Big Beat Steve

I guess I forgot to add a smiley. But seriously, it is tragic if it's the end of the program. Even without a smiley you weren't that far off the mark. Somewhere (and quite a while ago) I read that it was the proclaimed final goal of the DOCUMENT label to make EVERY pre-war blues recording available again in reissue form.

Ha, so the Japs now have latched on to this one as being particularly collectible too! My, how time fades ... This one caused quite a laugh among the European rockabilly subculture (U.K., in particular) in the late 80s. :D (Can't recall the music on it, though...)

Don't you believe it! In the vinyl days anyway, this clearly was not an issue. Document and those other Austrian and Dutch pre-war blues reissue labels went to GREAT lengths in trying to avoid duplications and expressly listed "other recommended listening" (i.e. other company's LP's that completed the total output) on their sleeves. And this is a policy I would have LOVED to see among LOTS of jazz reissue labels where the same stuff is regurgitated over and over again in ever so slightly different combinations. And you certainly can't fault the (Dutch) AGRAM label for the booklets they included with many of their releases. Not something they could have ripped off somewhere else. I admit I haven't seen that much of the CD's of these labels but the "complete recorded works" CD releases by Document on many pre-war blues artists certainly went well beyond what other labels (including Yazoo) did so a lot of their own work must have gone into all that.

There's still a ENOOOORMOUS amount of blues and R&B recordings from the first post-war (WWII, that is) decade that has never ever been reissued or resurrected from the vaults of unissued masters. But I guess that's much too lowly and sophisticated for those Paramount and Gennett lovers. Ace, Classics Blues & Rhythm and Blue Moon are trying to rectify this situation but still there is much too much for them to handle it all ...

An oddball label name if there ever was one! According to the Bruyninckx discography (again!), Out of Nowhere is from an unknwon location in 1946. Moon, I'll Never be the same and Beguine are from The Click, Philadelphia, 27 May 1948, Sometimes, Kept on Dreaming, Gee Bop, Lover, Still of the Night, DJ Jump, To Be ... are from the Hollywood Palladium, L.A., April 1949, Gone Side is from an unknown date in '49, Leave Us Leap is The Steel Pier, Atlantic City, 20 Aug. 49, Yesterdays is from the Arcadia Ballroom, NY, 9 Nov. 1949, Southland is from the Ted Steel Show, NY. 3 Ovt. 1950. Oh well ... how many Leave Us Leaps, DJ Jumps and G-Bops do you need? Gona play me Leave Us Leap by the Eraldo Volonté Orchestra for a real change now (Italian recording form 1947 - pretty good punch in the brass and reed sections ...)

Try Alamac QSR-2450 (airshots of April 1949 from the Hollywood Palladium).

Hey Chewy, so you're back from your daily (nightly?) dive through the used record bins,eh? :D Well, Bruyninckx sez this: Contents of "Drum Boogie GK 1468" are the same as on "Nostalgia 136". Some of the tracks are also on Swing House SWH40 (UK). Tea for Two up to Lover (as per your listing) were recorded at the Hollywood Palladium on Jan. 10, 1946, the rest was recorded at the 400 Restaurant in New York on April 26, 1946. One of a HUUUUGE number of live recordings by the Krupa band from that period that are listed in that discography. Enjoy!

According to the Basie chapter in Walter Bruyninckx' discography, the sextet tracks come from a broadcast on 28 April 1951. "The Golden Bullet" is announced incorrectly - it is actually "Bluebeard Blues". Buck Clayton is on Lady Be Good and Golden Bullet/Bluebeard Blues only. I have these tracks on Moon CD076-2 released under Wardell Gray's name (that also includes "Out of Nowhere" from the Tradewinds jam on 24 March 1952 that was mentioned here when you asked about the you asked about those "Jam Session" LP's.

Thanks for the link. It's amazing what's available from specialist sellers through the net. OT - a word of caution anyway: Normally you'd figure that the best-priced buying source would be a supplier in the country of origin. So I checked the Italian RIVIERA JAZZ CD's on this site just for curiosity's sake. Lo and behold - most of them are 18.90 EUR yet I bought a load of them for 15.40 EUR apiece from a German seller only a couple of weeks back. Strange to see the pricing policies of some of those sources (and this at a time when everything has become very transparent thanks to the internet) ... So I'll keep my fingers crossed that this really is an attractively priced source for the BIRDS EYES CD's.

Could this be the stuff that was also out on a SPOTLITE LP? (Title: "The Band That Never Was")?

That title is an abomination. God, how I hate those "Has/Have ... Will" titles. Who came up with this idiocy that keeps rearing its ugly head again and again? And now in the NYT? Good grief. How about this from 1957: Have Gun, Will Travel: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050025/ Yeah, I know. And this. And ... I give up. To add a final coffin nail: How about HAVE DRUMS, WILL TRAVEL by Mickey Sheen? (on the Herald label)? Must have been released around the same time (1957). (Nice cover, though...)

You mean if they were to do pre-50s stuff (that on top of all nicely matches your wants lists) they weren't "thieves" (in your book) anymore? :D (Sorry for digressing again, MG!

Well, "Guilde du jazz" makes the (pressing) origin clear. I have seen at least one other copy before. I remember having downloaded (for archiving/documentation purposes) a cover pic of this album a couple of years ago when another copy came up for sale on eBay. Well outside my price range, of course (though not quite as expensive as this time ) ... It's the well-known "Euro-jazz syndrome" again. If it is European jazz from that time frame in decent condition and comes to the attention of bidders in certain Far East counties you as a seller will stand a good chance of getting rich quick ...

MG, aside from the fact that I wasn't thinking of you when I wrote the above (more of those who would have cried out loud if somebody had said "Hey I bought this Lone Hill / Definitive and am sooo pleased" ) I fully realize this is part of human nature. As for completist Calloway boxes, don't know of any (but somebody will certainly be able to tell you) but the CLASSICS label (again!) has/had a lot cf chronological Calloway releases from that era. Hope the Calloway stuff isn't among those that have gone OOP by now.

Strange how people react so inconsistently with regard to those "recycling" box sets (some would say "ripoff", others called them "distilled" box sets ... ). Now what to expect of a product that makes such blatant mistakes like the one above ... I've seen people complain about less elsewhere (and make it a reason for dumping the entire set ). But what strikes me in this debate is that lots and lots and forumists keep complaining about Lone Hill, Definitive and Fresh Sound and take issue with the fact that European copyright laws make the music P.D. after 50 years while on the other hand they seem to be more than happy to add other music on other cheapo box sets such as those by Quadromania or Proper. Could it be that one reason behind this is the following: Lone Hill and Fresh Sound tend to reissue more modern styles of jazz (I am talking about 50+ year recordings here; circumventing the 50-year limit in the case of much more recent recordings would be another issue). This seems to offend a LOT of people here who collect mainly modern jazz. Is this a.o. because seem to resent the fact that so much of their precious stuff bought at great expense might be devalued by the fact that it becomes available to others (who might take a more casual interest in those styles) at lower prices? Yet more or less the same modern group of jazz fanatics seems to be quite content at going for those cheapo box sets when it comes to reissues of older (swing or classic jazz) recordings - maybe because they just want a broader, more basic overview of that period so are not too keen on paying top-line prices even for this side interest of theirs? And what is more the money saved by buying those cheapo sets will allow them to save a lot of money that they can invest in more "legitimate" modern jazz reissues And all this despite the fact that a LOT of those cheapo swing reissues would also fall under this 70-year debate so hotly fought about by U.S. forumists since a LOT of those reissues are more recent than Feb, 1937. Looks kinda like double standards, doesn't it? Sorry for digressing OT, and no offense meant, but it had to be said for once since at times these double standards become quite evident. May everyone buy what he considers best to his tastes so let's just accept the fact that laws and personal priorities are not the same everywhere

I have that one too. Weird indeed ... apparently some sort of "limited ed. collector's issue" There were at least two more like this, one faturing an early SHORTY ROGERS (yeah, THE MAN! ) ) live session from the 'Coast. I haven't got the records right here to check but that Wardell Gray LP No. 101 came from the same live gig that was also featured on a Xanadu LP (I think it duplicates only one of the 4 tracks so it pays to have them both, unless you already have the contents of the Xanadu LP on that Proper box; yeah - what would Proper do if they hadn't earlier clean reissues to pick from? )

The best of them (for various styles of music) in that area was RECKLESS RECORDS located in Berwick Street but I am afraid they have closed down too at about the same time that Mole went (at least that's what they said elsewhere on the WWW). London sho' ain't what it used to be ... Another point trying nowadays that the choice narrows down is the various 2nd hand record shops of the MUSIC & VIDEO EXCHANGE, including the one at Notting Hill Gate (where you pass by anyway when you walk up towards Portobello Road). Hope that they at least are still around. Normally they would only have been second or third choice for me but I used to check them out pretty regularly anyway and when I was there last in 2000 I was surprised to find quite a huge selection of jazz vinyl at Notting Hill Gate (including an original 50s U.K. Vogue pressing of one of the Bud Shank Pacific Jazz LP's in very decent condition at a very fair price).

As for music books in London, maybe the Londoners could follow up and elaborate on the following: When I was regularly in London throughout the 90s and up to 2000, the Henry Pordes bookstore (Charing Cross Road) regularly carried a good selection of cut-price music books among other art books (usually books about to go OOP or books that had been superseded by a subsequent edition). Up in Camden Town there used to be Compendium Book Shop but they closed down in '99 or so (had to give way to unaffordable rents and building development policies, it seems) but there was another book store nearby across the road in a sort of inner court (lots of small specialist shops arranged around an inner court - might have been near Camden Lock). When I passed by there in 2000 they told me they had sort of taken over where Compendium left off, i.e. they had a pretty good selection of music books. I forget their name but maybe this description rings a bell with one of the Londoners around here so they can confirm whether these outlets are still any good.

I have a couple of 78s by Nick Esposito. Maybe some of the ones you are looking for are among them. Definitely not for sale, though, but maybe there is a way they can be copied onto CD-R.

Yeah, that post sure is quite enlightening .... But beyond all the personal quabbles that went on there the reissue and marketing policy behind those Proper boxes makes me wonder ... Somehow some of what I'm seeing released on Proper reminds me of some of the discussions on this forum re- certain other European labels. Some of the points have been mentioned on that other post, but just take this: http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/...g+1932-1937.htm And now consider the fact that in 2003 a Milton Brown box set (minus most of the Derwood Brown tracks) appeared on Proper. Coincidence? Or do I hear somebody say that this reeks a bit like that case of the Bird and Diz Town Hall 1945 concert recordings on Uptown that suddenly were all over the place on other labels? Please note that I do not have any objections to the 50-year P.D. limit that makes these projects perfectly legal (on the contrary, and even the 70-year U.S. limit would no longer apply in this particular case) yet I feel kind of sorry for the Texas Rose label (a FANTASTIC reissue label that was the first to bring MANY gems from that period back). Small print notwithstanding, I just wonder how much real NEW remastering FROM SCRATCH (literally... ) went into this U.K. box. And would they have done it if no Texas Rose box had been there in the first place? I can only hope so but it all looks funny ...

I have two of those: the French issue of it (on Vega, if I remember well) and later managed to get the original on ABC! This one seems to have been around in various guises through the years, though. I have it as a 60s (or early 70s?) U.K. reissue on the MFP label.

Thanks for the info, Brownie. Never saw this OJC CD on Joe Holiday anywhere before at all (and certainly no vinyl reissues ever ...). So the FS reissue includes his final leader date.

Joe Holiday? THE Joe Holiday that Prestige, OJC and whoever have steadfastly refused to include in any of their reissue programs through the decades although he was fairly prolific in the very early years of Prestige? May not be 100% essential listening but a nice example of that era anyway. Thanx, Fresh Sound!

Haven't read it but heard about it fairly often and the other day actually read a somewhat lukewarm review of it in a period jazz mag of 1947 or so. I wasn't aware he had still been alive. 60 years seems like a long time ago, and his peers among jazz writers are all long gone.

Funny that PJC and those two Arvanitas LP's on Pretoria should be mentioned here ... I bought repro reissue of the Arvanitas "Cocktail for Three" album in 2000, liked it (still do) and wanted to get the other one ("3 AM") as well when I found out it was available as a reissue LP too. An internet link showed that PJC had it on their online website. Only drawback - they would have charged about as much as the price of the LP on top of it just for shipping. A bit hefty for a single item. Any inquiries as to whether it would be possible to pick it up in their shop (a brief visit to Paris was imminent, and a friend would have been available to collect the item beforehand anyway) the reply was a curt "NO" - cannot move items from their internet stocks to the shop, cannot organize things between those two branches and whatnot ... Very strange ... So the matter just faded away and that was that ...