Big Beat Steve

I bought my CD copy several years ago (as a welcome adition to the "swing-era reissues that do not duplicate what I already have" corner although in this case it is first issues, of course) and liked it but haven't listened to it in quite a while - so thanks for the reminder of its existence. Time to pull it out again. I don't think I am qualified enough to comment on Allen Lowe's assessment of the mastering. I trust his judgment but OTOH who knows what fidelity problems the source recordings may have had.

There was this CD reissue: https://www.discogs.com/release/10222725-Various-Hot-Versus-Cool-Cats-Versus-Chicks And an earlier Japanese reissue on vinyl: https://www.discogs.com/release/5759362-Leonard-Feather-Presents-Hot-Versus-Cool-A-Battle-Of-Jazz-Cats-Versus-Chicks-A-Jazz-Battle-Of-The-Se

During my early eBay days in the very early 2000s this series came to my attention and somehow struck my fancy. I found the basic idea of these comparisons intriguing and one by one I scored the 10-inchers of the first three you list as well as the 12" West Coast-East Coast LP on MGM. They are no desert island discs to me but I like them all and find the comparisons not only entertaining but also quite instructive style-wise (but you need to be prepared to look at them without any preconceived notions of dead-serious "high art" that jazz might have to conform to in the minds of some). Period reviews (such as in Down Beat) were a bit lukewarm at times as by the reviewers' expectations and standards some worked better (or worse) than others and I think they found the basic idea too gimmicky (not enough "art" in the basic idea of these records?). Or maybe some of the reviewers had an underhanded axe to grind with Leonard Feather as the producer of these series? As for the cover you show, the picture had its real-life equivalent that the drawing was based on:

Re- the Third Stream records mentioned, I just checked: - George Gruntz, Jazz Goes Baroque (Philips 850876 PY) - George Grutz, Jazz Goes Baroque 2 - The Music of Italy (Philips 843827 PY) And I also now found she "only" had Play Bach No. 1 (Jacques Loussier) but also - The Swingle Singers Going Baroque (Philips B 77225 L) I.e. the primary "go-to" records of the early 60s in that substyle ... Like TTK explained, classical music from the Baroque era done in a jazz-toned vein. But of course a million miles away from jazzed-up classics like the John Kirby Sextet or Hazel Scott had done in earlier periods. Which is why these Baroque Jazz Third Stream recordings made a fairly big splash (at least here in Europe) with those who usually listened only to classical music.

File under "casual/occasional jazz listener". I've told the story of my late Ma before (not too long ago actually). She did listen to jazz in her somewhat earlier days (50s/60s) and did stress this when I got into jazz in the mid-70s but her jazz records consisted of several MJQ discs, two by George Gruntz and two of the inevitable "Play Bach". Now what would you make of THAT and what would THAT prove? Was it that after listening to a few Third Stream discs she decided that she didnt care enough about the rest in the field of jazz to get anything more? Bless her memory but the more I think of it the more I think this likely was the reason. Not feeling comfortable enough with jazz per se to stray too far from substyles of jazz that had ties with classical music. But what got me into discussions back then of course was that she claimed this (ie. Third Stream) was what all worthwhile jazz was all about. And no doubt there are many out there who focus on a very, very narrow segment or style of jazz (or even a single artist?) and claim this is it and this is all and this is the ultimate in jazz wherever, whenever ...

That echoes my impressions from way back and normally this (relative) omnipresence should have made me wary because I usually like to explore my music (any style) to quite some degree off the trodden paths of the usual "name" suspects. It actually did not turn me off him but what I had heard on the radio and bought of him as part of the rhythm section on other leaders' recordings was enough for quite a while. It took me a long time to buy any OP leader date records at all; the first ones were his initial ones on Canadian RCA (as documentary and historical evidence of him as part of the body of recorded jazz of the FORTIES, nothing else, but fine enough for that). Then came that MPS LP mentioned earlier in this thread (an atypical case apart) and later I added several others from his Verve and Pablo days as they came my way at prices where you just cannot go wrong - including his "We Get Requests" which I have come to like as part of late-night listening programming for relaxation. (But this record did get a lujkewarm review too in certain circles so there you are ... ) Your comments on his stage presence and impression point hint at what no doubt was part of his success - not being an unpredictable nut job or an odd man out no doubt helped with the general public at large, particularly in Europe. (Which OTOH would should have guaranteed more sucess to the likes of Teddy Wilson, Hank Jones etc. too, but that's the way it goes ...) And like in your case of Red Garland and Jaki Byard there always were other modern jazz pianists whose recordings I sought out much more actively - Al Haig, George Wallington, Dodo Mamarosa, Hampton Hawes a.o. But some OP is perfectly in order and has its place and cannot give rise to feeling offended. Again - in the end it all boils down to personal tastes - listen to a musician if you like him enough, don't listen if you don't like him. And if the musician you don't like isn't even the leader but only a sideman it is for everyone to decide if this one would be off-putting enough. If so, don't listen (at least not more than once). I've heard more than one session that have been ruined (for me!) by this or that musician in the line-up who marred my listening experience. But I realize the leader was satisfied enough with that musician to use him (regularly even) so it was his choice and the listeners will have to live with it. But trying to wage wars because they find this or that one would be more deserving in the place of the "name" musician is and remains pointless. Somehow this entire debate reminds me of what you read elsewhere when the names of Dave Brubeck or George Shearing come up. "It's (Brubeck or Shearing or OP - check the applicable ) so there's GOT to be something to moan about ..."

Yes they were wrong. But it does have a bearing IMO because the parallels are there. And because just appreciation seems to take its time in some circles. Liking or not liking an artist is always a matter of personal tastes and is perfectly OK - but the fierce hostility that some seem to be so intent on splurting out strikes me as rather odd. As if they had an axe to grind and feel "offended" bcause he reaped fame that they would insist on seeing go elsewhere? But did anyone ever force anyone else at gunpoint to listen to OP? As for "filling space", different strokes and styles - apart from not everyone wanting a Basie-style pianist in his rhythm section and some probably appreciating that OP was not one of those that Lester Young wondered where their "left people" were, it cannot have been that bad, considering all the recordings where OP was part of the rhythm section. And considering the standing of the typical front line men of these sessions, it cannot have been a case of the front line having to rely on the "name" credentials of OP in the rhythm section for their sessions either. So he cannot have gotten in their way that badly. Funny, too, this "filling space" thing - I cannot remember many reviewing complaints of the overbearing drumming of Art Blakey on certain recordings (or Buddy Rich in a different style, for that matter ...) that came close to drowning out the horns. So maybe the musicians' playing styles just ought to be taken the way they were - like it (then listen to it) or not (then skip it). Makes you wonder again why some seem to need OP as an ongoing pet peeve.

FWIW, there is more than one contemporary printed source from the 50s that tried to make much the same point (or should I say complaint?) about Art Tatum. The gist of them: All virtuosity, all too little jazz content.

See, I've never heard a recording under the name of Cecil Taylor that made me say "I gotta get that". So ...? BTW, any lame (pseudo) arguments along the lines of "If you can't hear the difference" are and remain pointless in ANY discussion of extolling the virtues and merits of one artist over another and overriding notions of "mandatory listening" . It ALWAYS is a matter of personal tastes and "different strokes" and there is NO objectivity in this. FWIW, I've not heard a recording under OP's name that made me say "I gotta get that" either - except for ONE single one - his "Travelin' On" LP in the "Exclusively For My Friends" series on MPS (for personal musical reasons beside the point here). Yet I would not blast him the way others seem to thrive on doing (to prove what exactly again - the "merits" of which "more deserving" other pianists?) And while I agree that a lot of his popularity no doubt rested among newbie and part time jazz fans, that is no mean achievement either IMO. Better at any rate as a means of getting at least a portion of those introduced to jazz via OP to go and explore jazz beyond OP. Better than certain others who came along later and went out of their way to chase, clobber and frighten away an awful lot of a potential audience, most of which ended up with only saying "jazz - that's too weird and way too much noise for me". An unfortunately deeply engrained reaction that I am still facing to this day when I just mention in passing that I listen to a huge lot of jazz. They apparently lump my tastes in with noises from styles of jazz I don't embrace either (and have no reason to be sorry for it), whereas they have no clue what there would be in the way of ACCESSIBLE swing, cool, R&B, soul jazz, etc. (even retro swing) for them to groove to - if only other styles of jazz hyped during certain periods in the past decades hadn't made entry into jazz so much more difficult even for those listeners with ears intially open beyond straight rock. Fine for those who prefer their jazz as a small insiders' high-brow circle and sneer at anything and any artist immediately accessible to anyone beyond that insiders' circle. But is it a way to carry on the jazz message?

Not wanting to pick nits but strictly speaking, it's legal by 3 quarters by European PD standards. As for why "3 quarters", the "To My Queen" album was recorded in September 1962, i.e. a couple of months AFTER the non-retroactively applicable 50-year cutoff date of European PD laws (meaning that whatever was in the P.D. after 50 years had passed by the time the new rules came into effect some time in mid-2012 REMAINS in the P.D. forevermore, regardless of the extension of P.D. protection in Europe for what was recorded later). But does anyone really think anybody at Concord would give a hoot about a possible infringement for this sole LP on that third-party re-reissue these days? So in the end it boils down to "Use it or lose it." And as for whether someone outside Europe (and the applicability of Europan PD laws) should be buying these items, well, that's for each and everyone concerned to decide.

I fully sympathize with your approach and find it sensible (regardless of what certain other usual supects may oppose as a matter of principle ... ). I did the same thing some time ago with the set on Lem Winchester - for the same reasons, and have NO qualms. And as far as I can see they're even CDs - not CD-Rs as some other (purportedly more reputable) labels may trick you into or what "people" could do for you. As for the sound quality - I cannot speak for the entire series but I have a couple of others from that series where I already had part of the LPs included, and an aural comparison with the vinyl did not come out bad for that CD set, actually. In short - go ahead and buy if you feel like owning them, if only to tide you over until you find affordable individual items (originals or older reissues or whatever else beyond this compilation you may have been thinking of). And then you can still relegate this set to your car CD player.

Amazon ranking or reader's reviews? (which for most of the 6 in this series seem to rate 4.5 out of 5 stars, whatever that may mean in the end and depending on one's own tastes) I am still on the fence about ordering the first few of them just for the fun of it, but I expect them to be fun for a casual read and for seeing if I will be drawn into the vinyl junkie world from THIS angle for a change ... I've read and enjoyed "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby and "Tiger Rag" by Nicholas Christopher, I've enjoyed the recollections of record hunting in back-alley junk stores in decades gone by as related in "Back Beauty White Heat" and one of the Esquire Jazz Books or in the recollections of blues collectors (what was that again about the only known copy of one Charley Patton - or whoever - record surfacing in a stack of dusty 78s stashed under the bed of some elderly Black tenant in a shack on the wrong side of town? ), etc. So why not add one or two vaguely related books from THIS angle (and smile at the moments of "been there, done that") just to see how the the saying of "I'd kill for that record" might actually happen, even if these works are not likely to add to the canon of world literature?

Your listing brings up funny reminiscences, Mike ... As I mentioned in a much older thread, when I got into jazz (through early exposure to jazz on the radio where regular "Swing Souvenirs" et al. broadcasts immediately hit a chord with me and had me hooked), I explored jazz more or less chronologically, and Swing soon became a focus. But my mother had a couple of jazz records of the "Third Stream" variety that she considered "this is what jazz is all about" (small wonder with that generation where classical music was the beginning and end of about all music worthy of consideration). Most noticeably the MJQ (a couple of the Prestige/Metronome EPs as well as the Fontessa LP on Atlantic) and George Gruntz's early LPs - all of which I initially found exceedingly odd and bewildering by MY jazz yardsticks and certainly not the typical fare that REALLY can get a newbie into "jazz", regardless of whether in its contemporary form (as some of my classmates who were somewhat into jazz rock and/or fusion - which to my disgust THEY considered "the begining and end of all jazz" ) or of the classic and swing variety that had immediately grabbed me. Reading this thread, I've tried to recall what my first jazz record purchases were (at not quite 15 in the spring of 1975) but except that the RCA twofer of the ODJB recordings (now how's that for chronological exploration? ) must have been among the very, very first ones, all the other early purchases I remember are a blur somewhere happening in my first year and included a twofer of Fats Waller piano rolls, Muggsy Spanier's Ragtime Band, King Oliver, NORK, James P. Johnson, and compilations of the Duke Ellington and Artie Shaw bands. Obviously I must have done a lot of reading to learn more (Berendt's "Jazz Book" was one eye and ear-opener) because what I do remember is that within the first 2 years of my jazz record buying my purchases (often dictated by sheer availability and affordability to my student's purse, of course ) ranged from Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, the Blind Lemon Jefferson Milestone twofer, the Kent/United blues/R&B anthologies from the Modern/RPM label up to Clarence Gatemouth Brown's "San Antonio Ballbuster", through Django Reinhardt on Vogue, a Luis Russell twofer on CBS, Count Basie OT band airshots reissued on Musidisc (a label that was a godsend for the limited funds of 70s students ), the Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall Concert, Lionel Hampton's 1945 concert, the Earl Hines "The Father Jumps" Bluebird twofer (still one of my all-time desert island discs), Lester Young's Keynote reissues on Mercury, more 30s Duke Ellington a.o ... During this very early period I one day cautiously took the plunge into modern jazz, starting with Dizzy Gillespie's "In The Beginning" Prestige twofer (again the chronologically logical introductory listening), immediately found it a totally natural continuation of what 40s swing I had been aware of, and the Dexter Gordon Dial sides reissued on Storyville followed not much later, soon to be joined by Clifford Brown's 1953 Paris sessions, two Bird LPs of his Dial masters and airshots, early Sonny Rollins on Prestige, Miles Davis at the 1949 Paris Festival, an LP of Red Norvo on Brunswick and Decca, Lars Gullin's "Danny's Dream", ... As for the MJQ, within a couple of years I warmed up to them sufficiently to buy my own copy of "Fontessa" (as well as "No Sun In Venice" and "Pyramid"), and when I took over my mother's Third Stream LPs several years ago I realized I had done well buying my own copy of Fontessa because the vinyl of her original Atlantic black label DG pressing in fact was not much better than a "cared for but very much enjoyed" VG.

Weeell ... I find his 1956 Coral LP "The Band with Young Ideas" (part of which had previously been released on the 10" "Swingin' On A Coral Reef" LP in 1953) was quite a bit more commercial and dance band-ish than his charts for the Basie band too. I bought this at a time I had gotten into the Roulette Basie recordings, probably expecting more of the Hefti punch with the Basie or Herman bands, but felt a bit underwhelmed. Quite listenable but more conventional than I probably expected. At any rate, in the context of 50s big bands across the board, I didn't find it as full of "young" ideas as the title suggested. He clearly did not go for the "big band JAZZ" audience. So maybe an early sign of commercial and monetarily more rewarding later things? To me it looks like Jepsen was right in not including these two releases in his Neal Hefti entry. (His exclusions were more debatable in other cases but here he had a point IMO) I wonder what others think of "Steve Allen plays Neal Hefti" of 1958. I've read good period reviews of it but never scored a copy of it yet.

Am not familiar with the CD set, but to just to be able to follow the discussion somewhat: Could it be that this duplicates (in part) what was reissued on vinyl by Phontastic on the three volumes of "Count On The Coast" (PHONT 7546, 7555 and 7575, recorded 24 June to 3 July 1958)? Just curious because this is what I have with recordings from the Crescendo Club. Thanx.

A pretty heavy tome to just "pull it out" again. But interesting enough for repeated reading (piecemeal, of course) for anyone wishing to dive into the Swing Era through period writings. George T. Simon was clever enough to add comments and insights from the 70s (well after the fact) to set the occasional record straight. But I still feel it is most interesting to look at past eras like this through contemporary write-ups. Even though for the life of it I cannot quite understand Simon's obsession with certain demands on the musicians such as playing "tastefully" and "in tune". Not that this is all inappropriate but reading this in such a heavily packed way as in this book it at times this made me wonder what kind of bands really were dear to his heart anyway, and I do wonder how he did bring these criteria of his in line with post-1945 styles of jazz, starting with the honkers and bar walkers and some of the more uninhibited bebop acts through the Lionel Hampton concert caravans of the 50s and up to the freer forms of avantgarde (beyond Tristano and Giuffre).

Particularly if you can pick them up dirt cheap second (or third) hand ...

Pablo definitely was in the upper price brackets of jazz LPS over here in the 70s too, and they did look stark and austere in a "prestige" way to me. Maybe a bit like Mosaics came across later on (though of course the Pablos never were THAT upmarket). 70s latter-day recordings of 50s jazz heros were not my cuppa in the 70s and ealry 80s (student funds were limited and main preferences elsewhere) so I did not buy them in any quantities until quite a bit later but their price when new certainly had an effect too.

Interesting indeed and a matter of "one man's meat"... Probably a case of personal preferences and dislikes put into a "one-word-fits-all-pejoratives" package. Like "cute", for example ...

I got into Pablo sort of late but have caught up a little, and in all fairness, Pablos ARE recognizable (and today's Mosaic buyers should not be put off by those black covers with black B/W photographs anyway ). And while they may have been relatively cheap from an artist's angle (I'd not call them cheap but all too matter-of-factish), there were TONS of MUCH worse covers from that era. Particularly many, many from the 70s that were used to repackage reissues of earlier jazz recordings. Out of style, out of tune, out of phase, out of everything. Just apparently botched up to spare the 70s buyer the shock of having to look at covers with artwork that reflected the artwork style of the era that the music was recorded in (and of course often patched on the sleeve to lure the buyer into picking up an item that "looked recent" but repackaged reissues of older tracks). And often graphically cheap to boot ... Besides, at least IMO I cannot really see the JAZZ appeal all in those 70s/early 80s jazz covers that looked like they might just as much have been rock (prog, psych, even country rock, whatever ...) or soul/funk album covers of those years. Not something that would have really turned me on to them at first glimpse for its JAZZ content and certainly something that had to be "overcome" too. Might be OK for fusion sessions - but straight-ahead blowing jazz? And that might even have included some of the CTI covers I have seen here in this thread (not that I had been consciously aware of CTI bakc then ...). Just my 2c ...

I don't know about others, but I have always found the all too sharp distinctions between the OT and NT periods of the Basie band somewhat artificial and would certainly see the RCA period, for example, as a very direct continuation of the Columbia period and do not see a total break between them and the early Verves. Maybe also because I have listened to a lot to airshots and broadcasts, mainly from the 40s, and this makes you more aware of the gradual evolution that was happening. The boppish Basie recordings (including live ones) feat. Wardell Gray, for example, have long been a favorite too. What did initially strike me as "marching to a different drummer" were the Roulette recordings and it took me some time to warm up to them. But I have long since come to appreciate the Basie Roulette oeuvre and in fact listen to them more often than to the pre-Roulette Verve sessions, though for no specific reason that I would be able to pin down. Maybe it's the typical late 50s "bite" of these sessions that gets me at times?

According to what Bruyninckx says about this 31/07/46 session, it looks like Stay On It was first released in the CBS days of Columbia. This is confirmed indirectly by the A-Bl volume of Jepsen's discopgraphy (published not long after 1962) which for obvious reasons does not list this tune at all (yet).

I checked my copies of the Basic V-Discs recording reissues again - and those that are accessible online (Discogs etc.), but arranger credits are nowhere to be found for that 1944 version of Beaver Junction. But how about this?? https://guides.loc.gov/jazz-stock-arrangements/count-basie-published-parts Check the alphabetic listing ... Unless, of course, they mixed up the arranger credits with the 1951 re-recording of the tune.

What I like better still about these promo pressings are the RCA promos that were on 78 but actually on VINYL. Example (while we're at it):

That would have been this pressing, then: https://www.discogs.com/de/release/12784483-Count-Basie-His-Orchestra-Little-Pony-Beaver-Junction