Big Beat Steve

Thanks for this background info; I am shocked at the fact that you were not involved in the booklet design and indeed did not get a chance to proofread. I cannot see the good sense of such an approach but I realize the blame apparently lies over there, then, for a good deal of what I've mentioned. Anyway, it's a real pity because the music and the booklets just belong together to complement each other IMO. Re- the Georgie Auld recording date I assume to be correct was given like this on the Hep 27 LP and is listed accordingly in the Bruyninckx discography. Anybody out there got the more recent Hep CD27 CD reissue of Georgie Auld's 1944-46 material to check if the date was changed there? My comment on that mistitled Cliff Bruner recording was (maybe ineptly) meant to be tongue in cheek. This "New Falling Rain Blues" immediately brought to mind that late 70s "Stompin' At The Honky Tonk" compilation LP released on the String label that you probably took this track from (hence the recording date being given only as 1940, as in the liner notes of the String LP? - the Cliff Bruner box on Bear Family Records - compiled and researched by Kevin Coffey - has the exact recording date I quoted). Anyway ... very rewarding listening, those sets!

Totally agree. I would like to add the liner notes to the Prestige reissues from the late 60s/70s as well as the liner notes to the Onyx and Xanadu LP's the layout of the back covers of which closely matched those of the Prestiges. Often very informative and a prime source of information. I'd like to add certain liner notes done by Alun Morgan for various reissue projects to that. However, liner notes that are clearly aimed at the discerning collector are one thing, but liner notes intended to "sell" a brand-new release are quite something else altogether, especially if you go back into the 50s and early 60s. And maybe one should not expect too much from the sales babble on those "new" releases anyway. Some labels just provided useful info, others didn't, and in that case the scribes called in to splurt out the words just did a hack job and nothing else.

O.K., I’ll just chime in and add my 2c – though I guess this might be frowned upon (and yes, Allen, your replacement shipping arrived OK and safely once I was able to pry it out of the hands of the customs people... ) I can only comment on Vol. 3 and 4, and to sum up my overall impressions: A really fascinating selection of tunes that adds something new and welcome to the way jazz history is commonly presented. The selections prove there was a lot of jazz happening off the beaten tracks of what was considered „mainstream“ jazz at any given time. I especially like the inclusion of Western Swing samples and related but often overlooked jazzier genres here and there (long overdue in my view). The story of jazz as related in the booklets makes for quite insightful reading that should broaden the horizons of quite a few as it expands beyond what is often written about these periods (or just go the other way round, read the booklets and take the CDs as musical examples to illustrate „one man’s jazz history“ - which is just as valid IMO). All in all great value for money. Yet I must admit that as much as the selection of the tunes clearly is a labor of love, there are a few things that leave you scratching your head after having read both booklets (at least a good deal of both). Call it nitpicking if you want, but seeing how other reissues have been commented upon here and elsewhere some clarification might be in order anyhow: - What’s so special about the „Moonglow“ version by the Mississippi Mud Steppers that would warrant it being included TWICE in the box set? (Vol. 3, discs 1 and 2) - Cliff Bruner & his Texas Wanderers never were „falling DOWN“, what they recorded (on April 8, 1940, to be exact ) was the „New Falling RAIN Blues“ (Vol. 3, disc 6). - Is the recording date of Maxine Sullivan’s „Nice Work If You Can Get It“ (Vol. 3, disc 3) correct? Rust and Bruyninckx give it as Oct. 22, 1937. Could it be that the date given here is actually a repeat listing of the Charlie Christian entry that precedes it? - Interesting as the booklet texts are, what I find somewhat irritating is that the periods covered by the music in the respective box sets and by the accompanying booklet texts do not quite coincide. A good deal of the booklet text (including quoted musical examples) of Vol. 3 relates to the discs of Vol. 2, and to read up to the end of the period covered by Vol. 3 you have to go to Vol. 4 and read the first part of the booklet there. A bit strange if the liner notes are intended to illustrate the music of any given box set (or vice versa, in fact). - I realize with the amount of music of each box set it would have been difficult to include full session details, but if those are (regrettably but understandably) omitted it would have helped a lot for those who feel like cross-checking the details elsewhere if the artist credits had been given more accurately throughout. For ex. just listing Ivie Anderson doing „Oh Baby Maybe Someday“ (Vol. 3) is confusing, seeing that she did in fact record under her own name. „Duke Ellington Orch. feat. Ivie Anderson“ would have been more like it. Overly abbreviated credits like „Berigan/Waller/Dorsey“ are a bit odd too, IMHO. And in the case of more obscure recordings, artist details would indeed have been very welcome, e.g. for Lester Young’s jam session/airshot recording of „Benny’s Bugle“. - The 2nd pic showing Charlie Barnet as per the caption (Vol. 3, p. 25) looks suspiciously like Benny Carter to me, and the 2nd pic credited to Maxine Sullivan (Vol. 3, p. 67) reminds me more of a very elderly Gil Evans. - Speaking of the photographs, I wonder why Lee Konitz rates a picture entry in Vol. 3. This period (1934-45) isn’t exactly the prime period that he left his mark in. The same goes for Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman in Vol. 4 (which ends in 1951 after all). Surely there must have been a lot of jazz personalities (famous or obscure) from the periods covered by the music that would have warranted a pic instead. And speaking of the pic of June Christy (Vol. 4, p. 54), what a pity this particular one is only half the actual pic so the story that this pic tells is totally lost (see W. Gottlieb’s „Golden Age of Jazz“ book where I guess this pic came from). - The author of „The Making of Jazz“ (and others) who apparently does not meet with unanimity is called JAMES Lincoln Collier, not John ... - Valaida Snow definitely never was imprisoned by the German occupants in Sweden. This happened in Denmark, not Sweden. Sweden stayed strictly neutral throughout the entire war. I realize from a U.S. point of view this may be but a minor slipup like speaking of North Carolina when you mean South Carolina, but to Europeans the difference was considerable. Ask any Swede about it ... - By 1944 Sonny Berman, though he died young, luckily had a bit more than „less than one year“ (Vol. 4, p. 28) left to live, or else we never would have heard a good deal of his great solos in Woody’s Herd. - I also wonder about the recording date for the Georgie Auld recording of „Short Circuit“ quoted in connection with Sonny Berman on disc 9 of Vol. 3. This track sounds very much like the recording previously released on Hep LP 27. Discographies give its recording date as March 28, 1944 (this date figures in the tracklist alongside the subsequent track – Don Byas‘ „1944 Stomp“ which according to all sources was waxed on Aug. 17, 1944, however). The date of Feb. 16, 1944 given for the Auld track in the tracklist, on the other hand, seems to belong to the previous one in the list, to Coleman Hawkins‘ „Woody’n you“. Seems like the track and recording date listings got out of sync ... - Finally, I wonder how those numerous misspellings of artists‘ names throughout the booklets of both volumes came about. Surely that’s something easy to avoid... O.K., enough of this, and again, call it nitpicking of you want to, and yes – IMHO the box sets still offer great value for money, but judging by Allen Lowe’s CV in the booklets I feel sure that as a jazz historian, in particular, he will already have made a point of getting errors like this straightened out in second pressings/printings.

Great music, and one of my preferred bebop artists. Yet I agree that this amount of alternate takes can be a bit tedious; thank goodness I have this music on Wardell's Prestige twofer entitled "Central Avenue". Still the best packaging of this material, I think.

I still insist any such surveys, discussions, etc. are highly subjective or biased as nobody (not even in this disucssion thread here) has been able or even attempted to state what is to be considered jazz at all if we are to find out if the "general public" cares about jazz at all. I'll bet you a nickel there are LOTs of people out there who will gladly listen to some Satchmo or Ella tunes every now and then and would not object to music like this being played in their presence at all yet would object STRONGLY to being confronted with music by Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Peter Brötzmann or similar artists that would just be a lot of noise to them. So what would be the bottom lime? That one moment they will accept "jazz" and the next moment they won't? How puzzling ... How would you rate this in a survey checklist? Or take those to who "smooth jazz" is perfectly alright as "jazz" ("Why,it said so on the cover!?"") while others (including lots of regular forumists here, I suppose) wouldn't touch it with a 100-foot pole. In short, there is no such GENERIC thing as "jazz" anymore. You need to be more specific if you want to get ahead with your surveys. And since this will fast become much too involved for general usability, any such survey, statistics become pretty meaningless.

Yes, this one is fine, but somehow I like his BOSTON BLOW-UP LP done in 1955 even better. Also not to be overlooked is his "The Fable of Mabel" album for Storyville (the CD reissue is currently available rather cheaply via Zweitausendeins), and his CD released on the Uptown label featuring 1950 live recordings from various Boston clubs captures the period club atmosphere nicely in addition ot the Serge's blowing.

A lot of what he says would also be true for Europe (even if English isn't the mother language of most Europeans). Everybody seems to focus on lyrics all over, no matter how inane or repetitive they are, and even if they don't know or speak any decent English at all. Concentrating on or consciously listening to INSTRUMENTAL music (jazz or not) is becoming a lost art. Instrumental music seems to be relegated to background elevator music in the minds of most people. That thing about testing the substance of a song by playing it on a piano only is a nice one ... As for that deleted caption, there is some truth in this too. Stylistically speaking, jazz by now has become such a wide field that you cannot even expect the majority of jazz fans to embrace all styles of jazz alike. One man's jazz is another's ... well, I don't know what, but possibly not jazz. And calling any sort of musical utterance "jazz" if it does not fit any other category (as has been done quite often in the 70s, 80s and 90s) doesn't help either, least of all in helping those outside the jazz world understand what the "core" of jazz actually sounds like.

There would have been an EASY way out for your dilemma: Whenever you want to get records autographed, ONLY take the cover along, but NEVER EVER the vinyl! Not that I would want to discourage noble gestures such as yours but not taking the vinyl along also helps to avoid potential vinyl fxxx-ups when you have to queue up (or actually fight for the best position in the crowd) to get your records autographed after the gig.

I don't know the ones you named so I cannot tell ... All I know is that I really like this one because of its emphasis on the 40s to 60s which is also my main interest in jazz, and IMHO it very nicely presents the early years (pre-WWII), the "Machito" era (when bebop embraced latin music) as well as the subsequent eras up to the present but it is not one of those "history" books that quickly glance over the whole past in one meagre chapter, devoting three quarters of the book to current headline acts for sheer mass sales. And the pictures are quite impressive and make the music come alive.

There IS! LATIN JAZZ - The Perfect Combination/La Combinación Perfecta by Raúl Fernandez Chronicle Books San Francisco 2002 ISBN 0-8118-3608-8 Disfruten! (i.e. Enjoy! )

@md655321: Maybe (and hopefully likely) so.... BUT, if we regard this from the perspective of the music collector: What's so convenient about having to store your collected (music) data every couple of years because the platforms that will provide reading (and playing) access are about to become obsolete or because the data storage media themselves are becoming more and more likely to fail? Compared to the minimum outlay of making sure your turntable stays functional (or, if your old one is beyond repair, getting a new one - which shouldn't be that difficult to do as long as certain subculture DJ's haven't turned away from vinyl for good) and just pulling out your trusty vinyl and enjoying it even FIFTY years later without worrying about any compatibility issues, that's really not very convenient. Just imagine this, you data whiz kid - a FIFTY-year old analog data storage medium such as vinyl, or an even older HARDCOPY reference book (o.k. I am not talking about pulp printed matter turning brown and brittle after 50 years or so)! How often will you have to have saved, recopied and transferred your digital data in the same time frame (just in order to ensure even the most basic form of usability), and eventually lost maybe a couple of major files just because the storage media became unreadable before you realized this? Sorry, this may all sound terribly old-fashioned to a lot of you out there, and digital data and their storage media have a LOT of advantages in today's everyday life, but when it comes to digital media as CONVENIENT LONG-TERM storage media that can just be stored by the owner of the data and forgotten, only to be retrieved when he needs to look up or play something (as in the case of a book or vinyl platter), it is not all gold that glitters in the brave new digital world.

I admit I am not familiar with this particular reissue and this might very well be a good way of getting introduced to this material but it always is very annoying when you get incomplete and possibly unrelated sessions thrown together on one disc, therefore forcing you to end up with lots of duplicates if you want to explore ANY of these sessions further. I think with today's collectors being what they are you don't even have to be a completist to dislike this sort of programming/marketing strategy.

Brownian Motion, I realized my error earlier so I changed my post above. I had assumed it was the Continental sessions that Savoy had reissued but these are a different story again. I've been aware of the Joe Davis sessions for a VERY long time. Great stuff!

Still more Hawk on Savoy is found on the Varsity Seven sessions of Dec. 14, 1939 and Jan. 14., 1940 taken over from the Varsity label and issued partly on Savoy 78s before being reissued on various Savoy LP's later on as well as on Storyville SLP 703.

Dues Blues: Brew Moore (ts), Cal Tjader (vib), Vince Guaraldi (p), Dean Reilly (b), Bobby White (d) Other titles: Brew Moore & Harold Wylie (saxes), John Marabuto (p), John Mosher (b), John Markham (d) Strange to see this LP is more elusive than the other. Even this one must have been on the market quite a while. I did not buy my new OJC copy until about 1990 or so. Late, maybe you just were "too Late" Re- Brothers & Other Mothers (not such a rare sight in secondhand bins, BTW): Don't forget Brothers & Other Mothers VOL. 2 for more Brew: Mud Bug/Gold Rush/Lestorian Mode/Kai's Kid (+ alt. takes) rec. May 20, 1949!

Not true, chewy. Parrot did record and issue a LOT of their own material (see the label story under the link above). However, Parrot followed an older label - Old Swingmaster - where the same persons (including DJ Al Benson) were involved. So they took over some of the leftovers of that one. And they certainly weren't the only indie label of that time that made use of masters from other (even smaller) indies that had gone bust. At the same time they leased some of their own masters to other labels that may have had better distribution. And after Parrot went OOB a lot of their leftovers went to Chess that had leased recordings from them before (so it's actually the other way round from what you wrote). Not a copycat practice but normal procedures at that time. As for Crown, they were a cheapo offshoot of the Modern/RPM label group (run by the Bihari brothers). So obviously they reissued that material again. But it all remained within the same company. It's a bit like reissue or budget sublabels with the majors, such as the Wing subsidiary of Mercury/EmArcy, etc.

Brownie, the source quoted by Chewy is this: http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/parrot.html Great site, great info on a HUGE number of R&B artists!

Maybe somebody sneaked them out of the P.X. and off the huge U.S. base that used to be at Chateauroux or some other U.S. base? I guess that's why I was able to find the occasional Crown LP over here at fleamarkets WELL before the internet came along (i.e. because at some time in the past somehow some G.I. Joe dumped or resold/gave them away off base outside one of the U.S. posts here so they eventually ended up in fleamarket bins)

I have it and am not overly impressed. As with other Gleason Capitol albums of that period, it is fairly conventional. If I can find it quickly I will post a period review here for your amusement (I think it was a 1 or 2-star rating ) Maybe these recordings were a nice change from TV work for those studio hacks who participated in the Gleason sessions but by 50s big band jazz standards there are better items around. Re- Dave Pell: His LP's on the Kapp label are quite enjoyable. If I remember correctly he did a Rodgers & Hart LP for Kapp too so the one you saw might be similar.

In my quest of getting the entire MODE LP series (minus a few vocalists' items I can do without) I also got Al Viola`s LP. Nice as a study object for budding guitarists but must admit I found it a bit too subdued. Maybe I will have to give it a closer listen once again.

And if you want to go the whole way, check out the chronological works of the Moten band on the CLASSICS label.

Tom, if the positions of Stanley Crouch that you sum up here are the reasons why his writings so often meet with hostililty, does this mean that Stanley Crouch is commonly seen as the Rudi Blesh or Hugues Panassié of the 21st century? :D

Well said, Clunky. I am not the biggest M.B. fan but like her to some degree and it also struck me that her voice has stood the test of time a LOT better than the voices of MOST of the other female white swing vocalists of the pre-Anita O'Day/pre-June Christy era. On a side note, what do the liner notes of the Mosaic set say about Mildred Bailey's birth date? (Surely these liner notes must be the result of thorough research) There was/is a discussion on another forum on this subject and some biographical details just make the commonly quoted date of 1907 HIGHLY improbable.

Another disc worth checking out: LOCKING HORNS feat. Joe Newman and Zoot Sims (originally on RAMA, reissued on Fresh Sound - where else? - both as vinyl and CD) Stylistically I'd say it's between his 50s mainstream recordings and his more advanced dates on Prestige/Swingville.

Stan Getz did a session in Warsaw on 31 October 1960 for a "Stan Getz in Poland" album released on the Muza label. This might be the one. However, according to the discographies this session was reissued later again on Muza but also on CD on a Japanese CD (TKCD) and on an Italian label (Bandstand).