Big Beat Steve

I've tired a long, long time ago of Ferry Cross The Mersey and You'll Never Walk alone but I did like his somewhat more Merseybeat-ish tunes at the time I was exploring 60s Beat music more thoroughly. Music-wise, I always found his aforementioned two most memorable hits to be rather atypical for MerseyBEAT (regardless of the huge local anthems outside Merseybeat they became) and these songs would probably have labeled him as a family or "variety show act" as British biographers have often described the efforts of many 60s Beat groups at the tail end of the Beat era. RIP

I guess it all depends on whether one one ALSO appreciates him as a white exponent of the first generation of the honking sax clique and goes for this kind of extrovert sax playing (I deliberately won't use the term "exhibitionistic" that has been tagged on him - IMO that's a very dated term; considering what has come since he should sound far less "exhibitionistic" by now. For instance, what was the name of that baritone sax-wielding companion of that sax-playing Grace Kelly again who was discussed here some time ago? Compared to him, for example, Charlie Ventura sounds fairly melodic. )

This kind of "first time" Youtube things always reminds me of a clip uploaded there many mons ago by some father who filmed how his teenie girl reacted to a real vinyl LP. Holding it in her hands, turning it in all directions, puzzled look on her face - what, music can come out of THAT??? That one must have been real but somehow it may have set the tone for those who turned these reactions into "product". Unfortunately I've never found it again on Youtube.

Interesting ... I guess I can do without part 1 (when taken in too large doses, that Krupa format is rather formulaic IMO and I must admit I have never been the biggest fan of Krupa clobbering on the bass drum) but side 2 should be rather more interesting (e.g. to keep my reissues of Ventura's 1956 Baton and Tops LPs company which probably are almost as obscure as the King date).

Just cliché-laden ...

So how "LEGIT" is the Collectables label with this Kelly-/Payne release at all, then?

Same here. Too pricey, considering that it is fairly slim too. Thought it would be right up my alley.

Not wanting to get deeper into the Young Lions or Neo-Bop aspect (due to insufficient personal exposure) but as for these "musical developments", that's something I am rather wary of. Are these "deveopments" a one-way street one HAS to walk, or aren't they rather ONE BRANCH of various different developments that you can decide to follow or not (or choose which of these you want to follow)? Personally I still feel (just like with earlier "developments") that this is not a linear, one-way thing but a matter of branching out in an increasing number of different directions that you can explore or not, take up or discard (ignore). As with all other musics, it is a matter of what you like and not a matter of what you MUST go along with (in the - very relative - name of "progress"? - to the exclusion of what developments had their origins in earlier periods?). Some developments are more radical than others but is this to say that only the most radical ones are the legitimate ones and everything else automatically is "moldy fig-ish"? IMO there is a wealth of nuances in between that may be much more satisfactory to many (based - again - on personal musical preferences which is all that this all about anyway).

Can only join in what everyone said. May the new year be much better (before too long, hopefully) and may your favorite music tide everyone over the "dire straits". And above all: Stay healthy and out of the way of the inconsiderate ones out there!

Will be happy to oblige ... I am fairly well-stocked with these, including duets and trios. But on checking now I somehow am not sure which duets exactly you are referring to. Those I can locate in the discographies are dated September/October (Hotel Sherman) but not November. What did I miss or overlook?

Well, if you insist ... So I rechecked: The Al Cohn/Zoot Sims album "You'n'Me" was recorded just before I was born. The Curtis Fuller album "Images" was recorded just after I was born. Some of the tunes for the Johnny Griffin "The Big Soul Band" album were recorded the day before i was born. Lem Winchester's "Another Opus" was recorded on the day I was born. And - sorry to say because this is NOT quite my cup of tea jazz-wise - the MJQ album "With Symphony Orchestra" was recorded on the day I was born and on the day before. And to make matters "worse", it actually was recorded in my hometown. I have the You'n'Me LP but think I now will have to get the Lem Winchester album too.

"Jazz Milestones" by Ken Vail is anyone's friend here. Though of course it only presents a selection of "milestone" dates, artists and recordings. For November, 1939, it lists sessions by Mildred Bailey on 30 Nov., Eddie Condon's Chicagoans on 30 Nov., Duke Ellington duets with Jimmy Blanton on 22 Nov. (!!), Benny Goodman Sextet on 22 and 27 Nov., Harry James on 30 Nov., Andy Kirk on 15 Nov., Gene Krupa on 2 Nov., Muggsy Spanier's Ragtime Band on 10 and 22 Nov., FAts Waller on 3 Nov. and Lee Wiley on 13 and 15 Nov. And no doubt there must have been more going on in the studios that month. June 1939 had Louis Armstrong's orchestra on 15 June, Mildred Bailey on 14 and 27 June, Sidney Bechet Quintet on 8 June, Ella Fitzgerald on 28 June, J.C. Hhigginbotham Quintet on 8 June, Johnny Hodges' spinoff of the Ellington band on 2 June, Pete Johnson & Joe Turner on 30 June, Wingy Manone on 19 June, frankie Newton on 8 June, Fats Waller on 13 and 28 June, and Cootie WIlliams & His Rug Cutters on 22 June. And so on ...

Indeed ... J.A.W. says. As for "Records by Mail aka Discogs", the secondhand record shop my son works at as a side job at his university town is quite active on Discogs. But they MOST DEFINITELY are not a subbranch of RBM (which they would have to be if "Records by Mail aka Discogs" were true by any stretch of the imagination. And this is just ONE tiny example of shops selling on Discogs without having any connections with RBM. What RBM ought to tell, though, is their eBay account (and the data collected via eBay transactions) affected too? Because RBM do not mention Discogs in any way that is different from eBay in their statement. Or the other way round, the thread should really be about RBM only, not Discogs.

Funny discussion ... So ...:

I would have been interested in "To Bird With Love" when it came out (I had heard about it in a jazz radio show) and actually made an attempt to get it. (In these pre-internet days ordering from abroad was a hassle). At that time I still received the occasional jazz book newsletters from the Bloomsbury Book Shop in London (run by John Chilton's wife Theresa Chilton) which i had visited during a school stay in London in 1977. On one of those lists Theresa Chilton scribbled a note "Can supply To Bird With Love. £ 56. Ouch!!" Yes - Ouch indeed. So I had to let it pass. But maybe it would have been a wise investment.

Nice detail about the pricing. FWIW, I have the French pressing of that particular LP: But back to the original question: Was this price info on the spine of those brownish BN "Re-Issue-Series" twofers really present all the time or only during a certain period? My Art Pepper and Horace Silver twofers, for example, have that "0798" mark on the spine but my Fats Navarro pressing (BN LA 607-H2) doesn't have it. All of them are US pressings. Neither does my Gerry Mulligan set (BST 84548 XCT / BN-LA-532-H2) have it, but though it looks US-ish the very small print says it is a German pressing. So no surprise ...

I am afraid you aren't far off the mark. Unless many of those young'uns who increasingly buy vinyl again turn increasingly to jazz. It would be nice but how likely is that? The jazz section of my favorite 2nd hand records shop here is still going strong but unfortunately I couldn't coax the staff into telling details about the average age of the jazz vinyl buyers. Those that I do see when I browse there are rarely from the rather younger set. Very few below, say, 40. Just asked my son who has a side job in a record shop at his university town, and he tells me they every now and then have younger ones in the shop who ask for recommendations for "getting started" in jazz, but they ususally are in their late 20s and up. But still ...

Well, it "ought" to be pronounced the same way, except for the first letter, of course.

To top things off, did you know that that product was spelled and marketed as "PANTEEN" here for a very long time? The marketing people seemed to insist on playing it safe. As if the clients here were THAT unaware of the fact that an English-based word ought to be pronounced passably English-y Not sure of how that product was marketed in France back then where this kind of clashes of linguistic cultures would have posed much bigger problems but still ...

I shudder at the thought of how this will come out when pronounced with that nasal, chewing-gummy drawl common in certain quarters ... ("Flan" in New England, not so much, but others elsewhere ... ) I'll never forget the moment I overheard some very US-ish (Southern?) tourist clamor for a "Whhooouuuaaappwwrrrrr" in a Burger King outlet in Barcelona. Not sure of how the locals would have pronounced that ("Voppere"?? ) but the way he did it was way over the top, particularly abroad in non-Anglosaxon territory.

Your son does know you very well, it seems. Unless you are a fan or collector it takes some special awareness to single out this book. And agreed about the pictures. They do tell stories (though not always exactly the ones some of the interviewees make them out to be ).

Sorry - saw your reply only now. I did not name names because they probably would not have meant much to most of the forumists here. Some of these scribes were the staff at the German jazz magazine JAZZ PODIUM (including Dieter Zimmerle as the editor-inchief). They idolized the MJQ and their likes, including "everything Third Stream" (though I seem to remember the musician who originated the remark about the lack of smiles referred to quite different modern jazz musicians), damned and blasted Lionel Hampton and (though they did acknowledge the core of his work as "sui generis") were disappointed at Louis Armstrong's "commerical" leanings. Remember (though this may be hard to imagine for US jazz fans decades after the fact) that many European jazz publicists and scribes of the 50s (and sometimes later on) were constantly trying to "elevate" jazz to the level of classical music not just as far as its "art" status went but above all in its presentation, audience approach etc., demanding the same kind of "respectability" as a yardstick (and what they wrote often came down to ANOTHER attempt at "making a lady out of jazz"). I appreciate what that mag and its staff (and others with the same leanings) did for jazz over here but IMO this approach in this respect was a dead end and did a disservice to the vitality of jazz.

+1 Merry Christmas and a much better New Year to everyone. And nice to have MG back!

Talking about buses, I think these haven't been shown yet: At the latter one looks like this up front:

Like this ...?