Big Beat Steve

Gheorghe, from what you say I'd bet you have only just scratched the surface with the obvious "usual suspects". Do you have the LP by the Chuz Alfred group (or its Savoy-Denon CD reissue that DID exist so it's not even a "lost" item - but certainly an "under-the-radar" one)? Or Ronnelll Bright? John Mehegan? Eddie Bert? Mort Herbert? Sahib Shihab? Paul Williams? T.J. Fowler? Wild Bill Moore? Sir Charles Thompson? The Four Bars and A Melody group? The Beale Street Gang feat. Milt Buckner? Just a random jotting of a few (major and minor) names from Ruppli's discography ... And I think Hardbopjazz will understand what I am alluding to ...

With the result that it sometimes is easy to trace the origins of a particular obscurity. I remember compilation LP reissues of one R&B 45 from the late 50s that must have been dubbed from some exceedingly scratchy original 45 (for lackof a better copy) that proved impossible to clean up properly. Over time the track appeared on 2 or 3 more compilations - with the same scratches and crackles, so obviously lifted from the same 45 or (more likely) "first reissue". As for what you say about Savoy releases that do not seem to exist anywhere except in the discographies, I will have to check on occasion myself. No doubt they include some R&B items that should sound tempting to me too. I hope, though, that these are not cases like those 20s or early 30s blues 78s of which it was claimed for decades that no copy had ever been found - until one was miraculously discovered in the 90s or 00s after all - decades after the fact.

Are you also drawing a line between unreleased sessions or tracks that are known to have existed but have never ever been released so far (and may well be definitely "lost") and sessions that were relased originally but never reissued? (Which would mean, however, that they haven't even made it to the pre-digital age, strictly speaking). In fact I find that in the "digital age" a lot that has never been reissued on vinyl has finally been made avialable on CD at last - and for the first time again since its original release. But if I look at my Jepsen, Nicolausson or Leadbitter/Slaven discographies it seems to me that a lot has still been bypassed (particularly from the 78 rpm era). But to give an even approximate percentage? Impossible ...

Several Climaxes (both oldtime and modern) but I don't think I have any actual BN 78s. But then I am no diehard BN collector and collecting 78s is a sideline in my music colecting interest too, not a core activity.

When I wrote "setting the author straight" this was not meant in the strictest sense of the word but to describe those cases where upon screening a text for its correctness you start wondering to yourself why you would have to point out this or that rather obvious fact (which in turn leads you to wondering - again to yourself - to what extent the author has truly immersed himself in that particular topic) and then you wonder how you can put this correction across to the author without offending him yet making your point. Not an easy task ... I have had this case recently when I read a magazine feature where a friend (a great expert on the subject matter) had supplied the author with all the info and hard facts to work into an article but clearly the author (a staff author of the magazine but no expert on this particular specialist matter) either had not listened enough or had been unable to really digest the facts to present them correctly in his story. So those who use this feature for reference either stumble across the errors like I did or absorb or reproduce them in good faith. With the not so pleasant result that as soon as one error is repeated often enough by one scribe copying another (here we are talking about a different specialist field but as we all know this has happened among jazz authors too) or enough readers perpetuating the error on other platforms it becomes "set in stone" and even harder to correct later on. Annoying if you know how it came about (and yes, I am glad I did not have to take this up with the author "to set him straight" ). And I guess this is how errors creep into Wikipedia too (and remain there and elsewhere - "set in stone", because after all "I read it on Wikipedia". )

I for one know about the difficulty to spot errors - in the case of a non-fiction book I worked on recently I spotted one obvious, glaring and actually unforgivable error on the part of the author only when I did the FOURTH proofreading of my translation of that particular book. But overall this was not even the tip of the iceberg ... As for authors asking fellow experts for proofreading, I did this (unofficially as a favor to the author) on two books in a field where the author and me were hobbyist experts (one of those relatively rare cases where an expert on the subject actually got to write the book instead of a "name" author), and yet I came up with numerous factual corrections that found their way into the book. But in these cases many of these were a matter of fine-combing the text for the full accuracy of the facts, not a matter of setting the author straight in the first place and having to do basic corrections. I often refer to one of those books (beyond the coverage of the historical contents it is a reference book and therefore heavy on - often minute - facts) and still find that I should have clarified and modified quite a few more details to weed out any remaining ambiguities and omissions that might get less informed readers on the wrong track when they use it for reference. So yes - nobody's perfect and everyone's knowledge in any specialist field evolves ... In general it really seems to me that the sensitivity and willingness to "getting your facts right" has lost much of its mandatory character in the writing trade ... ...either because, like I hinted at above, the double and cross-checking everything that goes with this approach would require the author to consistently ask himself "can I be sure of my facts or do I know that I don't know"" (to put it bluntly), or ... because while you of course cannot cram EVERY fact and piece of information into a book or even magazine feature (because it would end up way too long and fat) and therefore you have to trim down and weed out what you include and what you omit this does NOT mean that just because you cannot include everything the remaining facts by necessity must be incorrect just because they are incomplete (i.e not hyper detailed). A competent author can present even all of the incomplete and thinned-out facts correctly without causing the omissions to give a false slant or interpretation to the retained facts and statements. But this seems to be too lofty an aim with quite a few authors these days ...

Unfortunately just as true (particularly as far as factual accuracy goes) for non-fiction books far outside the realm of music or, more specifically, jazz. I think one of the main problems with this is that many publishers prefer to stick with "name" authors who over time are called in to write on an increasingly wide range of subjects they just are NO real experts on. Which means the names of these authors crop up on an endless array of subtopics within a broader specialist or niche area that these authors in the long run just are unable to constantly cover with the required attention to detail (or willingness to really leave NO stone unturned to get the facts and contexts right - as this willingness of course would require them not just to do exhaustive research of their own but to continually question their OWN "expertise" on the subject during the gestation of the book). And the end results turn out accordingly if you look and read closely ... On the other hand, there are people out there who would be real experts on the respective subjects and could teach many name authors a lesson or two on factual and contextual accuracy and completeness, but they are no professional or "name" authors. So they either do no have the clout and behind-the-scenes networking to get the publishers to farm ouot the job to THEM (an unwillingness to the detriment of the end result) - or their writing style just is awkward and heavy-handed just BECAUSE they are no professional authors. You can know as much about a subject (that is a hobby of yours) as you like but if your everyday job is very, very far removed from working with WORDS your results all too often are bound to be awkward and not all that readable, unfortunately, because writing WELL in all respects and for all purposes of publication DOES take some specialist competence. In some of the latter cases some publishers would be well off if they got some decent proofreading stage into the project (because the core material would be second to none, warts of the "non-pro" authors 'n'all) but it seems this is a dying art (or profession?) too. And of course the same problems plague Wikipedia too where there evidently are many who love to cover a particular subject and know a lot about it but just do not have a way with words and texts to make their stuff truly readable, focused and compehensible. And "peer reviews" do not always help much in that respect either becaue many peers aren't much better.

We're geting astray, but I think I'd be able to add 3 or 4 more like that. That would ALSO make for a separate topic (which probably will turn out rather controversial - as in the case of the books I alluded to ... ) It's always difficult if the author clearly has an agenda - particularly a social or societal one - that he sets out first (or premanently throughout the book) and then very much seems to adjust the facts to support his agenda (or his pet "narrative"). Interesting and informative books anyway but to be taken with a bucketful of salt ... But again - all this would better fit into a separate thread (and I'd only have been tempted to mention these books here if Rabshakeh had asked about books about the SWING era ). So let's NOT dwell on this any further but get back to the purpose of THIS thread.

That would rather be a topic for a separate thread and would lead us off the subject of THIS thread. I mentioned my caveats in this resepct nly because books that rely heavily on musical analysis involving transcriptions of solos and other finer points obviously require more musical background knowledge (and training?) to make full use of the contents than other books on the same subject that use a different approach. And I find this is an important aspect for would-be buyers of the books because readers' preferences and expectations differ widely so they should be aware of details like this beforehand.

"Jazz Masters of the 40s" remains a great book - much better IMO than the "Jazz Masters of the 50s" volume that picks out a dozen great names (well documented elsewhere anyway) to cover the "Masters of the 50s" theme n one swipe and that's that. (A bit of a letdown if you have read the 40s book first.) I find the 40s book to be rather more insightful - not least of all because Ira Gitler does not stop with the #1 exponent on each instrument but also gives due coverage to the "others" who had their own impact and importance too. This provides a much fuller and more nuanced picture. I'd consider individual biographies the next step AFTER publications on the jazz scene of a particular period. "The Music and life of Theodore Fats Navarro" by Petersen and Rehak is well-done, though the biographical part is a bit skimpy. Probably due to lack of source material or accounts by those who knew him (probably the book was written way too late to be able to document more first-hand testimonials). On the other hand the analysis of his recordings leaves no stone unturned. And again, being able to sight read music notations and knowing your musical basics would help, so non-musicians (like me ) will find the reading somewhat rougher going than musicians with the appropriate training. Browsing through the Dexter Gordon biography by Stan Britt now (it's been many years that I read it), it does cover all the ground, including more than a nod to his then-recent "Round Midnight" fame, but his European period seems to have been covered somewhat superficially. What marred the reading for me (and luckily is of no concern to the forumists here) was that the German translation of the book published by Hannibal in Vienna in 1990 (the direct way to obtaining the biography back in the early 90s here) is fairly stiff and often awkward - as if worded by an outsider looking in and not someone fully in tune with jazz and the jazz scene.

I agree with all the recommendations by Ghost of Miles (have them all, enjoy them all). But I would put a LOT more emphasis on "Swing to Bop" by Ira Gitler. This is mandatory reading to give you the REAL feel of the era. It is one you'd want to read several times over and you will find it will immerse you into that era each time and it would be one of my relatively few "desert island reading matter" items among my (many) jazz books. As an "oral history" book IMO it beats "Hear Me Talkin' To Ya" by a LONG mile (but then approaches on how to prepare oral histories for publication may have evolved considerably since "Hear Me" was first published). As for the "Birth of Bebop" book by Scott DeVeaux, I have one major quibble with it: What is in it is good and very interesting, but IMO (and not only IMO as far as I can see) the role of Coleman Hawkins in that field and period is grossly overblown in the book. Nothing against the Hawk (I have about 98% of his small-group recordings from the 40s and like them a lot) but was he really SUCH an overriding seminal figure in the evolution of bebop?? Two others I would suggest: - "Bebop - The Music and its Players", by Thomas Owens. He looks beyond 40s bebop creators into later artists "in a bebop vein" (so to speak) so his is a loose definition of bop. But to get the most out of that book it would pay if you are a (music notation) reader and have some knowledge of the basics of music (chord progressions, etc.). It is not mandatory to enjoy the book but it helps ... - Sometimes a "period" look at the music you are exploring helps for a better and more direct understanding of its impact in the day. If you can find a secondhand copy of "Inside Be-Bop" by Leonard Feather (first published in 1949, later reprints were titled "Inside Jazz") at a good price it would be a fairly good introduction as a primary (and not "historically predigested" secondary) source on the subject, but of course its "period" slant needs to be factored in. I've found a couple of books on the regional scenes very interesting to fill out the WHOLE picture but they all dwell on the periods before and after the 40s too. E.g. Los Angeles: - Central Avenue Sounds - Swingin' on Central Avenue Detroit: - Before Motown Newark: - Swing City - Newark Nightlife

Amazing ... I remember prices differed sometimes significantly for one and the same item (not just in the "Special Offer" bins) in the record shops I visited during my stays in London in 1975, 76 and 77 while I still was in high school. An important aspect for any student's limited buying means, and you fairly quickly found out which record shop was worth visiting again for the prospect of bargains and which one was out of reach ... What surprised me about the price classes of the records I mentioned earlier about the pricing policy at (German) MCA was the strict correlation between the max. number of tracks and the price class they would assign each release to (at least in that reissue segment). Pricing records differently according to marketing aspects (there always have been "specially priced budget" series and full-price series, etc.) is one thing, but that limitation in the number of tracks?? Particularly since the presentation otherwise was the same (the lower-priced ones did not look any more "budget-y" than the mid-price items) and limiting the number of tracks meant incomplete sessions etc. No doubt collectors cared about that even in the 70s.

Like jazzbo said (and like I mentioned in my first post in this thread)... A budget P.D. release (sneered upon by some, I know ...) but a good introductory package. https://www.discogs.com/de/release/13726466-Jimmy-Smith-Jimmy-Smith-Vol3-Seven-Classic-Albums

Merry Christmas and a safe and healthy (and better) New Year to everyone. And if life "out there" should be too confining while the virus is still rampant, then stay covered with your record collection and use the time to explore it again ...

That "price group" pricing policy of the 70s was a thing to itself, I guess. I dimly remember it from student visits to London in 1975, 76 and 77 but most often saw it everywhere in France up to the 90s. However, in my experience this usually only applied to those stores that stuck fairly close to the "recommended retail list prices". Luckily over here the shops usually sold at somewhat lower prices than that. Items recommended at 12.80 DM sold at 9.90 DM, recommended prices of 14,80 DM meant an actual price of 11.90 DM, and hardly anyone sold at the very frequently recommended price of 22 DM (which was more like 16.90 or 17.90 DM in the shops). Those shops that priced LPs at 22 DM apparently did so because they also carried more imports than others - and so the imports at 22 DM did not look all that expensive, and the domestically pressed LPs they managed to sell at 22 DM anyway offset the slimmer margins of their imports. There was one long-established shop here that often carried specialist import items and did practice that pricing policy which of course looked outrageously expensive to us students but it had a clientele of older and probably more affluent buyers who would harldy ever buy their records anywhere else ... Despite its nondescript covers that MCA series filled a gap - to those jazz fans who did not find them too obscure (as you point out). I only was able to afford a scant few as a student when they were new but after I had learnt to appreciate the artists better I picked up many more secondhand in later years (and have all except 2 or 3). They made 50s jazz accessible again that you did not see on the European reissue market for many years afterwards. As for the Savoys, I realize those twofers, in particular, appeared from 1976 or so but I in turn did not really notice them in the shops in wider selections and larger quantities until the early 80s, but on the other hand they remained in print and in the racks for an uncommonly long period through the 80s.

This kind of delayed availability with import items is quite possible. At any rate, that series of Coral/Decca 50s modern jazz must have been off the trodden paths of the usual reissue fare at the time. It cannot have sold in huge quantitites and certainly was subsidized by better sellers (even from within the MCA Coral jazz stable that reissued tons of Louis Armstrong here in the 70s, for example). I wonder why and how it came about at all. I once discussed details of the MCA reissues with the collator of many of those 70s series (who later ran a CD reissue and mail-order shop mostly for pre-1945 European swing and dance bands until his final retirement a couple of years ago). Unfortunately I never thought of asking him about the "Jazz Lab" series. We only talked about various of his swing reissues which also seem to have been subject to in-house programming criteria that you can hardly imagine today. E.g. I asked him why the tracks included were a bit on the skimpy side on one LP or series (resulting in incomplete inclusion of some sessions) but more liberal on another that did not come with any more lavish artwork or presentation. As he explained, the in-house policy was that up to a certain number of tracks per LP (12 or 14 at most but regardless of playing time per track) the final product fell into a different royalty and pricing category (than an LP with 16 or 18 tracks), and this seems to have played a big role in what was put out by the company and which artist(s) were to be marketed in which price category by the shops at all. And exceptions from those rules seemed to be fairly impossible. So there you have LPs where you figure 4 more tracks would very easily have fitted on the LP - but no ... This would have increased the list price of the new item too much (for it to be viable to the company, I guess).

I for one tend to choose to play it for its contents - not because it's Jimmy Smith. The only snag being that its contents are spread over 2 CDs on that multi-CD box set and sandwiched between "Back At The Chicken Shack" and "Bashin'".

This is the "Jazz Lab" series I was referring to: https://www.discogs.com/de/label/635161-Jazz-Lab As Discogs confirms, it was in fact released in the 70s. All of the volumes figured in the 1975/76 edition (current as of July 1975) of the "Bielefelder Jazz Katalog" of jazz records in print at that time (though the catalog never was 100% complete as with each edition there invariably was this or that record company that could not be bothered to supply the publishers with details of the items they carried).

In the 90s I was very pleased to get the "Clicking with Clax" LP as it was right up my alley, and I also picked up the other "Martians" LPs later on (which included at least one LP's worth of previously unreleased music). I wonder ... did I do wrong when I did NOT pick up another copy of "Clicking with Clax" (to pass it on) when it popped up cheaply at a clearout sale at our local #1 used record store not too long ago? Or is it highly common? At any rate I was surprised to see it in there - it was another of those items you wished to have been able to get via a clearout instead of at full price. As for the MCA twofers you mention, yes there were several of these, but these were not the MCA reissues I referred to. Most of those MCA twofers (which in fact ran under the "Leonard Feather" series title) we got in the shops here were U.S. imports (except for the Nat Cole twofer which was a German pressing the others I have are U.S. pressings - and yes, they included one "Jazztime USA" double LP). The "Jazztime USA" twofer actually takes tracks from the original 50s LPs of concert recordings under that title (there were three 12" "Jazztime USA" LPs on US Brunswick and UK Coral, and they were widely distributed - 50s 10" releases on German Coral aren't impossible to find). About three quarters of the contents of the "Jazztime USA" twofer overlapped with the original LPs but some tracks had not appeared on those original LPs, so the twofer was worth having anyway. And in fact the 70s "Jazz Lab" reissue series on German MCA Coral included one Jazztime USA LP too - with the exact contents of the original Vol. 2. Which brings things full circle ...

Reading Gheorghe's and Sidewinder's recollections, I more than ever feel I must have been one of the "odd men out" among jazz listeners and record buyers in central Western Europe in those late 70s. Once I had found my way into bebop, I did snap up whatever I could afford with my limited funds of a budding University student (after a careful tradeoff of what buy offered best value for money) in 50s modern jazz (including West Coast Jazz). WCJ reissues did not really come around here until the 80s, but I picked up Shorty Rogers' "West Coast Jazz" LP in the 70s when it was reisseud by WEA in their (silver-cover) "Thats Jazz" series and gave it lots of spins. This must have been one of my entry cards into WCJ. "Clicking with Clax", however, never seems to have been imported here and did not come to my attention until the 90s in a secondhand bin at Mole Jazz. As for cross-subsidizing of reissues by the majors, there must have been a lot of cases. Bellaphon made huge amounts of jazz on Prestige available, and given their base in lots of fields of popular music I suppose their modern jazz reissue program was subsidized across the board. Milestone twofers also were available by the later 70s. In most cases we got U.S.imports of these and not nearer reprints (in France they were pressed locally with the same contents and cover artwork but different "small print"). I also remember there were reissue programs that made items available that really were off the beaten tracks of the commonplace modern jazz reissues. One example was the "Jazz Lab" series on German MCA that reissued a lot of 50s East-coastish modern jazz from the Decca/Coral stable that in many cases had to wait for another non-Japanese reissue until Fresh Sound came around later on. No doubt this (and also the tons of swing-era jazz that MCA reissued) also was cross-subsidized with the money that MCA made elsewhere. According to jazz record catalogs from that era, a lot of Blue Note and Impulse must also have been in print as locally pressed or imported items. I was mostly into pre-hard bop modern jazz then but even so I really cannot recall having seen and regretfully put them back in the racks often (except for some of these "brown paper bag" Blue Note twofers, some of which I found tempting but could not afford until years later). So it probably also was a case of distribution that was scantier for these labels than for, say, the Prestige reissues on Bellaphon or the "Milestone twofers".

Getting ready for preparing Xmas evening background music and believe it or not - in addition to a few swing and R&B Yuletide compilations and the Cool Yule CD by the Hot Club of San Francisco this year the "Kenton Christmas" album will figure high on the list. IMO it works surprisingly well yet I hope I won't frighten my spouse and son out of the room!

Late to the game but ... I have the album "Plays Fats Waller" on the "Jimmy Smith Seven Classic Albums Vol. 3" 4-CD box set on Real Gone Jazz (yes! ) and this thread has prompted me to pull out the set again for a spin to revive my memory. Certainly atypical and not the most exciting or memorable JS but far from down in the "Music to Brush Your Teeth By" league either. For me it's nice enough as stimulating accompaniment music for my office work (certain kinds of it), like some Shirley Scott albums or others. So like Dub Modal or Danasgoodstuff said - it makes for a change and serves a purpose if you take it for what it is and do not insist on rabble-rousing JS all the way.

Seeing how this thread evolved, I see that beyond "standing" in line, posing, walking and loitering in line is OK too. So here goes ...

Similar to Mike, I have (had) access to several of them through the local library. And I do admit that at the time (in the course of the 90s) I did let the photocopier I had access to run hot so I would not have to return to the library each time. So I got what I need of the Savoy, Verve and Chess discographies (which means e.g. that in the case of the Savoy I skipped most of the Gospel section).

Not to forget that he was active in the session producing and A&R (of sorts) field for a time too. Browsing through period jazz documents, I was amazed at how (relatively) often the name of Cannonball Adderley came up in the context of getting this or that recording session off the ground. So clearly he could connect in more ways than one and was respected on several levels. Are there very many truly greats among the jazz musicians who can claim this kind of accomplishments on BOTH sides of the mike?