Big Beat Steve

Alexander, I am afraid you've got a good (all to good) point with your "self-fulfiling prophecy". I've witnessed it at our local music stores here too - to the point of the selection now being only a very tiny fraction of what it was as late as the late 90s. It is indeed as you say - less choice prompts people to buy less and less music. Neither the companies nor the shops seem to care much anymore. To them it doesn't matter if they make a buck from selling a music CD or some computer game trash. And downloading (even legal downloading) does the rest. Not that I would at all encourage massive CD-R'ing or mp3ing and reselling the originals but what is this compared to the bigger issues anyway? For all I've experienced, passing on the occasional CD-R's (or in fact even the occasional original CD when you find it to be something that you'd keep as a CD-R but did not need an original) has always meant that the funds thus freed went into buying other collectible CD's that otherwise would have been unaffordable to everybody involved. Small wonder with the flood of music still hitting the market, except you now really have to DIG for it. - Remember everybody how much money you today have to shell out for SHIPPING all the records you still would have bought over the counter some 10, 15 or 20 years ago in your well-stocked brick and mortar record shop? If the money you have to spend on shipping is balanced by burning the occasional CD-R or keeping the mp3 on your hard drive, who's going to throw the first stone and who's to blame? Maybe those who forced you out of your shops and into mail order after all?

I've had the CBS LP of this since the end of my school days in the late 70s and I must admit I find the announcer's intro quite charming, giving it a period flair (as if you were listening to the actual radio broadcast). Especially if you combine it with the same announcer's intros to the appearance of the Swedish All Stars at this festival (as released on the Dragon CD). But then again I do speak French fluently. I could do without the voiceover during the actual tune but oh well ... Anyway, I have a hunch those who complain about this introduction would be less severe if it had all been in English. There seems to be a ready market for location recordings and broadcasts with all announcements after all. And hey, what would the Jubilee broadcasts be without Ernie "Bubbles" "The Stomach That Walks Like A Man" Whitman's chatter? :D

It all depends on the reissue labels you'd like to buy. In some cases it really pays going straight to the shipping department of the label itself. If you have to have the goods shipped internationally anyway, their prices seem to be the most competitive of them all, and being as close as possible to the source cannot possibly hurt either. Fresh Sounds seems to be such a case for European customers. (Coming to think of it, that reminds me I need to drop a line to Timeless Records in the Netherlands once again; maybe a third mail to them will get me a shipping cost quote at long last ...)

Indeed it is. Especially in view of the fact that discussions seem to center around the latter aspect here all too often and that it still remains doubtful if royalties really always go to the original artists (and their descndants) or just to some music industry moguls whose predecessores screwed the original artists in the first place (and still insist a contract is a contract, no matter how morally doubtful it was when signed 40, 50, 60 or more years ago). So the European 50-year Public Domain cutoff date should be fair enough. 50 years ain't exactly nothing when it comes defining a time frame during which you can reap your rewards. Sir Cliff Richard et al. take note! :D

Not in the case of P.D. stuff. And not in the case of discs originally purchased secondhand either. (And we are not going to start those fancy debates about the desirability of paying royalties on SECONDHAND sales again?? )

Ha! Another one who saw the light!!

Not wanting to hijack your thread, but having read a lot of period material about that festival, I wonder if the other appearances at that festival have also been released comprehensively (or might be released some day)? So far I am only aware of the Swedish All Star band's live recordings issued on DRAGON, and surely the Bechet tracks will also exist somewhere on disc. But beyond that?

Swinging Swede pointed in the right direction. There are many from that era. (Too numerous to mention?) BTW: Would Zoot Sims'" Plays Alto, Tenor and Baritone" session count, too?

Another specialty that warrants exploring are the live recordings from Stan Kenton's European tour of 1953. Decent fidelity, great band with an enormous punch that even today gets the impression pretty well across that it left on European audiences back then. And as the Kenton band toured EXTENSIVELY all across Germany during that tour in August/September 1953 this is even part of our very own history of jazz, Kyo. They used to be out on LP on Duke, First Heard and Artistry (and possibly others) and I hope they have been reissued on CD as well.

I've also found that as my turntables improved over the years a lot of the skips (on records bought long ago) improved or disappeared altogether but I have a few "usual suspects" that tend to skip in particular spots anyway though visual grading would make them seem near-perfect. But of course a few 50s originals have that skip problem too (just due to plain wear) but in most cases it can be cured by careful pickup adjusting so just repeated clicks in the affected areas remain. (And then there are a scant few - otherwise treased - more recent LP's that have a pressing defect, i.e. some foreign matter embedded in the raw vinyl which had gone undetected at the time of purchase and also resulted in nasty repeated clicks. Sh... happens.) On the whole, those clicks, pops and crackles on older or well-played vinyl don't bother me too much, though (as long as the noise really remains in the background). In fact, if you buy lots of CD and LP reissues (as I do) of 78rpm-era recordings or airshots or acetate source material you naturally tend to get to live with some degree of background noise and your brain usually "filters it out" anyway. :D

Indeed, Larry. Not unknown to Swing fans at all. I admit, though, I have somewhat ambivalent feelings about those 50s cash-in platters featuring musicians from bygone days trying to revive their faltering careers and record companies trying to boost sales with cheesecake covers and a mass-appeal sales pitch ("Music from ..."). Not that I don't like those cheesecake covers but do we know if maybe the featured musician was past his prime and the backing a lackluster affair by studio hacks? As we know some of those records of this type are good, but others are so-so and still others just plain dull. I take your word, then, Durium, that this one is one of the better, then! The other album on this Lonehill comp, Blue Lou, had the Down Beat reviewers say this: "... good drinkin' music ... easy-going feeling characteristic of the best Nicksieland ... McGarity has that barrelhouse trombone sound ... the net effect of the entire LP is pleasant. Never provocative. ... Three stars." Now you know ...

@Bev Stapleton: Yes, all this public domain release flood (while basically a good thing) is complicating matters if you want to keep duplicates within reasonable limits. And the lower prices of those P.D. reissues compensate matters only slightly as long as so much else from the 78 rpm era remains unreissued anyway. It seems that only real specialist companies really seem to care about such things. The Document (blues reissue) label seems to be one. And the other day a batch of Western Swing CD's from the (U.K.) Krazy Kat label arrived here. The liner notes of one disc (1937-41 recordings by the Hi-Flyers) explicitly stated that the track selection (great music, BTW, and nothing like the leftovers from scraping the barrel) focused on recordings either rarely ever reissued or not reissued at all. And this despite the fact that the reissues they apparently were going out of their way to avoid duplicating were an early 80s Hi-Flyers LP's on the (U.S.) Texas Rose label as well as a few late 70s compilations on the Arhoolie and String labels. Long, long OOP and comparatively obscure from the start but thanks anyway, Krazy Kat, for being truly aware of what at least a sizable proportion of your (specialist) buyer group is bound to have accumulated anyway in their reord collections. @John L: No doubt about the quality issue. Of course the price alone prevents Mosaic from being an introductory selection, and like I said above, I realize remastering issues will be a major asset of this set for those who have the highest standards in this respect. It is just that I am a bit puzzled by the fact that even Mosaic seems to go the route of disregarding original leader credits (of name bands, mind you) and thus making it harder for collectors to avoid gathering more and more duplicates if they are out to get the complete recorded opus. I'd probably have invested in this one just for the alternates if it had been a complete Basie set (as I invariably approach this body of recordings from a Basie, not from a Young angle). I hope and trust it will sell well anyway.

I've had that on a CBS LP for a good many years (after having taped one or two of the tracks from that session from radio in c.1981/82) Not much new under the sun ... /Off-topic rant mode on ;)/ I realize Lester Young is the uniting factor on this Mosaic combination but in a way this still makes me feel ill at ease as this seems to be a more and more frequent policy on today's reissue market. You throw together packages where the common link is some sideman but the resulting compilations are made without any regard to the actual leader credits of the original release so you end up with more and more duplicates if you want to have the complete works of the actual leader and the music is in total disorder. This is particularly evident in a case like this where the release of the Basie catalog as a unit of course would make perfect sense. But somebody who comes into this as a relative newcomer but yet would like to dig deeper would end up having lots and lots of duplicates if he wanted both all of Basie AND all of Lester Young's solo features (or are the Teddy Wilson/Billie Holiday tracks, to name just one highlight, in the same package?). I can understand this policy of combining sidemen's works in the case of artists with relatively limited recorded legacies or really obscure nominal leaders but otherwise ...? To make matters worse, the credits on the actual reissues are often particularly muddled (cf. certain Proper boxes and others frequently mentioned here) so as to throw many collectors off course and hide the fact you are not getting that much that is really new. In short, packages aimed at superficial collectors but for those who want to dig deeper things will soon get extremely annoying once they realize how many duplicates they are bound to accumulate. /Off-topic rant mode off :D/

Agreed, John, but if the Basie big band recordings of the 30s/early 40s are "reduced" to those where Prez solos it's a "sampling" again anyway if you consider the Basie studio recordings as a single entity that ought to be valued as a whole in order to be appreciated. And besides, are the Mosaic Selects comprehensive reissues? There is an exception to each (conceptional) rule, it seems.

Which is exactly why I cannot see any reason in being selective with a band like this, especially since the entire body of Basie's work of those years IS available elsewhere. So this Mosaic looks like it's more of fidelity/mastering (and label ) than availability interest... Among the "name" bands of the Swing era I can think of a fair share of eminently forgettable pop/corn/sweet/lachrymose duds with many bands (especially white ones, of course) but not with Basie (being a Basie fan I am biased but anyway even the pop or novelty numbers that are no true masterpieces have a lot going for them and warrant inclusion to give the overall picture). On the other hand, what would have been highly interesting if this set is to concentrate on Prez' SOLOS with Basie is if it had included maybe a representative sampling of live recordings/transcriptions/airshots recorded during the time span covered by the studio recordings. A lot of these have been issued on LP since the 70s, and no doubt there must be more somewhere. Should be fascinating studying the differences in the solo work etc.

Hey, that unwieldy thing Braxton is handling looks even larger than those BASS SAXES played by Adrian Rollini, Boyd Raeburn etc. Good to see, though, we are actually talking about some sort of SAXOPHPNE and that this contraption is not a "contra bass" in the sense of the contra bass of the violin family. Could it be that this is actually a sax one notch below the Rollini/Raeburn bass sax? It does look larger .... The antique character of this instrument (as mentioned by Sandi in the above Lighthouse anecdote with that unknown player) makes sense. An amateur saxophonist interested in this matter too once told me the last ones were made c.1945 (at least in Europe, France in this case). Anyway, how about getting back to that Rogers CD compilation?

This is intriguing ... as it touches language matters, it seems. What exactly is a "contra bass"? I know in my own language (German) "Kontrabass" simply is the word for an upright bass, bass fiddle or however you'd care to call it. To understand the peculiarity of this musician I'd certainly like to know if we are talking about yet another type of bass, i.e. neither upright bass nor cello, maybe something in between? But to take a wide shot at guessing the identity of this musician, could it have been Leroy Vinnegar? Re- cornet, and this is going to be my last comment on it, I still am baffled. I know what a fluegelhorn is and looks like but still I cannot see how this relates to the cornet as played by King Oliver, young Louis Armstrong, later on by Bobby Hackett, and others. Their cornet definitely is smaller than a trumpet, whereas all fluegelhorn-wielding pictures of Shorty Rogers I have ever seen make it look larger than a trumpet (a bit like a bass trumpet as played by Swedish jazz musician Leppe Sundewall in the 50s but possibly a bit shorter than a bass trumpet). Yes, you can get carried away on tiny details like this ... Maybe some musician reading this can clarify these matters once and for all. And yes, Sandi, please hang around and share more memories from the Lighthouse years. And (as already suggested over at AAJ), did you ever consider gathering your personal memoirs from that era into a book? Eye/earwitness accounts like this should be very, very interesting!

I can't see Gerry Mulligan being credited as THE bebop baritone sax man (not even Serge Chaloff. But what about Cecil Payne?) Not Bebop. In fact Gerry Mulligan was lumped in with West Coast Jazz to an extent that he himself refuted. As he often insisted, he did not consider himself a typical protagonist of of the West Coast movement. Let's face it, one main reason why Leo Parker did not go further was simply - DOPE. Unfortunately ...

Yes - being the vinyl junkie that I am I was of course talking about LP's.

Great recordings indeed, but weren't there 3 volumes of "Count On The Coast"?

Might that be because the French set inadvertently has the instrumental version without "Google Eyes"? And the Shoutin' Blues liner notes by Dick Katz confirm your assumption: "If You See My Baby" - Another novelty blues, with vocal by "Google Eyes," more formally listed as being J. August, a singer who did not make history. Clearly the "Shoutin' Blues" blurb writer doesn't know his stuff, or he doesn't care or research into or awareness of (contemporary) boundary areas is beyond him. "Mr Google Eyes" not only had numerous single releases back then, e.g. on Regal, but also saw an entire LP of his recordings released on Jonas Bernholm's ROUTE 66 label in the 80s, and also was found worthy of an entire chapter in Jeff Hannusch's book "I Hear You Knocking" on New Orleans R&B. A lot of ink has been used to cover MUCH more obscure "core" jazz artists.

He's no slouch either on his first BN album "Let Me Tell You 'Bout It", and his "Billy In The Lion's Den" with Bill Jennings on King as well as all of his earlier 78 rpm leader outings for Savoy, Chess, Gotham, etc. are all worthwhile He is one of those whose recordings I've always bought unseen-unheard; as I love both bebop AND R&B of the 40s/50s his presence is good reason enough for me any time.

What I meant to say is that a CORNET (not corOnet which just might be something else, I didn't check) is a sort of slightly shorter trumpet (as played by very early jazz musicians) whereas a fluegelhorn definitely is larger than a trumpet so a fluegelhorn cannot be a cornet. But that's a side note only.

The track listing reads like something thrown together from Shorty's features with the Woody Herman and Stan Kenton bands (hence the 40s starting date) and his own Giants recordings for RCA and Capitol plus a few obscurities such as two tracks from that Boots Brown & His Blockbusters LP for Groove. I'd say in today's world and with so many collectors apparently saving every penny for their core interests and therefore exploring "side interests" by buying budget P.D. compilations only, this would be an OK starter for Shorty Rogers newbies but if you want to have a more comprehensive Rogers collection you'd end up duplicating everything everywhere else. The overall compilation reeks of a typical case of another compiler taking advantage of material that is in the "Public Domain" now by European valid standards. Nothing basically wrong with that (a law is a law) but this "normally" would make the "usual (U.S.) suspects" cry out loud about ripping off artists (well, mostly labels, ain't it?) if this had come from the "Andorran thieves". So how about it, fellas, want to have another go at THIS label? :D BTW, I am also glad to see Sandi (Eula) posting here. Her posts over at AAJ are always fascinating reading stuff. But say, a fluegelhorn certainly is no cornet??

Ha, I saw the light and grabbed this one a goodly 10 years ago (2nd hand but NM) for the very same reason you name: It's one of those compilations that go where others (less enlightened compilers) fear to tread. :D Need to pull it out again and give it a listen. Thanks for making this music available, Chris! It's actually this kind of V.A. compilations that I like to snap up. They either cover ground others tend to overlook (and thus fill gaps) or they make material available that would never make it onto single artist discs. How else would you reissue some obscure but fine artist who left only one single 4-track session from the 78rpm era behind? And sometimes V.A. compilations from other albums can serve as a great introduction indeed. During my money spending sprees at Mole Jazz in the 90s I came across a copy of the mid-50s Liberty LJH6001 "Jazz In Hollywood" sampler which at that time held lots of new music to me. This made me explore the Liberty "Jazz In Hollywood" single artist series (either through originals on eBay or Fresh Sound reissues) so I now have most of them, and this naturally led to exploring the entire NOCTURNE catalog. All because of one sampler. Re- that JAZZTONE sampler, I figured the one shown under the eBay link above was the one Larry Kart mentioned earlier. This Jazztone sampler still is all over the place (I have three different pressings of it, each with different artwork) - it must have sold (or was given away as an introductory offer, as evident from contemporary mag ads) to lots of record club members who otherwise would not have touched jazz with a 10-foot pole so it still crops up at garage sales. ) Yet no Pee Wee Russell playing "Stuyvesant Blues" on that, in fact that track was on Jazztone J-1009 (sez Bruyninckx) but on NO other Jazztone sampler, and "Congo Blues" seems to have been on Jazztone J-1204 only, so go figure ...