Big Beat Steve

Amazing ... As I explored the styles of jazz jazz more or less chronologically from when I started buying jazz at the age of 15 in 1975 my cutoff date of my own purchases was just the other way round ... Anything past 1956 would need a LOT of careful scrutinizing and listening in lest I fall into the sinkhole of too far-out post-bebop modern jazz or even free jazz ... (remedied since, of course, but the preponderance of my stylistic preferences has remained ...) I was 16 or 17 when (during a high school class stay during Easter holidays in London) I bought the 3-LP UK Vogue LP set of the "Clifford Brown in Paris" 1953 sessions at a record shop virtually next door to where the Bloomsbury Books Shop run by John Chilton' wife Theresa used to be. I cannot recall what made me spring for Brownie at that time but I did not regret the purchase one bit and have not looked back since with other Brownie purchases. +1

From what I've read about Tal Farlow he must have been a very easy-going and pleasant guy.

When you said you googled the guy and found he had done that album, how did you arrive there? No hook or detail that would get you started in remembering the name?

So you actually have the name (and this is a riddle) or not?

If so, this is the one. https://www.discogs.com/Duane-Tatro-Duane-Tatros-Jazz-For-Moderns/master/767106 The DB review gave it 2 1/2 stars. Nat Hentoff found it "exercises being worked out, sterile, often cold ..." I remember it being more interesting than that (IMO) and - Nat Hentoff or not - found the review to reflect tastes of the times in certain circles that were a "period thing" but not everlasting gospel. But will have to pull it out again to listen.

Jazzbo Collins.

Sunglasses and goatees make you age in record tempo!

Amazing to see how often this photograph has ben recycled. Below: Top - cover of JAZZ HOT, January 1960 (the original issue of that pic), bottom - cover of SOUL BAG special issue with John Lee Hooker discography (published in October 2001) Does the ACE booklet cedit the photographer (Jacques Demêtre)? Hope they pay his estate the royalties due.

Credit goes elsewhere too. This photograph has been reprinted often. The "Black Beauty White Heat" book (first published in 1982) also indicates the two unknowns are Eddie Robinson and Little Benny Harris (p. 319). So credit goes there.

I don't have the full picture to judge this either but I would not be surprised one bit if you were right.

An interesting discussion, but - apart from the fact that it has led FAR away from the question of the validity of the original "best" listing (debatable at any rate), it may not lead to any consensus just because there are SO MANY differnt stylistic islands of jazz that really ARE islands today because the common ground (that may have existed up to the hard bop era) just isn't there anymore with all that is lumped in under the "jazz" tag today. @Rabshakeh: Since you brought it up: What DO "Rare Grooves" as a genre in itself mean to you anyway? I am certainly a bit older than you (and in the opinion of some may have "old fart" jazz tastes ) but when i became aware of the "Rare Grooves" bins in the record shop at the time this category all of a sudden was all over the place I browsed them casually here and there - and you know what ... my basic impression (apart from the fact that some of them indeed were a sort of DJ playlist sampler) was that many were just compilations that included tracks a wee bit off the trodden paths of the too well known. But to those in jazz who took a passably deep interest in the jazz style in question those "grooves" cannot have been all that exceedingly rare either. (Ha, are they part of the "expert level jazz audience", then? ) So those "Rare Grooves" merchants seemed to have lived on the fact the "Rare Grooves" listeners were fairly clueless in what there was in recorded jazz after all. A bit like with Northern Soul, another category that seemed to have been made up form a similar background. DJs from Northern UK club bases making up their playlists of fairly rare stuff. But rare enough for other soul collectors? And a misnomer in that it had nothing to do (except by geographic coincidence of the recordings) with Northern (e.g. Detroit/Motown)-based Soul as opposed to "Southern" (Stax/Memphis, for example?) Soul? All in all, marketing tags - yes, but styles of jazz??

Don't you know that Sonny Stitt had always been accused of just having been a Charlie Parker copycat? (Despite assertions that he had come to his ideas and style on his own and had the basics of his style set before Bird exerted any further influence - something which we will never know for sure one way or another - but REALLY "one way or another" - but the benefit of doubt did not apply to him, it seems) So THAT accusation alone at THAT time would have done him in with many on the scene.

While I did not find that Guitar Genius album really "free", actually my impression upon relistening to it now for the first time in years is "freewheeling" ... I see what you mean about "incoherent", though. But then I cannot judge his overall output because I have a selectin of his 50s and early 60s recordings (including the 1962 date on Mole Jazz) but that's just a smattering and the Guitar Genius CD is "the odd one out" in what I have ...

Just out of curiosity: How would you rate this one (below) overall, then? https://www.discogs.com/de/Ren%C3%A9-Thomas-Guitar-Genius-/release/7848730

I think this was common practice wherever someone attempted to make an even faster buck by widening its sales appeal with a sort of "generic" artist credits than would allow the buyers' imaginations to run wild (and be fooled ). The 1957 Wolfgang Lauth session (that I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread) that ended up on the obscure U.S. Pulse label (though recorded in Germany but never released here) was credited to an imaginary "European Jazz Quartet" (maybe trying to trick Stateside buyers into believing this was "Europe's Answer to the MJQ"? ), though at least the musicians were identified correctly in the liner notes. Not to mention the fanciful credits (or no-credits) on budget labels such as Crown ...

Seeing Joe Zawinul's name mentined in another thread, here is an appetizer of early "modern from Austria" (a country not much mentioned so far): An interesting CD reissue of 1954-57 recordings by the Austrian All Stars featuring Joe Zawinul at his early career when he still had hair (but no beard) and did not wear funny caps yet: Who would have guessed?

@Jsngry: Yes you ARE splitting hairs. I just said I prefer his recordings from his pre-Asian period. To anyone even superficially aware of what he did, hat defines them (at least roughly) in the chronology of his recorded works. Whatever he did later is BESIDE THE POINT. I did NOT dwell on these. So there is nothing to be "factually" or even historically wrong or right about. (In fact it would be historically wrong to claim that e.g. a preference for the works of an artist from period 1 that predated period 2 would by inference state ANYTHING about period 3) And no, there is no overriding truth in how to approach diverse discographies such as his. You are free to have the last word you so desire in (pointless) rounds like this you like to fuel ever so often but again - there is no mandatory way to justify preferences - or to justify them at all. They are just matters of taste, purely and simply.

Ah, JSangrey splitting hairs again ... If you look at his stylistic evolution you will find that, chronologically speaking, there is a period BEFORE the "Asian" recordings (it's up to you if you consider Zen meditation, for example, being sufficiently Asian-influenced to file them under "Asia"), and his earlier output ranks stylistically "before" these "Asian" recordings so that's that. Whatever there is in "post-Asian" is beside the point because it's not what I was thinking of (neither, I would assume, by Peter Friedmann nor Jazzcorner). (As for the 1962 Asia tour (see the recent Lost Tapes release), I haven't heard it yet so won't comment on that.) And at any rate this nitpicking is pointless. Tony Scott had different "periods" so it is only natural that these would appeal quite differently to people because the musical contents were deeply different.

It is an approximation, nothing more. Not a definition of a specific cutoff date carved in rock. Looking at his overall discography, the basic idea should be clear, though.

So I assume that version is THY DEFINITIVE VERSION, right?

For obvious reasons I prefer the pre-Asian recordings by Tony Scott too - but that's a matter of basic approach to his music which may vary a LOT according to each indvidual's tastes in jazz. OTOH, I msut admit there are moments when I find Scott's preference for the higher register of his instrument a bit grating even on these 50s sessions. Re- the last-mentioned recordings, I remember having read a rave review of the "Message from Garcia" LP (mostly for Garcia's guitar palying, of course) recently but cannot track it down right now to quote. I guess I'll give the LP a spin tonight (it's been a long time since last time ... ).

@Rabshakeh: These sessions should be easy enough to track down after all. Here is a 2CD set that combines the three LPs in their original track order (as far as I can check). So you can listen to them piecemeal LP-wise if you prefer. https://www.freshsoundrecords.com/tony-scott-bill-evans-albums/2454-a-day-in-new-york-2-cds.html?search_query=Tony+Scott&results=76 And if you want vinyl after all, the "Modern Art of Jazz" LP on Seeco was reissued on vinyl by Fresh Sound back in the day when they did vinyl (in decent enough sound quality - am just listening to it now). So secondhand copies certainly are around.

A side note: Having read this in several posts from you by now, I suppose you realize that "THEE" means "YOU" and not "THE"? Just sayin' (Yes I found the band name "Thee Milkshakes" inane from the very first time I read it )

And the way we heard it over here it always sounded like "Chuckie's in love". Who woulda thunk this referred to anyone but an imaginary person?

@Rabshakeh, getting back to your other thread about European jazz from 1945-69, how about this one to combine BOTH threads? https://www.discogs.com/de/Tony-Scott-2-And-Horst-Jankowski-Trio-In-Concert/release/6479437 Don't be misled by the cover - the music is from 1957 when Tony Scott looked as much different from his Asian period as his music was different (though IMO, relatively speaking he often was farther out on his 50s recordings than you would have expected). At any rate, it's an interesting combination that works well enough - and this at a festival in a country where they spell jazz "Dzez" (no kidding!) (BTW, see how erratic Discogs sometimes is? There is another CD release of this one listedn on Discogs and there the muisc is described as "Smooth Jazz". Ha! The description under the above entry is more to the point.)