Big Beat Steve

A GREAT introduction to Gatemouth Brown's Peacock-era recordings (if you do not want everything strictly chronologically) is the SAN ANTONIO BALLBUSTER LP on the Red Lightning label (also issued later on Ace - or was it Charly? - with a different cover). Still one of my all-time R&B faves.

Checked out the FNAC CD department in Strasbourg the other day. This "100 Most Beautiful Compilation" was all over the place. It's being promoted in a BIG way in the shops there. Otherwise, the overall selection of the JiP series was a bit scanty; the JiP racks did not have all that much (considering how many have been released) but after searching through the alphabet I came up with a few goodies anyhow: Bernard Peiffer/Bernard Zacharias "Jazz at St. Germain des Pres", the Sacha Distel Hors Series 2-CD set (great for the first part but I don't care too much about some of those late 60s sessions included), and then Henri Crolla (a REVELATION IMHO; in places it makes you think this is what Django Reinhardt might have sounded like later on if he had lived longer and progressed stylistically towards more modern sounds).

Reading this, I can tell you what to do. Clearly you've been listening to the wrong 30s (especially post-1935) jazz. :D There was PLENTY of hot jazz blowing all through the 30s and clear into the 40s. And you did not have to got to the Condon mob for that at all - the SWING cats sure had their act together, and the sparks really flew ..you just have to look beyond the pop material recorded by the big bands of the day. Or are you one of those who drool about any 20s Whiteman or Goldkette or Ted Lewis recording and give the ENTIRE record the highest rating just because of 12 bars by Bix or whoever? Just like good old Brian Rust did - any nondescript 20s band would rate high among collectors just because of "good hot solos". Good hot solos, yeah, maybe ,but the rest? Now where would you be if you applied the same yardstick to 30s and early 40s big band recordings? There'd be a LOT of great stuff and it wasn't any more or less "confined" than 20s solos buried in otherwise stiff "dance band" recordings. So please don't compare apples with oranges when you compare the different eras of jazz. No harm meant, but it just had to be said ...

Ha, picked up a SPARE copy of the original Jazztone issue LP of that one in very listenable condition for 1€ (ONE euro) at a record clearance sale last week. Who could have resisted at that kind of money?

I have the 6-LP RCA Bluebird box set that Fer Urbina refers to. As for more recent reissues, all I know is that this box set for a long time was the most definitive word in the reissues of Hamp's late 30s small band sessions (these predate his big band which did not start until 1941 or so) since RCA CD reissues of this music used to be rather piecemeal affairs. Later on the master takes were reissued more comprehensively on the French CLASSICS label but currently only the 1938-39 volume seems to be available any more while the others seem to be OOP (see the Abeille website). So the AVID budget CDs might be the best possible option in every respect. I don't know where CLASSICS got their material from or how they did their remasters but I am willing to bet (thinking of the way those cheapo public domain CDs over here in Europe operate) that AVID took their material from other CD's and NOT from vinyls. So they probably used the Classics reissues as a basis.

I'd also recommend going for the late 30s/early 40s RCA small-group sessions as a matter of contrast with his later 50s small-group recordings that so many seem to be so fond of here (probably because they offersuch an immense lot of common ground with other mainstream or "middle jazz" acts and sounds that today's jazz listeners seem to be most accustomed to). Nothing against "Hamp and Getz" and similar small group sessions at all, but for sheer exuberance and vitality, I'd strongly recommend getting Hamp's 40s big band recordings he did for Decca too. There's a lot there that really burns! And his early 50s big band that recorded for MGM (with somewhat more brassy ensembles) is not negligible either. As for his live recordings, his 1947 Just Jazz All Stars concert recordings are a must. There also are a lot of Hamp's 50s concert recordings that are fine. You need not get all of them (to the more casual listener the recordings can become repetitive), but his Apollo Hall concert of 1954 and his Olympia Concert (Paris) recordings would be a nice treat. And a special mention to that IAJRC LP featuring historically important recordings of his legendary 1953 band that never recorded commercially (the one that included Clifford Brown, George Wallington, Annie Ross, etc. and a bunch of others that moonlighted in Paris and in Sweden - much to the dismay of Hamp). And for a special oddity, how about his "Hamp and the Old World" LP released in Europe on Philips in the mid-50s which features Hamp jazzing up European folk songs. Not sure if it's ever been reissued on CD but it's quite fun to listen to. As for "Flying Home", there are so many versions of this track recorded by Hamp that one really would have be more specific when looking for a particular recording. On a negative side, I'd rather avoid those 70s recordings with Hamp and other guests featured in the "Lionel Hampton Presents" series produced by Hamp himself. To me they are pretty lame and rehashes of old and well-worn ideas.

When I heard Cody's version in the 70s, it brought up vague memories of hearing Johnny Bond's version in the early 60s. I assumed that Bond's was the original, but when I did a google it turned out that a guy named Charlie Ryan wrote "Hot Rod Lincoln" and recorded it about five years before Bond. Trivia - I know. /O.T. mode on/ Not trivia ... ESSENTIAL "back to the roots" knowledge! :D Credit where credit's due (to the originators)! Commander Cody were revivalists ... /O.T. mode off!/

I can also recommend this book. One of the best jazz books I've read. Almost every page made me want to pull out the records. After this book has been seconded here, I'll herewith third it. D: And to go on in a different vein (following up the Chess ansd Atlantic recommendations), how about doing you book reading online for a while? This site http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/rsrf.html will tell you a lot of details about a LOT of Chicago blues and jazz labels from the golden era. More than you could possibly ever put into a printed book. But beware - it IS geared towards collectors who a sticklers for details too.

This may be a subject of IMMENSE controvery, but if you are looking for other reissues of more obscure West Coast jazz originally released on minor labels, you cannot bypass FRESH SOUND (true for a lot of more obscure non-West Coast 50s and early 60s jazz too). I cannot help it but for the most part I do not find the reissue sound quality on those vinyls I've got all that shoddy. (Don't have too many FS CD reissues so cannot comment on their fidelity, but the Fresh Sound box they did on those Nocturne 10in LP's does sound quite nice, and since the inevitable "ripoff" word is going to crop up in this debate sooner or later too, this box seems to be the real thing anyway since it was done in cooperation with and endorsed by Harry Babasin's heirs). So, long live Fresh Sound, IMHO! Incidentally, there were quite a few vinyl repro reissues of similar 50s indie label jazz that appeared in the 80s/90s and that carried neither the Fresh Sound nor the VSOP reissue tags. E.g. Bob Florence Trio, Dorothy Donegan, Johnnie Pate (on the Stepheny label), etc., etc. Anybody got a defiunite clue as to where these reissues came from?

I have most of the VSOP reissues mentioned here, but on VINYL - the way it's supposed to be, as these make great replica reissues of the original LP's, and then even the playing length makes sense. My particular favorites are all those MODE reissues (where you can split almost the whole cataloge between VSOP and jap. reissues) as well as those from the Tampa and Andex labels (Bill Holman, Dempsey Wright, etc.). In fact the entire VSOP catalog fills gaps in the reissue catalogs very nicely due to the obscurity of the original releases (in the same way Fresh Sound does - yeah! ;-) ) Another favorite of mine is that Art Pepper LP ("The Art of Pepper"?) that was originally released on some reel-to-reel tape only so never got much listening and for the first time made it to vinyl on VSOP.

Anyway, your Freddie Kohlman is indeed the one who later was involved with the New Orleans scene (read this in the liner notes to some reissue of his 50s R&B stuff such as "Hole in the Ground").

May I add a word about New Orleasn sur Seine... I agree that it is a very interesting book to read, but a word of caution to those who are looking primarily for a rundown of musicians, e.g. in the style of Ted Gioia's or Robert Gordon's "Jazz West Coast" books. The accent is surprisingly little on the French jazz musicians and their musical output. The big names (including foreign stars on tour in France) and their exploits do get mentioned but beyond that the emphasis is rather on the position of jazz in the cultural surroundings in France, the French media, the organization of the jazz scene, concert and festival promoters, jazz as seen by the public at large, the French jazz federations (including a fairly detailed account of the schism of the Hot Clubs and the endless Panassie-Delaunay feud which makes for hilarious reading today but clearly was anything but funny back then), etc. So you get to know a lot about the French jazz "scene" but if you want to check fast for a capsule of the accomplishemnts of French jazzmen such as Noel Chiboust, Robert Mavounzy, Jean-Claude Fohrenbach or other names no longer well-known today you will have to wait for another book. Or, Brownie, is there a book that treats this subject more like the abovementioned West Coast books or, in fact, the way Alain Tercinet treats his subject in "West Coast Jazz"?

Me too. I'll be over in France next Saturday and have scheduled a stop at a few major bookstores so I'd like to know if it is still in print and readily available and if it's worth the money for those who do not (!) have everything else yet. Or to put it another way, what other books (beyond 'New Orleans Sur Seine' and 'Boris Vian, Jazz A St. German', Ed. du Layeur - not the other, apparently similarly titled one) on (preferably) the history of the Parisian (or French) jazz scene, i.e. on the golden age of jazz in France, would be worth checking out, provided they are still available at all? Thanks beforehand for any suggestions!

Because you played (or wore) out the vinyl grooves in the course of time or because the vinyl pressing and/or mastering quality was oh so crappy in the first place? I know a few cases of crappy reissue vinyl pressings too and have therefore opted for CD reissues too (but those hardly ever duplicate the material 100% so you keep both) but there have been a few cases of CD reissues (or pre-LP era material, i.e. pre-1952 or so) bought in the 90s whee I was unaware of long-OOP 70s or early 80s vinyl reissues of EXACTLY the same tracks (often in the same sequence) so when I did discover those vinyl reissues later on I quickly dumped the CDs (i.e. sold or gave them as birthday presents) and have NEVER regretted it soundwise.

Really sad to hear ... I never got into his Oriental and world music stuff but I like his earlier work a lot. Will play one of his RCA or Coral albums tonight (or maybe his Ljubljana festival reocrdings with the Horst Jankowski trio from 1957).

Ha, what I said all along. Strange that jazz buffs should get into alliances with hip hop and house DJ's but as long as these subcultures are around and focusing on vinyl the medium is gonna hang on. Vinyl rules! Getting back to my 90% vinyl collection now to spin a black 12" one ...

To fuel this debate a little, just a hint that JD has been discussed extensively elsewhere: http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread.php?t=18394 Enjoy!

What I particularly like are his early 40s recordings with the small band co-led with J.C. Higginbotham. The way he plays circles around Lucky Millinder's "Ride Red Ride", for example (showing off in the process how much more cumbersome a trombone was compared to a trumpet by the playing standards of that time) is a gas!

My day job is editing copy written by people who think that "nuke" is the funniest verb imaginable in a joking context. This leads me into arguments over nuclear metaphors and images quite often. As you can see, I'm getting pretty good at it.

All these covers are nowhere near as bad as MANY of the typical 70s reissue covers of a lot of fine 50s music, e.g. the entire nondescript "standard" covers of the "Jazz Lab" series on German MCA that featured reissues of 50s Coral jazz albums or some of those 80s Jazzline series reissues on French RCA . Or is there anything worse fitting the contents of the album than 70s/80s cover shots of artists that look sooo old and sooo long-haired, bearded and tired and wear funny flower-power garb in the worst 1973 fashion style while the actual contents of the music are prime 50s or even late 40s stuff? Worse than any of the funky 70s covers of original releases shown above. A related question to those who may have been around and into record production in the 70s/early 80s: Whatever was it that kept record companies from reissuing 50s records with their ORIGNAL artwork covers (like the Japanese did early on) back in the 70s? What were they afraid of? Would a bearded, worn-out looking long-hair viking named Gerry Mulligan really promise that much more sales of his early quartet sides in those long-hair days than a repor of the original cover showing a crisp-looking young dude?

Ha, "already R&B-ish" is putting it nicely... :D I was thinking of that CD too when I read MG's question. Check out Ray Abrams and Sam Butera fighting it out on their "Dueling Tenors" - THE honkin' sax battle to outhonk all honkers! :D Anyway, Ray Abrams got around elsewhere too. He was part of the 1946 Don Redman big band that was the first U.S. jazz big band to come to Europe after the War when they toured Denmark and Sweden and he also recorded a few 78s for the Sittin' In With and Jax labels in 1949.

At any rate it looks like the Musidisc JA 5176 LP that Chewy inquired about (and that I also happen to have) exactly duplicates the contents of Ozone 5.

I have the French pressing of the original Warner vinyl LP of this. A great session IMO with a real all-star lineup. I don't always agree with magazine reviews but in this case I think the 4-star rating by Down Beat was well-earned. BTW. I seem to remember this record (and the Trombones, Inc. session) was discussed at length in a previous thread here.

Kenny Hagood outdated? Maybe ... these were different times so the singing styles have changed too. But at any rate he still comes across COOL and HEP - and certainly not quite as outdated as many of those sentimental, operatic, not really very swinging big band era chorus singers, including many of those with the "name bands" of the late 30s and early 40s. Pure corn in many cases!

According to Walter Bruyninckx' discography, all tracks on side 1 of this Musidisc LP (JA5176) were recorded on 29 Aug. 48. The (male!) vocalist is identified as Kenny Hagood. Tadd Walk is from 9 Oct. 48, Our Delight from 16 Oct. 48. Wahoo might be from 30 Oct. 48 (same lineup listed in the discog though this issue is not stated). And all of this comes from broadcasts at the Roost, and part of the LP duplicates the Milestone twofer reissue of Navarro/Dameron live recordings.