Don't know ... Record collectors do die one day too, record collections tend to come up for sale here and there and every now and then, and some sellers don't let them trickle onto the market but rather get rid of them in one go. Seems to be the case both with the Jazz collection and the Garage/Psychedelic record collections that's come up here. Not a bad move on the part of the seller, by the way, to let all the records finish almost at the same time. Last-minute snipers will have a hard time sniping all that many records one after another (like they might be able to do if the auctions end at 3, 4 or 5-minute intervals, for example). So they will have to bid a bit earlier, giving others a chance to raise the bids. And let it be said once more: What this seller offers DEFINITELY is NOT an "essential Jazz collection". This is just a representative collection of hard bop-based 50s/60s Jazz records. Nice enough anyway but remember Hard Bop is just ONE of MANY facets of Jazz and certainly would not cover the entire range of styles that Jazz has to offer (even if to a lot of self-proclaimed "Jazz" fans Hard Bop is the beginning and end of it all) I for one would have been much more impressed if this particular lot had ALSO included a representative selection of "essential" records e.g. by Bob Cooper, Shorty Rogers, Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Lighthouse All Stars, etc. (not to mention the great MASTERS of Swing and Mainstream) - see? :D