Big Beat Steve

No doubt, considering his other books such as California Cool and East Coasting that follow relatively clear-cut lines. So it is all the more unfortunate IMO that his Blues cover art book is rather unfocused (except for the disproportionate accent on Prestige blues subsidiaries) and has so many blind spots. As if somebody had thrown together his (no doubt substantial but very personally colored) blues record collection and took pics of the covers and then lined them up at random. The field he set out to cover in the Blues covers book just is too wide NOT to have any structure - or maybe even one along the lines of the Jazzical Moods book - not the same categories, of course, but a set of categories that do telll a story across the wide field of the blues).

I bought it at the time it came out. And honestly, I was a bit underwhelmed. On the one hand, the cover artwork selected is a bit latter-day-ish - very little from before the early 60s (blues LPs may have been comparatively rare then but not THAT rare) - and the selection of the labels and styles of artwork is a bit lopsided too to my tastes. The lack of any "theme" layout fo the contents does not help either. But above all, the selection of the major part of the artists is rather old hat and overly tradtion-minded to those who appreciate the ENTIRE spectrum of "da blooz" . It's as if the authors in most cases had decided "if the artist would not have been invited to The American Folk Blues Festival tour he ain't no bluesman". Not that I would have wanted 60s/70s "white blues" albums in it but there would have been a fair bit of R&B-ish albums and their cover art to feast your eyes on. (Nothing at all from King or Savoy, for example, was included, and as the authors did go into the reissue years there would have been plenty more labels to consider).

Your pic doesn not show up here but it would be a coincidence if it was the same. It's just a compilation reissue on the cheapie Italian Giants of Jazz label mostly made up of recordings featuring Navarro for Blue Note, Savoy, Prestige and Dial (all of which - and more - I already have on vinyl). The kind of compilation you buy cheaply at record sales for "minor uses" such as in-car listening. Great music anyway.

I read that last winter and found it very interesting too. It's all fictional, of course, but there are enough actual facts and characters woven into the plot to make it a story that COULD have happened that way.

Hee heee .. the musician speaks ... I bought the book when it came out (though Scarecrow Press usually frightens you off price-wise) but I found the musical analysis sections really heavy stuff for a non-musician and not easy to digest ... So this is one book where I have skipped quite a bit so far, partly because so far I just never got around to REALLY sit down for lengthier times to take in the recordings with the book in hand, following up all the writings note for note (though OTOH that Fats Navarro CD in my car is one of my favorite musics there, not least of all because of the perfect blend with Tadd Dameron's writing).

Totally forgot about Scott Joplin. I have a few Biograph LPs by him and James Scott with piano rolls transferred to vinyl for reissue. But discounting vinyl reissues of piano rolls, I find I also have this one with recordings dating back to 1900: https://www.discogs.com/de/Various-Ragtime-Cake-Walks-Military-Bands-Ragtime-Orchestras-Coon-Contests-Blues-And-Jazz-Volume-2-1/release/6295213

Not counting the Really The Blues? Vol. 1 CD set by Allen Lowe (too obvious), it's this: An original 78 of this one (Orchestre Tzigane du Volney - sous la direction de Maestro Lensen, Paris, on French HMV GC30728, recorded in 1912):

You are providing a very interesting overview. Let's face it, Mike, seeing how far you are already involved into all the details you'd be the ideal candiate to tackle the compilation of a discography.

Somehow the figures on the cover artwork look familiar from elsewhere ...

Paywall again. Of no use to "furriners" Anyway (and without knowing if the author did include these), I'd nominate Mary Osborne Terry Pollard Jutta Hipp Billie Rogers Kathleen Stobart

Regarding the books you mentioned, how would you rate (by comparison, maybe) the following books as INTRODUCTORY books on the subject of Afro-Cuban music? - Latin Jazz - The Perfect Combination, by Raúl Fernández (Chronicle Books) - Cubano Be Cubano Bop - One hundred years of Jazz in Cuba, by Leanardo Acosta (Smithsonian Books)

Isn't it Candido CamEro (but CHEVY Camaro )? Anyway - happy birthday!

Same here. Mail sent.

The Discogs entry seems to have the answer: Old Town was the distributor for this record, i.e. (probably) for the Barry label. So whoever entered the label credits on Spotify got it all wrong. But your topic title did have me puzzled (like everyone else, I guess): Had I missed some discographical detail? What was Prez doing among Bob Gaddy, Hal Paige and all the bluesmen on Old Town?

Second (third?) the recommendations above. Apart from the Chronological Classics series and the Mosaic the Jimmie Lunceford orchestra recordings, in particular, have not really been reissued in comprehensive form. As I still am primarily a vinyl man I went that way before the CC series was around and carried on later on, snapping up whatever I found to fill the gaps. In addition to older reissues on German Brunswick (The Golden Swing Years Vol. 8) and UK Coral (Jazz Heritage Series No. 5) the later French/U.S. "Jazz Heritage" series LPs as well as the "Big Band Bounce & Boogie" series LPs on (UK) Affinity give a fairly good summary of the Decca sides by the LUnceford band. Of course you end up with a fair share of duplicates. The Vocalion sides of 1939 were on (UK) CBS Realm Jazz 52567, for example. And then there were a couple of "collector's" reissues that semed to be geared specifically to fil the gaps left by the usual (Major) suspects: "Takin' Off with Jimmie" (Tax m-8003) and "1939-1940" (Two Flats Disc TFD 5.001). Ther latter reissue as well as a Chronological Classics CD I picked up to fill more gaps, however, made me realize that you do not really need everything by the Lunceford band unless you are an inveterate completist: The Dan Grissom vocals really are very much an acquired taste and his singing style IMHO has dated badly (some of the Andy Kirk band ballad vocals are a similar case). And the arrangements aren't always much to write home about either, with that rickety-tick rhythm going on behind some of the Grissom vocals, as if to ape the sweeter sweet bands of the day. So if you are fine with the classic swinging instrumentals and the vocals by Trummy Young and Joe Thomas and do not need everything that can save you some purchases and a bit of an ear-ache.

Considering what many of you are hinting at here with your wives I realize (again) how lucky I am with mine. I am having pretty much free rein in my collecting fields - as long as things don't spill over everywhere. Which in fact is the point I have reached some time ago for both records/CDs and old paper (i.e. shelves and boxes more or less full and NOT YET overflowing) so I am restraining myself anyway and have reduced buying new items (though I would not mind adding a batch of MUCH older Downbeats to my "archives", for example). Good luck and congrats to the taker of this offer ...

Not to be confused: The "Jazz Lab" LPs by John Grass were one thing, but the "Jazz Lab" (Vol. 12) cover shown by Jazzcorner comes from what JSngry described as a "mess" (which it was not - just a reissue series by GERMAN MCA from the 70s with nondescript generic covers and a selection of titles that is as good or bad as thousand other reissue programs that happened through the decades). It reissued some 20 LPs from the Decca/Coral/Brunswick catalog of the 50s (including an "odd date out" by Kenny Burrell from the 60s) and served a purpose insofar as it brought back material that in some cases had not been reisseud before by that time (and some of it AFAIK has not been re-reissued since).

Just out of curiosiity: If you like Feldman's percussive approach to the piano, how would you rate/compare it to the percussive approach of Eddie Costa? I may not have listened closely enough yet to whatever Feldman recordings I have but I tend to associate "percussive" and "piano" with Eddie Costa first of all.

Yes ... strange ...before accessing the thread I was unsure between Booker T and Booker Little but did not think of Booker Ervin either.

Snip? You're talking about CROPPING a picture? Is that it?

Bought it minus cover at a fleamarket for a token sum about 20 years ago and I think I never pulled it out again after a first listen. This thread prompts me to remedy that ...

Great and underrated LP, BTW. You tend to overlook it because it appears to be a haphazard compilationn of odds and ends but it does make for interesting listening. (GIven the "vibe" of the music on the LP i can see why TTK went for that music). The LP isn't all that rare once you take note of it. Actually I have a second copy of "Primpin" sitting in my "duplicates for fleamarket" crate (bought without remembering i already had it -. both are Dutch CBS pressings)

I've heard a story like you described from a friend too (a case of allegedly faulty goods with they definitely were not) and your caveats are all appropriate. But - in all fairness it needs to be said that for many, many years the pendulum swung heavily in favor of the SELLERS, with Paypal just shrugging and leaving the buyers to work it all out for themselves, claiming that Paypal was just an intermediary platform for transferring the funds and nothing more. It only changed when buyer caveats vs Paypal became that widespread that Paypal saw their entire business model in danger. And things HAVE swung backwards in other ways too because many sellers now only ship by certified mail, which inflates the shipping costs too. This is understandable (to avoid claims of alleged no-show items) but no doubt this hurts their business too if they are being honest to themselves. The problem in "our" field unfortunately is that grading is such a can of worms that it is very hard to please everyone every time equally at both ends. And let's be honest there too - overall the unscrupulousness about grading did not originate at the buyers' end.

I've been pondering this matter for some time (with some 7,500 LPs and a 4-digit number each for CDs, 45s and 78s some action os overdue - mistake duplicate buys 'n all). However, I'd prefer to keep the setup strictly on my PC and am hesitant about Discogs et al. What I'd need and want is relatively basic, i.e. artist (leader), LP title (or tune titles, see below), and catalog no. (plus another field for the original release,maybe), recording date/period, plus track listings for records originally issued on LP (the titles might all go underneath each other for each record in one column of the table and would not necessarily have to be sortable), plus one or two "wildcard" or "Notes" columns where I can enter equivalent issues/reissues (it has too often happened to me that I have bought an LP and then found out I already had all the tracks on a single or double LP - even in the same order - but with totally different cover artwork, different label and number, different (re)issue country, etc.). One particular aspect is that I have TONS of reissues from the pre-LP era and in these cases would not so much be interested in LP titles but in the artist, song titles, original issues, recording dates and a Notes field to reference the reissue(s) I have the tracks on. So pure listings of LPs (such as the two recent examples above) are of minor use to me and would only be relevant for those recordings that were FIRST issued on LP. Anything else would have to be sorted by artist and tune title, not by artist and LP title. I am not so much interested in being able to check I have this or that compilation reissue LP but in checking if and where I have the individual tracks on any LP or CD. I.e. Count Basie's Roulette LPs would go under their LP title (insofar as what I have are more or less the original couplings) but his Decca, Columbia and RCA recordings would go under the tune title and recording dates. The LP title and cat. no. are of secondary importance for that latter kind of recordings. I must add that I HATE Excel. I have to use it regularly in my job and find it extremely inconvenient (compared to a Word table) if I have to start the table from scratch. I am currently working with a Word file to record and catalog data of roughly comparable complexity in my other hobby. The file consists of tables with 11 columns in all and can of course be sorted by any of these 11 columns. Which is all I can imagine I ever need. It has some 500-600 entries by now and for MY needs is dead easy to handle and sort in all directions. So I wonder about adapting a similar WORD-based setup for my records "database". I know all this sounds "old fashioned" to some around here but any suggestions on how to proceed further on THIS basis?

The bank is the intermediary. You send money from YOUR bank account to the bank account of the recipient.