Big Beat Steve

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 ...

The explanation of these skyrocketing prices is easy: Almost ANY combination of "EURO-JAZZ" (especially from the 50s and 60s - and early 70s if on the right label ) AND Japanese buyers will make prices go through the roof. Copies of a similar issue (Lars Gullin/Brew Moore/Sahib Shibab on one of those 60s Danish labels) went sky-high several times on eBay around 2001/2002. And I remember how I almost fainted when I first saw the prices that that early 10" release by Iancsi Korossy on the Supraphon label (of which I had picked up a NM copy for 2 deutschmarks - about 1 euro - on a local fleamarket in the late 90s) regularly fetched on eBay.

You're talking about SWING (DRG) SW 8411? Shouldn't be THAT rare. I might have a lead for a copy (a private seller in Germany selling one for 10 euros; but airmail shipping to the States would cost you at least another 13 euros. If you think that's worth it (which I quite honestly doubt as it is a reissue from 1986, i.e. not THAT old) I can check with the seller.

Strangely enough, most of those records I've been trying to find for a VERY long time then all of a sudden were (almost) all over the place once I had located a copy at long last. I'd been looking for that very first real LP by Horst Jankowski - his 1961 "Gäste bei Horst Jankowski" LP on the Metronome label for almost 20 years and the first copy I ever came across anywhere at all was one located through eBay in NM from a German seller in 2001 or so (not cheap but halfway affordable). And not more than about a year later I ended up with another copy (this one VG+) (so now I even have a trade item...). That one came my way with a stack of records (that included one of the original Brunswick Donald Byrd in Paris LP's) bought as one lot from another eBay seller about 30 miles from where I live! And all this after having searched for this one at flea markets, garage sales, record fairs, secondhand record shops for years and years! Same story with another long-time wants list: Back in the late 70s I hesitated too long buying the sole copy of that "The Cats & The Fiddle" 2-record set on the Bluebird label that made it to a local record store. Couldn't quite figure out what THAT band was and when I finally made up my mind it was gone! No chance of finding it anywhre else at a halfway affordable price in those pre-internet days, of course. Then in the early 90s I met a local couple that had that a copy (they must have bought the very copy I had missed back then). So now at least I had a cassette dub ... Finally, after eBay had arrived I took the plunge in 2001 and jumped at the occasion when a copy came up on eBay.com (not cheap with airmail fare from the U.S., etc.). But lo and behold, about a year later a secondhand record store had another copy priced at LESS than that eBay price excluding shipping! (That one made a nice birthday gift for a friend though...) Wonder if that's going to happen again with my current MOST WANTED item (missed it several times on eBay as the final prices clearly were out of my range): Deutsches Amateur Jazz Festival 1958 LP on Metronome

Don't even ask or wonder, Kyo! This policy of reissue labels of reshuffling, rearranging and (in the process) thoroughly mixing up everything in such a manner that you end up with a HUGE amount of duplicates even if you are NOT a 100% completist is one of the most annoying things to plague the more serious collector! Sometimes it makes you wonder if it is all part of a scheme of selling even more CD's by deliberately programming reissues in the most incoherent manner possible in order to take advantage of the completists out there who must have everything. Like I've said before elsewhere: I really envy the collectors of pre-war blues recordings. They do have at least some labels that give more consideration to the collector. One of those records I gave a spin the other day actually had the following statement after the track listing on the cover: "The remaining tracks of this group are found on .... - No duplications between these!" Now imagine that on jazz CD reissues with material from the late 50s/60s/70s (especially if a somewhat better-known name is involved ...)!

I was just as intrigued as Ghost of Miles by this name of Henry Jerome when I read SWING TO BOP (one of those jazz books you enjoy reading over and over and over again from start to finish) as it was mentioned relatively frequently for such an obscure band. My initial reaction initially was something like "What - a transitional band from swing to bop I don't have in my record collection and can't find in any discographies? WTF?" At first I drew a blank too and wrote it off as one of those unrecorded post-big band era bands that blossomed very briefly after 1945. What with Tiny Kahn and Al Cohn in its lineup, I figured it might have sounded like that Gene Roland rehearsal band. However, there is at least one Henry Jerome LP on the Circle label (CLP-51), featuring Lang-Worth transcription recordings made in 1950 and 1952 (released in 1983). I found it a couple of years ago and of course grabbed it (Swing to Bop had stuck in my mind). I got it very cheaply - otherwise it would have been a BIG disappointment. It's more of a hotel-style or mickey-mouse setup in the style of Hal Kemp or the like that may have been popular with the more plush, more sedate set of U.S. society of the late 40s/early 50s. That "modern" sounds of that Henry Jerome bands mentioned in the book must have been a brief intermezzo in this man's bandleading career. BTW, if that AMG info quoted below is correct, then that connection of Henry Jerome with rockabilly and the Johnny Burnette Trio that is alluded to is a streaky one at best. If it is so that Jerome moved to Coral as late as 1959 he didn't even catch the Trio at the tail end of its involvement with Coral. The classic Trio sides had been made in 1956/57, and the classic Tiny Bradshaw cover "The Train Kept a'Rollin'" quoted below was released in October, 1956. By 1959 Burnette had moved on to Imperial and then Liberty. Or did that Decca man Jerome do producer's work for Coral on the side?

Yeah, so I figured. Just wanted to point out the comparative plethora of (re-)reissues of this material.

I guess you know Tal Farlow's Fuerst & Second Set came from two Xanadu LP issues. As for CD reissues, take your pick here for FUERST SET: CRCJ-5509 (Japan 1994) TKCB-71530 (Japan 1999) Xanadu FDC-5160 (EPM France 1988). Entitled “Tal Farlow at Ed Fuerst’s” this CD includes the material from “Fuerst Set” and “Second Set” excluding “Out of Nowhere” and “Let’s Do It.” Definitive DRCD 11263 (Blue Moon, Spain, 2003). Entitled "Tal Farlow - Complete 1956 Private Recordings", this is a 2-CD unabridged reissue of "Fuerst Set" and "Second Set." ... and this (plus the last two above) for SECOND SET: CRCJ-5510 (Japan 1994) TKCB-71531 (Japan 1999) Everything found easily through Google on the Tal Farlow website. Now go figure the rest out for yourself...

The Tubbs Proper Box set is also discussed towards the very end of this thread: http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread....9302#post269302 This might give you an impression so you can judge for yourself. Quite a bit of the Tempo material by Tubby Hayes was reissued on CD by Jasmine a couple of years ago. I only have a few of them and haven't compared everything they reissued with the Proper box but some degree of duplication definitely exists (which is a nuisance as the Jasmine CD's aren't that old or obscure). As for the sound, only those who've heard both reissues can judge. Generally, the Proper boxes are nice introduction to an artist's work for those who are "novices" in this field. And like it or not over in the States, the 50-year copyright limit laws in Europe make them perfectly legal. Point. Nobody is forced to buy them. (This point has been discussed often enough here; no use rambling on. A law is a law.) That aside, initially I was quite impressed by those Proper boxes but after having checked their offerings closer, only two things remain in their favor: 1) Their price (!!), and 2) as pointed out above, they are nice as starters into the work of an artist. But if you go further or already have a good collection you will end up with lots of overlap. The first Proper box I saw, for example, was the 4-CD set on the work of Milton Brown. Nicely done, I thought, but later I discovered that another, yet more complete box (including ALL and not only a smattering of the recordings under Derwood Brown's name) exists. Completists therefore might want to look elsewhere if the price difference isn't too steep. With compilations it sometims pays to be EXTRA careful with those Proper boxes. Some time ago (following a discussion on this forum, i think),I got the "Hitting On All Six" Proper set on early (up to mid-50s) jazz guitar. Nice to have in THIS packaging and fairly affordable. BUT: The track listing (on the cover and also on the internet) is a blatant scam! They list the tracks with the guitar SOLOIST given as the artist alongside, making it look as if those recordings were done by that particular artist as a LEADER. Not so in many cases -many of the recordings actually were made by a totally different band where that guitarist just happened to take a 16-bar solo or so. In many cases, and if you know a bit about jazz of that period this was obvious from the outset (did Floyd Smith ever record "Floyd's Guitar Blues" under his own name? No, it was the Andy Kirk recording, of course, etc.) but it is virtually impossible to check it all out beforehand without actually looking at the lineups in the booklet. In short, unless you have an encyclopedic knowledge of 40 years of jazz and have memorized your discographies for good you end up with a huge amount with duplications. I think they may have pulled the same trick with other compilations, so BUYER BEWARE (if you already have a sizable jazz collection). At any rate, this kind of artist credit on the outside of the package (that's usually sealed at the time of purchase) is as idiotic as it can be (or was it maybe intentional ).

It would help a lot if you could give a bit more info on title, label, etc. Numerous compilations on early to mid-20s Henderson have been reissued in the past 20 years, some overlap with others, some don't. So .... Anyway ... ANY jazz band from c. 1923 is likely to sound VERY different from its mid-30s version, even if it's the same leader. Not only stylistically but also due to the recording technology. Generally the switch from acoustic to electrical recording occurred around 1925 and that changed the sound of a lot of bands.

How much of that has been out on Jasmine not THAT long ago, I wonder?

Beats me how you manage to smuggle them past the customs people ... Pretty much of a gamble over here with shipping to Germany ... and if you do have to add that it alters the picture ... Good for you if it works for you but not something you can count on everywhere .... Yeah, I figured on buying directly from Japan but if that guy who handled that particular reissue label can't even handle credit card payments or Paypal but wants something like IMO's that have the final prices explode right in your face with all the added bank charges then why bother? Shouldn't have guessed somebody from a high-tech country is that backwoodsy ...

Ha! Checked my discs and found I actually have the TOPS LP you are asking about (the Vogue 10in is an early issue of the tracks quoted by Brownie above). Cool, eh? Fidelity is quite decent for a live concert recording, playing is fine but not as exhibitionistic blowing as on some JATP of that time. According to the Jepsen and Bruyninckx Discographies, the details are: Recorded Hollywood, August 1946 (probably same source as the tracks quoted by Brownie), originally released under different (fake) titles on Black&White 78s What is this Thing called Love has the lineup you named Lover has Les Robinson (as) added Body and Soul only has Les Robinson with the rhythm section Sunny Side of the Street is listed in the Jepsen discography along with Body and Soul (same lineup, and the tracks does sound like it, i.e. alto sax + rhythm) but Bruyninckx does not list it (either he overlooked it opr it came from a different concert).

Like I said, Dan, this is one of those cases where these reissues just fill a gap in the history of an artist. In my case, I had all of his early R&B and was aware of what he did in the 60s so I was curious about exploring these "missing links". Actually, if other Lone Hill releases mentioned here are anything to go by then this Rusty Bryant CD might have tied in better with the Fresh Sound reissue policy.

Well said, Bluesnik! Having bought a lot of those 80s and 90s vinyl Fresh Sounds I can assure you that many of these were done VERY well, and I doubt that all of them were that shady. RCA has been mentioned as part of a legit deal but the reissues from the Epic catalog also look to me like the mother company had a say in these reissues (hence comparatively modern-looking labels), and so on ... Sure some of the covers look like they had been printed off actual album covers and not off original artwork filed somewhere in a record company's basement but so what ... We've seen a lot MUCH worse (though maybe legit) U.S. reissues such as those crappy, ring-wear prone 70s/80s U.S. Chess reissues with shoddy sleeve printing quality. Beyond those major labels, the Fresh Sound reissue policy really is a case of filling voids that nobody else cares about. He..., is there ANY U.S. jazz expert out there who'd know offhand where the rights to the STEPHENY label lie today, and do ANY U.S. labels care enough about this label to reissue its output like one of those facsimile reissue labels in the style of Fresh Sound did with the Johnnie Pate LP's (to name just ONE obscurity that would otherwise have been forgotten for good except for some greedy eBay sellers who want to make even bigger bucks with an original copy)? It might be useful to calm down this debate a little ....

Some time ago (through a pointer received on this board) I bought the Lone Hill reissue of Rusty Bryant's second and third DOT LP's: http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/...+Recordings.htm This is something that to the best of my knowledge has NOT been reissued for ages (apparently nobody cared too much about the DOT label and the stuff released on it) so it typically is one of those cases where the people from Spain step in to fill a void (so I admit I tend to be grateful for it). However, the claims in the description on this U.S. (!!) seller's site are a bit over the top: First of all, it is NOT a complete set, only a "complete early Jazz quintet" set. Rusty Bryant did an LP and several singles in a really honking R&B vein prior to those two LP's collected here (the final two tracks on the above CD are a sampling of this first phase of his career). And his blowing on THIS CD isn't that greasy, hard-boppish throughout either. Actually a lot of the standards are handled in a fairly straightforward manner. Liner notes are so-so. I like the disc but those who go all-out for his 60s soul jazz items might better want to listen in first.

and me, I don't give a bull... Yeah, just like others couldn't care less about some of those post-hard-bop-blop-blah Mosaic box sets :D No, seriously, it's nice to see not only the modernists but also the traditionalists are graced with this kind of reissues. But though my jazz tastes probably run a bit closer to this kind of music than King Ubu's I can do without that one too... That assorted Condon Commodore and CBS vinyl will do for a long time ... yet, coming to think of it, I recently got me "We Called It Music" on eBay and picked it up as my evening read yesterday so who knows ...

Re-Uptown, that's why I mentioned the case of the Bird/Diz 1945 Town Hall release above. Ripping off more or less current releases is one thing, yet filling a TOTAL void is a slightly different affair. On a side note: Are ALL Japanese reissues always 100% legit?

I am not condoning anything. I am in agreement with practices where original ARTISTS THEMSELVES are compensated and I wouldn't condone ripoffs of other current or recent reissues that undermine the market of those who took the pains to reissue something in the first place. But if NOTHING AT ALL that you might call "legit" happens reissue-wise in that particular field for ages ... And many of those reissues that take advantage of a law (like it or not) are putting artists back on the map with collectors who otherwise probably would be largely unaware of them. This might prompt beneficial interest in those artists in other respects. If those FS releases actually were that illegal, well ... Makes me wonder anyhow why none of the majors (such as the present owners of Decca) bothered one bit. Well, maybe I'll take one of those early F.S. Imperial reissues by Charlie Mariano whenever he gives a concert again to try and get it autographed; wonder if he will be trying to rip my head off ... On the other hand, I have yet to see proof of the fact that the majors (that hold the rights) are correcting royalty situations throughout they handled unfairly in the past. But yes, in a pinch it might boil down to a situation that says "If the RECORDING artists are not going to profit from this then the companies that cheated them in the first place are definitely not ging to benefit either." I understand your argument about grandchildren, etc. but remember that a LOT of property rights, patents, etc. fall into the public domain after a specified span of time, and this is known to all those concerned from the outset. If you consider the 50-year limit that unethical you might as well raise concerns about the U.S. 70-year limit and have this go on forever. I remember another debate (on the AAJ forum) on this subject of the 50 vs 70-year limit where somebody (from the U.S., I think) said this royalty rule certainly never was intended to avoid countless subsequent heirs' generations from having to stand on their own feet. As for the Route 66 label, even in the era before everything went digital there was such a thing as dubbing from 78s AND remastering (at least that's what the record sleeves said). And I remember people referring to this label as being "bootleg to the detriment of the companies but to the BENEFIT of the ARTISTS".

More on Jack McVea here: http://www.answers.com/topic/jack-mcvea http://www.jazzhouse.org/gone/lastpost2.php3?edit=979815042 As for the rest, more tonight (have to listen to the record again first).

Depends on price and condition. TOPS probably didn't have the greatest vinyl in the world. I LIKE that music! Good, freewheeling blowing ... And yes, it IS a live recording. I'll give it a listen tonight and tell you then ... can't really recall how good/bad the fidelity is...

I fully agree with what Felser and Morganized just said. Too much of what's been said against Lone Hill and Fresh Sound does not give the whole picture, and there is nothing wrong with minor labels, and the 50-year copyright limit laws make this legal in a good deal of the world where the record buyers for this kind of music are. No point in debating this ... I can understand those who bemoan that labels such as Lone Hill that seem to rip off other recent releases. I recently checked out the Parker/Gillespie Town Hall concert CD on Uptown and was slightly surprised to see that the material (although a fairly recent issue) already seems to crop up on two other (European?) labels. That said, as a customer (not a record reseller) I'd certainly not go for a Lone Hilll release if a better produced and/or more complete release of the same material is available elsewhere on CD - for the simple reason that in many cases (at least over here in Europe) the price difference between Lone Hill and what some here call more "legit" (whatever that may mean in view of the 50-year copyright laws in Europe that are just that - laws and therefore perfectly LEGAL, like it or not!) isn't that big! Overall I haven't seen too many of the Lone Hill releases yet though I will always be grateful to Fresh Sound and similar repro reissue labels that reissued a HUGE amount of cool 50s jazz LP's back in the VINYL days that NOBODY, but really NOBODY (least of all in the USA where for ages they have been as shortsighted as they come in their reissue policies) ever cared about and that NOBODY would EVER have reissued anywhere else on LP! And I really cannot see that all of this was illegal because at that time (the 80s) the 50-year limit had not been reached AND Fresh Sound usually put their full address on the sleeves, making them easy to track down. Besides, Jordi Pujol isn't exactly an unknown quantity (incuding in political circles). As for the "Japanese" reissue programs, come on now! Jap reissues may be halfway affordable in the States but over here in Europe whenever any reissue says "Japan", the prices go through the roof and you are being ripped off in a big way by almost anybody who resells these! Not really very affordable in the long run ... A final word on royalties in conjunction with the 50-year limit (and this also applies to the reply by David Weiss above): Like it's been said above, in many cases the original artists are long dead, and it is a question of ethics indeed whether their material is to benefit the heirs of their heirs (!) forever, i.e the generation AFTER their children. Besides, many of those 50+ year-old reissues date back even further and were made at a time (especially in the 78 rpm era or in the R&B field) when the artists certainly never received ANY royalties from their work as they had been pressed into signing recordings contracts that netted them a flat fee for a session only. Now do you really think present-day "legit" owners of those labels would now all of a sudden go about crying out loud about the shadiness for their predecessors and go on to track down the heirs of the artists and ruefully pay them royalties that may have been their due for decades? Do you really think that this would be so in each and EVERY case where it might be called for? Or would they just say "A contract is a contract" forever? And since ethics is mentioned so often here, how about the ethical side of buying LEGIT reissues of Count Basie's late 30s Decca material, for example? As you all know Decca's Dave Kapp (or whoever of his underlings did the negotiations) managed to screw him in a big way by getting Basie to sign a contract for recording 24 sides (including MANY of his later classics!) for a flat fee of §750. Even John Hammond managed to get only marginal improvements on this! Is it ethical to make the heirs and successors of Dave Kapp's doings benefit from this? Does anybody really have to feel THAT guilty about buying non-legit releases under THESE cicrumstances? The same goes for the practices of other label owners, too, such as Herman Lubinsky at Savoy or the Bihari at Modern/RPM. Also, I'd really like to see what "legit" U.S. companies have been doing in this respect in the PAST during the entire period when reissues started hitting the market. Starting in the late 70s and all through the 80s, Jonas Bernholm from Sweden reissued a HUGE amount of fantastic R&B on his Route 66 label as well as its subsidiaries (Juke Box Lil, Mr R&B, Saxophonograph, etc.). He made a point of paying the artists royalties and the royalty fees paid to the RECORDING artists (NOT the original labels!) were clearly indicated on each release. From a source close to him at the time I understand he usually went so far as to ADVANCE the royalties for a production run of 2000 LP's to the original artists at the time of release, and it is said that this came as a god-send to many artists featured on these LP's such as Amos Milburn who was severely ill at the time. Again, you U.S. forumists who are so concerned about legit-only releases - my question is: What did U.S. companies do at that time? The Kent label being non-shady? Aw c'mon! In short, the ethics issue of royalties might often backfire if you look closer at what happened when the recordings were made. Just my 2c

I think I have the U.K. Vogue pressing of this 10" LP (will look it up tonight when I get home from work), and it can be found in the discographies. I guess it was a recording from one of the Gene Norman Just Jazz concerts. This has been reissued in the "Jazz Off The Air" LP series on the Spotlite label (was Vol. 2, I think).

Well, the books I mentioned were ENGLISH-Language editions! This is why I did not even mention Bill Wyman's Blues history book that's been on sale there recently (I'd have preferred the English version too but this one isn't that bad as a translation). Obviously I am thinking of "art" books only here because for the most part this is where the JAZZ literature that we might be thinking of here first is usually found (with a few notable exceptions such as Boris Vian's collected writings on jazz that 2001 carried in its German translation a couple of years ago). As for general literature and fiction books, I don't think there is a shortage of sources for finding almost anything at cut prices today in these times of the internet, and 2001 can't have 'em all if they want to retain their special image.

German books only ? NAH! The B.B. King book they currently have on offer is in English - and it's a beaut! And late last year they had the BEBOP volume of the "Third Ear" record guide at a giveaway price. (Yeah I know - the Scott Yanow detractors might well lurk just around the corner but I like it anway - wish I had be able to get that anywhere near that price when I bought my copy 5 or 6 years ago) In 2005 they had William Gottlieb's jazz picture book, and there's LOTS more in English on their book tables, both related to our music and to lots of other subjects!