Big Beat Steve

Nice to see "Chances Are It Swings" is getting some thumbs up from a noted writer and reviewer. Period reviews were sort of lukewarm. I haven't played it for years either but these recommendations will be reason enough for me to spin it later today. Re- your "notable reasons", BTW, I take it that when you speak of the "short" solos you mean "concise solos to the point", i.e. not necessarily something to complain about? Elsewhere "short" solos on albums from that period have usually been faulted for "lack of space to stretch out" .... And as for the cheesecake cover, of course this was a nice touch (it reminds me of some of those Jonah Jones LP covers on Capitol) but what struck me most when I picked up this album in the 90s was that the model uncannily resembled a girl from our circle of friends - as if it was her in a jump back in time. Otherwise, I am a bit like TTK. I picked this up in the 90s too (though at a bit more than the proverbial $1) but I usually go to other Shorty Rogers albums first (the entire contents of the Short Stops twofer, the "Martians" albums including "Clicking With Clax" and the Richard Rodgers LP). So time to revisit this one now.

I wonder how many "Bixieland" LP covers there were. 😁 Condon LPs are not always that easy to pind down because a lot of his recordings (particularly from the pre-vinyl era as well as live recordings) have been repackaged so often that you have a hard time keeping track of which is which. I have almost never sought out Eddie Condon recordings actively - they rather just "came my way". But some which seem to go under their original (or "period") names througout their reissues that I consider fairly safe bets (in addition to "Bixieland") are: - Jam Sessions at Commodore (and in fact all of his Commodore recordings) - Town Hall Concerts (from the mid-40s, but they are hard to keep a straight overview of) - Ringside at Condon's - Coast-to-Coast Jam Session - Jammin' At Condon's And IMO there are recordings released under the leader names of various Condonites but with the same nucleus (including Condon) in the line-up that are just as worth listening in (e.g. George Brunis, Wild Bill Davison, George Wettling a.o.). But I'm just an "occasional Condon listener" and no completist at all so may well be unaware of all sorts of gems (e.g. many of his pre-Commodore recordings).

I've spun the "Rip Van Winkle" recording by Boyd Raeburn relatively often recently (the "Jewells" CD by Raeburn is currently in the stack of CDs to feed my car player) but I've never heard of (let alone heard) a Vivian Gary recording of that tune either, of course. But THANKS and hats off for your post on the Sarco label. No stone unturned and certainly the definite word on the subject, as usual ... 👍

Yes I KNOW the title is "Heath", of course, but would not have remembered offhand that he had the same heath ...er .. health problems as the two featured artists. So ... given THEIR notoriety, there was something Freudian about this kind of error ...

PJ-18: Picture of Health?? And this on a record featuring Chet Baker and Art Pepper? Wonder what kind of sly underhanded "humor" this is?

A - maybe - final question (for near-completeness sake) about this online resource of Down Beat: Would anyone know of an online source for the 1938 year of Down Beat (ideally in the form of PDF files)? Both the Worldradiohistory site and the archive.org website where these Down Beats (that visibly come from the same microfiche/scanned source) are accessible are missing the entire 1938 volume. So a gap remains between 1937 and 1939.

I just read up on this in the "Jazz in Österreich 1920-1960" book by Klaus Schulz, and the "Jazzland" club does not figure in there, so it must have opened after 1969. This was the second wave of traditional (aka Dixieland, aka oldtime) jazz that sprouted in Germany, too, throughout the 70s and was a sort of "revival of revival jazz". Similar to your "Jazzland", there was "Onkel Pö's Carnegie Hall" in Hamburg (a stronghold of this second Dixieland revival) that existed from 1970 to 1985 and featured decidedly modern or rock jazz-influenced acts at live jazz concerts as well, some of which were released on vinyl (as mentions of this club here by non-European forumists testify. ) Our #1 local jazz club (opening in 1972) of that period had been geared towards traditional jazz as well but did host artists like Dave Brubeck or Bill Evans too through the years. The hotel (where this downstairs club was located) closed a couple of years ago, along with the club. The club reopened recently under a new name but now caters to the "club-hopper"/lounge crowd (with some smooth jazz probably being as jazzy as it will ever become) and no longer has a stage for live music. On the few occasions I went to that club the acts went well beyond dixieland. I cannot recall having heard of any incidents along the "moldy figs vs sour grapes" lines. According to your stylistic preferences you went there or you didn't. And - as in Gheorghe's case - as the average age of the jazz audience overall had increased by the 70s/80s most of them must have mellowed with age, being glad to be able to catch some live jazz. And the "club" setup helped. The dance floor in front of the stage was relatively small, and concerts usually were "seated events" with most of the room filled with tables. And whatever dancing occurred was not so much jiving but usually more like some more or less spirited foxtrot dancing. With things sometimes probably getting a bit too staid. I remember one occasion we went to that club in 1990 with about a dozen of our friends to catch a band led by an expat Brit that billed themselves as a "barrelhouse" traditional jazz band but had a "Louis Prima Revival" side project going that was featured that night (reviving his Las Vegas Capitol-era tunes, but not - to my personal regret - his 30s small-band swing, but spicing the set up with some Louis Jordan tunes as well IIRC). We enjoyed ourselves, gathered in front of the stage, some couples started jiving and at one point three of our girls (in their early to mid-20s) who had brought their maraccas along hopped on stage, shaking their maraccas and moving to the rhythm - thus kicking some life (more in tune with THIS music) into the proceedings. For a moment the band looked baffled, but then carried on and seemed to enjoy all this more and more. Just like the obviously bemused audience at the tables who took their time to figure out what this was all about but in time probably took our maracca girls and the general excitement as part of the show they got for their money that night. After the set I remember overhearing the leader exclaiming to some of the regulars, "I sure have never seen anything like that before!" (Which in earlier decades would have been saying something!) But all this was part of the "revival of revival jazz" starting in the 70s. The stylistic feuds may well have been more intense among the still-teenaged crowds in the 50s. In FRANCE they definitely were. The Traditional Jazz public, in particular, quickly acquired a bad reputation for making their dislikes heard very loudly and clearly, with bulb horns, cowbells and other "instruments" added to augment their booing. And according to period reports it was not uncommon for "partisans" from either faction (though the trad-minded were more aggressive, it seems) making a point of trying to spoil the others' live events. (If Brownie reads this he may have some stories to share ...?)

As for "why Trad Jazz", I think the above thread from 2013 has most answers. I cannot find much to add (and will leave it to English forumists anyway - they will know better). Except that I was about to mention the "Restless Generation" book by Pete Frame for a background description of the evolution of the scene through the 50s but then saw I already had mentioned it in the earlier thread you linked (10 years already - how time flies ...). And as for the question "Why Trad Jazz when they could have had Rock'n'Roll as their teenage music?", it should be remembered that traditional jazz had found its audience quite a while before R'n'R really made an impact in Europe. We tend to think of 1954 as the start of R'n'R but in Europe it rather was 1956/57. Regarding records to recommend, this is a bit hard for me. Revival Jazz (US or European) is a niche part of my jazz interest and not at the core of my jazz preferences. I tend to pick up originals when I come across them at prices where you can just give them a try. I never cared much for the 60s "Stranger On the Shore", "Petite Fleur" or "Midnight in Moscow" kind of Trad Jazz(-cum-Pop?) chart hits but prefer the somewhat earlier European traditional jazz recordings, and some of my interest may come from an attempt to explore this as part of jazz history. I remember several years ago I bought an armload of Trad 45s (mostly Chris Barber, plus some Kenny Ball and Cy Laurie a.o.) at a clearout sale of our #1 local record shop but soon after this had me wondering "What was I thinking?" Though the price was almost impossible to resist and some records are quite good (for what they were intended) and showed the artists had paid their dues (e.g. EPs of "Chris Barber Plays the Music of Clarence and Spencer Williams"). When you go for LPs and unless you focus on reissue compilations, look at the 10-inch LP bins. As you have seen for yourself, revival jazz was a 45 singles and EP medium at the time (like music geared at the teenagers usually was in the 50s) and what LPs there were often were 10-inchers (even after 12-inch LPs had become the norm in jazz). Some LPs I find stand out from the crowd or provide a good sampling of the period productions (among those I am aware of which may be far from comprehensive): - "New Orleans Joys" - Chris Barber's Jazz Band & Skiffle Group (Decca) - "Jazz At The Royal Festival Hall" - Humphrey Lyttelton (Parlophone) - "Jazz Session with Humph" - Humphrey Lyttelton (Parlophone) - "Jazz aus der Eierschale" - Spree City Stompers (Germany) featuring Wild Bill Davison (something of a "seminal" 50s revival jazz record on the German scene) - "Fatty George spielt Dixieland" (Telefunken) (an Austrian who straddled the fence of trad and modern with his band that was at home in both idioms) - "Dixieland Ball" (Brunswick) - a 1956 V.A. LP with some of the major revival bands from Germany and Switzerland - "Dixieland!" - The Two Beat Stompers (Brunswick) - another of the major German traditional jazz bands (feat. Emil Mangelsdorff in the lineup), rec. 1954 to 57 An intriguing item: - "Barber At The London Palladium" (Columbia, Philips, MFP - depending on what pressing you stumble upon) - Chris Barber at a Poll Winners' concert of 1961, featuring Joe Harriott who sat in on some numbers ... And then there was Sidney Bechet. His European recordings - as well as those of his French acolytes (with or without him as the featured soloist) - are a history to itself, enough for a separate post. As are major revival jazz acts from other European countries. The Dutch Swing College Band (DSCB), for example, had numerous LPs out, and you cannot really fault them for their musicianship. They were more than a notch above the typical home-made dixieland-skiffle combos. And if you'd like to sample how revival jazz was popularized elsewhere in Europe while the UK had "Trad" (and are not taking this too seriously 😁), check out Papa Bue's Viking Jazz Band from Denmark when he jazzes up old nursery rhymes or the Old Merry Tale Jazz Band from Germany who had a thing going with jazzing up popular songs from the 20s or folk tunes. As did the Feetwarmers from Germany (including Klaus Doldinger in some of their early lineups) - and the DSCB, too. On another note, some well-established European revival jazz bands of the 50s and early 60s may have done some of their best work acompanying visiting (or resident expat) U.S. jazzmen of the older school (Albert Nicholas, Nelson Williams, Benny Waters, Edmond Hall a.o.). Another wide field.

Correct on all accounts (except that Grappelly never was part of the traditional jazz scene but was a swing man throughout - with some "modernized" leanings later on). Sweden and Italy had their "trad" scenes and bands too, for example. Cannot offer any recollections (am far too young for that, unless you refer to the 70s traditional ("Dixieland") jazz scene in Germany too (which already was an evolution of the early post-war and 50s traditional jazz scene here. More later on when I have more time to expand on it. The European traditional jazz scene of the post-war period seems to be a touchy subject, though. Often dismissed as it certainly had too much of a very basic "home-made" quality to it. But it was accessible and one easy way of getting the young'uns into jazz. As for your impression of the UK "trad jazz" recordings you "inherited", it all depends on what records and artists these exactly were. There WERE artists and band leaders to be reckoned with well beyond the "trad" fad - Humphrey Lyttelton, Alex Welsh, Max Collie, Chris Barber et al. As for the European big bands - yes, they were there in the 50s and early 60s too (long before Doldinger and Herbolzheimer in Germany, for example, lest anyone refer to these right away). But they usually were and are given short shrift for several reasons: U.S. authors sneered at most of them (though many bands certainly were fairly able to hold their own against Ray Anthony - and definitely his Brother Lee Roy, Ralph Flanagan, Ralph Marterie, Billy May and others in that league), European authors and fans appreciated them back in the day (so you would have to look up contemporary publications to read up on them) but later on this audience found they had "outgrown" them (towards modernism, of course) and did not wish to be reminded of their earlier tastes, often dismissing them outright. Beyond the problem of really excellent rhythm sections often being in short supply, of course there was the eternal problem of almost all of the these European big bands being unable to survive on their jazz "book" alone in their everyday business. They had more commercial "books" (which figured prominently in their live appearances and recordings - so you have to fine-comb their recordings for the jazzier "gems" - which there were, though). OTOH, as far as I have read even the outright U.S. jazz big bands had their commercial "books" for their one-nighters and residencies, even Basie, or Lunceford with his "waltz" book, for example. (Usually conveniently forgotten by jazz historians, though) BTW, getting back to the UK "trad" scene, take the time and watch both parts of this 1956 short from start to finish to catch a bit of the appeal and atmosphere of the times. It IS rewarding IMO in a time-capsule sort of way:

Reissues would suit me perfectly fine too but over here they were not all that common on LP (at least not during the periods and in the places I looked at least tentatively for them), unless you happen(ed) to stumble upon a cache of someone unloading their soul jazz LP collection.

Not something I would have picked up, sadly. And 50s-60s Eurojazz platters have been rare as hens' teeth at all times anyway (and then there were certain Asian pillagers who exploded the price levels for good ... ) But let's get back to Shirley Scott now.

Above all a case of availability and demand. If I had had the opportunity of making the rounds of the typical fleamarkets, garage sales, thrift shops and secondhand record stores in some fairly major metropolitan area of the USA (particularly if on either coast) in the, say, 90s and very early 2000s for any (though limited) length of time I probably would have had to rent a 20-foot container for shipping my hauls (across the board, music style-wise) back here. 😁 In short, essentially ZERO comparability overall.

What has held ME back was the relatively outrageous prices of her VINYLS over here. I've had an original European pressing of "Misty" with Eddie Lockjaw Davis for some 35 years, scored a Europan original of "Blue Flames" with Stanley Turrentine about 6-7 years ago, but otherwise .... Never the right items at the right price at the right moment, it seemed ... Then, as a a stopgap solution I took the plunge and bought (along with a couple of other RGJs) the Vol. 2 set on Real Gone Jazz ("Six Classic Albums") cheaply through Amazon a couple of years ago and found Vol. 1 ("Seven Classic Albums") on RGJ just as cheaply at a local secondhand record shop not long ago and have never looked back for some of my late-night listening since. (Yes, some may sneer at those RGJ European PD sets, but they are very useful introductions to an artist and can always go into the car player when really decently-priced vinyls come my way.) Still looking for some of her collaborations with Jaws (beyond the "Cookbooks" 1 and 2) now.

Amazing ... Not just for the guitar and its history itself but for the research that probably only serial number geeks and factory archive archeologists can value for what it is ... (I think I can at least halfways ... I've done things like this at times in automotive history )

I now downloaded a bunch of the smaller zip files too to complete wha ti had already downloaded individually. Thanks Hopkins! 👍 Does anyone know of any similar online source for the METRONOME magazine? archive.org doesn't seem to have anything.

Of course, I understand ... And no big deal back then ... But seeing how often reissues - particularly in more recent times - reverse and alter the "leader" or "name" credits (in a rather superficial attention-grabbing effort) it's often a bit unfair to those who actually were the leaders. And it not only falsifies the history of the mujsic but IMO the full appreciation of the artists as well because it does help to be aware of who played what and at what stage of his careeer and development as a sideman (as opposed to his role as a leader). As for the quote from your buddy : What would he have said about Art Tatum, then, I wonder?

Thanks for bringing this (back) to everyone's attention. The tune (along with the entire session) is more easily available (offline, i.e. outside YT) on Xanadu 124 (Bebop Revisited Vol. 2).

Yes, re- Dameron, all this is known. My entry to Tadd Dameron were his "Mating Call" LP (which to this day I correctly file as a Tadd Dameron and not as a John Coltrane LP - regardless of what reissuers out for a fast "name artist leader credits" buck pretended later on), and soon thereafter the "Miles Davis in Paris 1949" LP on CBS. And eventually, of course, the Dameron recordings featuring Fats Navarro which abound with his catchy phrases that a melodically creative musician should be able to spin on and on. All this is very accessible Bebop. To me, anyway. And these recordings are not the only ones. So I am not sure where Ethan Iverson is coming from. All I was trying to point out, however, was that Tadd Dameron recordings of his own tunes where the paino is THE major featured instrument (to fit the discussion or samples here) did not come that immediately to my mind. Contrary to Dodo Marmarosa. P.S. See the error of your budding jazz lover classmate? You say he claimed Dameron "played with Trane". Not so. If we are talking about "Mating Call", Trane played with HIM. Big difference. And honor to whom honor is due. I wonder anyhow which pressing got your classmate on the wrong track back then. Cannot have been the Prestige/Bellaphon 7745 pressing that was ubiquitous at the time. Nor previous issues/reissues (7070, 7247) in the Prestige catalog.

Actually I was thinking of Tadd Dameron too when I wrote my comment about Dodo Marmarosa but did not take the time to check out which of Dameron's recordings were really prominent piano features. I agree, though, that his compositions are a good entry point.

Very interesting and much more rewarding than the very idea of managing a useful newbie introduction into any new subject within 5 minutes. (Anyone wondering why the age-old U.S idea of "Get to know Europe within 48 hours" did NOT die the merciful death you had figured it had succumbed to decades ago? 😁) But I am wondering about this: "The complete absence of serious be-bop on my list is intentional. Most civilians need some basic exposure to the vibe before going in on Bud Powell or his children." Is this really so? Bebop being that difficult? I am not at all sure if it was my exposure (certainly much more than basic) but there are quite a few 40s piano recordings by Dodo Marmarosa that I found immediately accessible and catchy. OK, so some might say Dodo "isn't one of the all-time greatest of greats, so ..." but still ... the music speaks for itself so IMO to the unknowing any "gateway drug" introduction that catches their ears should do.

Fresh Sound!! Actually what' s listed on YT as an "alternate take" of "Cracklin Bread" isn't one but a reworking of his tune recorded two years later for the Derby label.

Just pulled out my copy ... The are street maps showing the locations of various clubs on p. 37, 53, 69, 141, 197, 215, 236 but none indicate the Bodega. The map on p. 197 covers Cross Street but does not identify the Bodega Club. But on page 51 it says the club was on 15 Cross Street. And pictures of and from the Bodega are on p. 113, for example. Club 43 is listed on p. 37 and (at its final site) on p. 236.

I remember this website was spotlighted in a discussion here in mid-2022. After which I checked it out and finally downloaded a couple of missing 1954-55 issues (of which I have originals of about half of each year). And now I saw this ... Having been caught out with one or two similar online archive sites that all of a sudden went bust I now decided to act wholesale and am now on a downloading binge of the years most important to me. I have to download each issue separately but am progressing nicely ... 8 full years done within an hour and a half ... So thanks for the alert!

The Voldemort of 50s hipsterdom?

Well, maybe, then, I ought to pick a copy up if one comes my way cheaply. As mentioned in another thread a while ago, some years back I decided it was time to round up the Roulette Basie LPs (beyond the Atomic, Chairmen and Plays Hefti LPs I already owned), and within a short time most of them(French Vogue-Roulette reissues from the 80s) came my way at prrices too good to resist in a local shop's special offer bins. And the remaining 3 or 4 were bought via Discogs. That is, all of the instrumental albums (except for the one Strings album) as well as the LH&R, of course, but only part of the Joe Williams feature albums and none of the others as they ranked far down on my priority lists. So maybe a lookout for the Eckstine and possibly the Strings album might not be amiss after all ...