Big Beat Steve

It may sound overly dramatic but this forum just won't be the same without Brownie. I can see your point of spending too much time just reading and posting on forums (it can get to be a haibt) - time that might be needed for other, more pressing things, but anyway: Please reconsider, if you will ...

on my way home from work i was just thinking "well if we're moving on i will just go where brownie [father figure of yurpean board members] is going..." come on, losing this board is more than enough for poor souls like me, stay around for another board! I for one agree with every word Niko wrote. Having just discovered this topic of O closing down right now (and still trying to recover) and hoping the latest posts really do mean the forum will carry on, at any rate I'll join Niko in asking you to stay around, Brownie in case the worst come to the worst. But let's hope a new start is now in the works.

Yeah but that would relieve you only to some (small) extent of the research work. There are quite a few tunes out there that have widely differing composer credits depending on the labels, reissues, pressings, etc. that you happen to look at - although it really is the same tune in every case. Sometimes each artist who recorded a sort of "hit" version of a tune way back claimed he wrote it. Especially common in the pre-LP days. So sometimes listing composer credits might actually do more harm than good.

Since composer credits seem to be such a crucial item to many here, that leads me to a question on how those of you who insist on composer credits to be included in discographies are handling this in detail: As we all know there have been numerous instances where record company execs or other "external" persons just added their own names as a matter of course to the actual composer's name in order to grab a share of the royalties. Numerous such cases care known and documented and at any rate are open secrets, e.g. the "Josea", "Taub", "Ling" names routinely added to composer credits of tunes recorded for the Modern/RPM label conglomerate (these names being nothing but pseudonyms for the Bihari brothers who owned the labels). Based on up to date knowledge, how are you going about entries like this? Include such names and add insult to injury for the actual composers or exclude them and maybe face complaints elsewhere?

Though I've never been into jazz (or jazzy) vocals that much I admit I was knocked out by the Mel-Tones 40s recordings that I got hold of the other day on a 80s Musicraft reissue LP. So I'll second the recommendation of starting with the beginning - the 40s Mel-Tones recordings. And though I've passed it up repeatedly in the past, I'll probably grab those reecordings with Marty Paich's Dek-Tette on Bethlehem one of these days as well (as soon as a nicely priced Affinity reissue comes my way). As for that affected hipness that JSangry spoke off, I can see your point, yet I think you have to keep in mind where featured white male vocalists in jazz came from in the 40s. If you look at those typical big band vocalists of the pre-1942/43 recording ban big bands that very often sounded oh so square jazz-wise (and badly dated today), isn't it so that the white vocalists didn't really see the light until the hip 40s era rolled along? Cf. Buddy Stewart, Dave Lambert, the Pastels, David Allyn and lots of others. I admit I never really went for the sound of the crooners but for my money I somehow like Mel's chops better than those of Frankieboy.

I fully agree with the recommendation of Bill Perkins' "On Stage" as a prime example of "typical" West Coast jazz. What I find a bit strange, though, is the inclusion of the Shank/Cooper "Blowing Country" disc in such a reissue program that probably purports to make OUTSTANDING examples of the genre available again. For once I have to agree with the period reviews of this release: It is pleasantly sounding jazz-tinged background music but one of the better examples of WCJ? I dunno ... Rather, it's fairly light fare. Sure there must be more substantial WCJ music in the PJ catalog. Besides, the original release already was an unnecessary oddity: Tracks previously issued on three different PJ/WP LP's rehashed into a new cash-in product, i.e. a "compilation", not an original release.

I've had the Xanadu reissue since 1984 (must have been fairly newly released though it was found in a student campus fleamarket bin) and strangely enough never came across the Fresh Sound vinyl reissue though I've bought and actively looked for PLENTY of these facsimile reissues.

One of those big-money (though non-Blue Note items on eBay, that original JARO issue. Weird record titles, BTW. Jaro issued it as the "arrival" (though, as far as leader dates were concerned, KD had arrived before that date) and Xanadu issued the same music to commemorate the "departure". Beats me how AMG could claim it is a "compilation". The usual discographies have the right answers. As for that "Memorial" tag on Xanadu, that's not something to go by at all. AFAIR the "Sonny Clark Memorial Album" on Xanadu did include previously unreleased club recordings from Sweden indeed sow as something new for the occasion but on the other hand the "Bill Harris Memorial Album" on Xanadu in fact is a reissue of a date originally done for MODE in 1957.

Brownie, the pleasure was all mine (and I hope we can repat this in due course). As for how much more agreeable this forum was a couple of years ago, I don't know of course (as I dicovered this place not that long ago). But comparing it to other internet places, it does not fare that badly IMHO. Like I said, maybe I haven't read the threads in question (I don't nearly follow all of them around here) but still ... All in all I find Jim Alfredson's stance on this matter quite a healthy one. When things get extremely unpleasant the moderator has to intervene but it IS a thin line between enforcing mutual respect and stifling controversial debates to the point of making it all a bloodless bla-bla affair. And like Jim said, welcome to the world of the internet as far as saying things here you would not say to your "opponent" face to face. However, in this basic debate, please consider this: Have a look around at daily life as it is today: Isn't it a common enough experience to come across people that are ready and willing to screw you in a big way and get out the knife to stab in your back at any moment yet outwardly they are nothing but smiles and politeness - but oh my, behind that phony facade? I realize internet exchanges may be prone to insulting because you are not immediately taken to task but isn't it sometimes better under these circumstances to let off steam and NOT count your words (if only to make it clear to the other one he will NOT get away with his own attitude). Pretending everything is fine and then pulling strings behind the other's back to do him in good (it's all happened and can even happen via the internet) is far, far worse than the occasional direct, confrontational rudeness in the name of clarity. That said .. PEACE for now and why not back to the actual topic for those who still want to elaborate on it...

I must have been reading the wrong threads ... I did not notice much mud-slinging around here (thankfully). Some tongue-in-cheek teasing with certain people (whom I am not going to name ) is quite in order, I think. And I must say I for one do appreciate the outspokenness of people like Clem (though I sometimes find it hard to follow what he is saying ). But anyway ... to each his own. Nobody has to agree with everything everybody else says and sometimes personality clashes via the 'net unfortunately are unavoidable. Daniel A, compared to that other forum I've stopped posting in everything that may have gone on here is next to nothing ... really! But back to the topic now ...

So where's everybody crying out loud about bootlegging and ethics now? :D

Sorry if this alienates J.A.W. further but I find this behavior rather childish. I've quit other forums before too (upon severe disagreement with the way those forums have been run) but in cases like this especially after insults that may have been made have been apologized for? As far as I can see Porcy62 did apologize. What has he been out for? Rub it in good? Make his "opponent" fall on his knees and beg for forgiveness forevermore? Adult people ought to know better than making a scene after a disagreement with ONE single forum member, especially if they have proven their common sense through other posts here. Not that I would want to take any sides but the SH forum underlings must be more than satisfied in seeing how disputes over THAT forum OVER THERE lead to such controversies, feuds and waste of energy right here. This sure detracts from the original topic of this thread. So what was it all about again? Sloppy product quality or forum censorship? Or the consumer's right to speak out loud about sloppy product quality (or even only about product quality perceived as sloppy?)

Chris, with all due respect: I not only have all the Sonny Burgess recordings listed in that discography (yes I admit I am one of those who is not above listening some good straightforward 50s R'n'r from time to time - "Ain't Got A Thing" is spinning on the turntable as I write this) but even more of his music, and if you must know there are more incongruous entries like this. And no, I did not note them down when I came across them so I cannot pinpoint them right now but one that is just as out of place is that (through solitary) entry by traditional country singer Carl Story. The musical area where jazz and country music get close does exist but none of the artists that might be presented as such borderline cases (starting with Bob Wills and Milton Brown) got an entry in Jepsen's, and by musical comparison Sonny Burgess (fine though he is in HIS genre) is rather far removed from that borderline (OK, "Thunderbird" has a blues flavor but oh my what else you would have had to include if you go by that yardstick). So it all is a question of methodology and crosschecking of entry suggestions/source material. Incorporating label listings wholesale does not help if nobody is there to provide guidance on the musical contents. Just imagine incorporating an extensive listing of Jerry Murad's Harmonicats in a blues/R&B discography just because they happened to record on the R&B-oriented Vitacoustic label too. And though I do think such reasoning was not beyond discographers' standards in the 60s (or why else would they have made a fuss about whether to include or exclude Jimmy Dorsey who certainly had more jazz to him than others mentioned here ) this is NOT to denigrate the pioneering work of your fellow countryman Jörgen Grunnet Jepsen one bit! I value his discography and yet I took the liberty of poionting out a few oddities earlier, more as a side note in this discussion on matters discographical (not imagining it'd turn into such a debate ). Jag ber om ursäkta (nej, jeg taler ikke dansk)

Paul, I should have thought when he wrote this he was rather thinking of artists like Frank Sinatra etc. (possibly included not least of all due to the presence of jazz sidemen), and as for blues artists, isn´t it often rather hard to draw a firm line between jazz and blues, one of THE key ingredients of jazz? Where would you place Jimmy Rushing, for instance? Or Helen Humes? So there would be many who fit both bills as for their inclusion in discographies. It´s been a learning process even for discographers anyway - remember how Mike Leadbitter steadfastly excluded R&B artists in the original edition of his opus (a wrong thankfully righted in later editions )? So "blues or not" certainly is not the question in jazz discographies - but rockabilly? (not that I would want to dwell on this point forever, but this obviously was a lapse of judgment - understandable in a way, and amusing today, but it was there).

At first sight yes ... and I can understand things like this to happen in the case of certain black R&B vocalists of the 50s but what baffles me is that when this info must have been entered in the mid-60s Sonny Burgess had been on the scene (though quite non-jazz) for quite a few years, had been a fairly well-known figure (at least in the South) on the R'n'R scene in the latter part of the 50s (though by the mid-60s was past his R'n'R prime and had gone into country music). Surely there must have been SOMEBODY among his U.S. contributors who might have been able to tell him that Sonny Burgess a) was white (and therefore rather one of the "Elvis Presley fraternity") b) was a R'n'R/rockabilly artist after all and that c) by the time he recorded for SUN this label had largely given up its blues roots/connections (i.e. the mere name of the label did not provide a safe indication of the material recorded there anymore). In short, there was NO jazz connection here, no matter how you look at it, and certainly SOME U.S. contact of his must have been aware of all this and more. I realize I am speaking with the HUGE benefit of hindsight but it boils down to a matter of cross-checking of possibly doubtful facts (as there were other entries like this). It's a minor point that does not detract from the overall quality of the discography at all but considering how Rock'n'roll was lambasted by the jazz world at that time it's amusing to see that entries like this (of all musical styles) crept into that reference work by the back door ...

Yes, those were the days ... A very healthy attitude, and yet I wonder what EKE BBB, for example, would say about his Tete Montoliu discography he is working on if he finds Lord appropriates it lock stock and barrel and then claims copyright on it (the same is true for other forumists here and elsewhere too, of course, who publicly invite contributions to and - hence - use of their discopgraphies they painstakingly built up). As for Jepsen, while I still use it for basic information I've sometimes been wondering about his sources indeed. Beats me how rockabilly singer Sonny Burgess ever made it into this JAZZ discography (and he is no isolated case). Sometimes he cast his nets rather wide indeed. Compared to his diligence and attention to detail evident from the monthly columns in Orkester Journalen he did back then this is really odd - or was it the sheer volume of material and comparatively primitive processing facilities available back then?

Since you mention your country, Daniel A, actually Sweden is a case in point as to what could be done if discographies were shared via the web. That comprehensive Swedish jazz discography that's accessible via www.visarkiv.se certainly borrowed from Harry Nicolausson's groundbreaking discography but did Nicolausson's heirs ever sue the Visarkiv discographers/researches/compilers for infringement? Apparently not. And as for the set-up and layout of an original works being a criterion for it being copyrightable (is there such a word? ), isn't the layout of the discographical entries in this or other discographies (right up to Lord's, from what I have seen) pretty much standardized (basically right back to Jepsen's if not Delaunay's days) so what is there to copyright from the layout? And since a discography basically contains nothing but facts, is there anything that can be copyrighted by anybody but those who collated and published the respective information FIRST? Or can you copyright a discographical listing by any artist as your own brainchild as soon as you add, say, 2 or 3 or 4 additional reissues in the "record releases" column, though 98% of the overall contents remain unchanged? Hey, almost anybody can do that!

This mixup of different sessions that are not complete of course is not satisfactory for today's collectors (are there any out there who are NOT completists? ) but if the entire Prestige etc. label conglomerate and their OJC reissues were handled with more sense by Concord then this would not happen that easily. Seems like Concord is intent on quitting the field. No wonder others are jumping up to cash in even in this niche market. BTW - these tracks being PD now means these reissues are NOT bootlegs by European standards. So as long as they are marketed inside Europe everything is cool.

An amazing and insightful thread. The immense outlay for the Lord discographies (both when they were issued in book form and now in digitized form) made me immediately shy away, especially since the bulk of my own jazz & blues collection covers the era up to, say, the mid-60s. Apart from the original Jepsen discographies as well as Rust's for the up to 1942 period (which I still regularly refer to for basic information) I have an older CD version of the Bruyninckx discography (old enough not to have any search facilities) and use that not only get more up to date session details but above all to look up info on more recently released information on airshots, transcriptions, live recordings, alt. take collations etc. that are not covered by Rust at all and not to any great extent by Jepsen either (because not many airshots and live recordings of earlier jazz had been issued at that time yet). All in all these discographies usually cover the ground for me quite nicely (along with the Leadbitter/Pelletier as well as Goodrich/Dixon discographies for blues as well as a few specialist discogs such as the one on Swedish jazz available online FREE!). Now my question to the specialists is this: How up to date are more recent issues of BRUYNINCKX' discpgraphies with more search functions and does Lord offer ANY substantially new or enhanced info over Bruyninckx' if I were to search for, say, issues/reissues of airshots, transcriptions, outtakes etc mostly released for the general public on those countless small collector labels? (Which is what I might need more up to date discographies that go beyond listings of original 78rpm discographies such as the one by Rust)

That's exactly it! That other female "singing" you hear out there these days (be it "straight" singers or one of those who scat everything to death in a sort of free-style vocal chord exercise) can be painful too. As for M.P., I did like her Billie Holiday stylings on first listening but it's hard indeed going through a whole CD of hers in one go. If you take he in smaller doses she is okay IMO but that Billie Holiday gimmick just tends to get repetitive and sometimes it just sounds to me as if the B.H. voice she strives after just does not really match her range and she knows it yet does not want to acknowledge it.

To round off the picture, I just found a review of the first concert of Quincy's summer Sweden tour (that followed the Swiss gig and lasted all through July 1960) in ORKESTER JOURNALEN. It says at this opening concert in Gävle on July 2, 1960 they still were looking for a replacement for Budd Johnson; no mention of Harold McNair's presence, and they said offers had been made to Lucky Thompson and Zoot Simes (both in Europe at that time) to step in. Also, Ake Persson had to stay behind in Stockholm for private reasons; his place was taken by Gordon Olsson (who had already been in Harry Arnold's 1958 band playing Quincy's arrangements). Re- Quincy backing Nat King Cole in April/May: The May 1960 issue of Orkester Journalen carried a review of the Quincy Jones/Nat Cole concert on 26 April in Stockholm. From the solists named, the line-up reads like the one in the first post but the review says when Nat King Cole came on (after Quincy's band had played a set of their own) some reshuffling took place among the musicians: Lead trumpet was played by Irving Busch and the rhythm section now included John Collins (g), Charles Harris (b), and Lee Young (dr). Nat Cole played some piano himself. Also, a five-piece string section consisting of French musicians was brought on. Don't know if those changes of personnel happened during the entire tour, though.

If you think it would help I can check my 1960 issues of JAZZ HOT (France) and ESTRAD and ORKESTER JOURNALEN (Sweden) for any info they may have on the European tour of this band and the lineup.

King Ubu, what is your experience with Amazon marketplace seller MARCHE_24? They are based in Switzerland so I figure you might have tried them. I tried them once on a book listed a being widely available but their service was abysmal. First they said the item had been shipped then they said it might perhaps been overlooked and not been shipped after all or a mistake due to non-availability might have happened. During the numerous e-mails I had to exchange with them until I finally (quite a bit later) got my money back each time sobody else replied and always started from scratch in their statements as if they had not been aware of my previous mails. It all sounded like another case of Caimanitis to me...

Cicala was an Italian semi-cheapo label found widely in jazz bins in record stores here in the 80s and early 90s ("semi" because back then even reputable lables often had cheap-looking covers and artwork). From the other Cicala LP's I've seen (and sometimes bought), some of the live recordings they (re)issued duplicated material also released on the U.S. ALAMAC label. Maybe this gives a clue as to the sources.

If you'd seen any sizeable number of pics of the French early to mid-60s youth (e.g. the then-current French rock'n'roll/beat bands and their fans) you wouldn't say that ... Anyway, the cover pics of the JiP series are fantastic throughout and in many cases capture the atmosphere of the times (and the music) perfectly well, though sometimes they ought to have used pictures taken more at the time the music was recorded and not that long before or after. And I'd sure like to have that cinema wall publicity seen on Jazz and Cinema Vol. 5!! :D That would be something ...