Big Beat Steve

Are you sure this comparison is in the very best of taste?

These days, Discogs will answer questions like that. Anyway ... I guess the jury still is out trying to find out who among the featured musicians that drawing is supposed to actually show. (Being somewhat interested in drawing myself, I am always puzzled when self-proclaimed "artists" draw persons for such covers and end up with what is totally out of sync with the subject matter and the music ... and I wonder what the actual assignment for the record cover was ... Drawing just ANY group of imaginary musicians seems fairly pointless to me ...) In the case here if I had to take a guess I'd say the tenor saxist looks like Stan Getz, the pianist is slightly reminiscent of George Wallington, and the bassist might be Red Mitchell, but none of these are in the line-up - so ... ? (But maybe in this particular case we ought to be grateful the characters did not end up like Manga figures ... )

That front cover is an unashamed ripoff of Concert Hall Society CHJ-1001 (combining recordings by Erroll Garner and Dodo Marmarosa).

The quote is a bit misleading as it combines text splinters for BOTH "Gramophones" that there were. Here is the FULL text:

Take a peek ...

Re- how to quote in such a case, while I cannot give the answer that would satisfy the most scholarly of scholars, you are far from the first to be confronted with such a problem. Source documents that have survived only as photocopies (maybe dating back to the days when they were called "photostats"), scans etc. with no identifiable printed source are not rare and I do remember having seen them used in books anyway, particulary on niche or poorly documented topics. IMO a valid way of quoting from this article in your case (as a last resort) would be "Arthur Jackson in unidentified UK publication, May 1954".

I have a stack of Jazz Monthlies from the 50s and early 60s, and assuming that they had a monthly publishing policy right from the start they were not around yet in May, 1954. The earliest Issue I have is October, 1955, and that is labeled as Vol. 1, no. 8. So ... Besides, the layout does not match that of those early Jazz Monthly issues. They had a 2 columns per page layout throughout. But I'd be interested in finding out where this came from too - for the rest of the review in the upper left corner. Wynonie Harris? Joe Carroll? Merrill Moore? What record??

Ouch. That pic (that must be relatively recent) in the linked article tells too much ... sadly he must have been in bad health for some time. When i last saw him live in 2012 (he toured Europe regularly) he was about twice as "portly" as in that pic (and had been so for a very, very long time). His shows always were very energetic and he was a living legend from another age. RIP

You've been listening to ALL these pressings? Isn't that a bit of an overdose? And you forgot THIS pressing:

Basically you are right that there may well be other factors. Though not that likely here, of course, as l assume people around here are well versed with the ways of the world - literally both ways - which is why I'd assume most non-U.S. forumists would - unfortunately - be quite aware of the inflation of USPS rates during the past years too. So to avoid any misunderstandings and if ouverseas sales "at cost" were an option at all - particularly with those who would be preprared to pay those rates ANYWAY because they badly want a specific item - I'd guess just indicating upfront what overseas rates would be in the For Sale ads would be enough to allow non-US buyers to decide if they want to go ahead or not. That would be better for both sides than to have to cancel sales if the rates frighten off the potential buyer at the very last moment). BUT - I can tell you I have heard all sorts of things about why it is "US only".- through about 19 years on eBay, for example. About the weirdest line was "Why, to ship overseas I would have to queue up at a different counter at the Post Office! Surely you cannot expect me to do THAT!!! " So literally anything is possible if you happen to stumble across someone like that ... But in all fairness - in my experience in the vast majority of cases sellers were only too glad to ship overseas once they were told before the deal was concluded that yes, the buyer IS aware that overseas rates are higher, and that yes, the buyer is prepared to pay that, of course. And in the case of printed matter (as may be relevant for jazz magazines or books too), many sellers were very pleased to be told about "Global Priority Flat Rate" envelopes (which do not seem to be on the radar of many in the US, and even though prices for these have more or less DOUBLED in the past 10 years too this still can be a worthwhile option).

NO. Certainly not.

Yes. Yes. The first Yes depends on where you look (and want to tread) within the wide range of jazz. Like Georgie Auld he did some not so thrilling commercial things (y'gotta eat y'know, like others held in awe anyway ) but if you are into some gutsy extrovert no-frills honkin' sax and think that even beyond Charlie Ventura this is not the all-exclusive domain of black sax men then he was not such a small dog for a time in the 40s and early 50s. The stuff he did for Modern, for example, bears reexploring (for those so inclined - all the others can and probably will of course look elsewhere to have THEIR tastes satisfied ).

BTW, re- the sixth PHOTOGRAPH page of the "Park Lane and Ryan's" chapter, do you agre that the trumpeter in the two band photographs is Max Kaminsky and not Bobby Hackett?

Which actually would have been a good enough reason to go on record as saying you DO like OP a lot - just to swim against the tide HERE. And then go on record too that there is no point drooling about pianists who were totally out of it on too many occasions and would have needed (offstage) help to get their act together (again) and never ought to have been recorded in those painful situations (unless you are in voyeurist mood).

I don't have the Mosaic box set but I do have the Esther Bubley book and the photographs in that video clip all seem to come from there as far as I was able to compare quickly. But the book (some 150 pages of photographs) is exclusively about the session feat. Bird, Ben Webster, Benny Carter (a.o.) of July 1952 most famously released on the "Jam Session #1" and "Jam Session #2" LPs. This is why - in my first post - I found the pictures a bit "cramped" with all those "other" people hanging around in the pics (particularly the omnipresent J.C. Heard in the background who to the best of my knowledge never was part of an O.P TRIO ) I know it's all a minor point but if pictures of the trio sessions exist then why not use THEM for the clip?

Did you smile as much as I did at that photo of "Pee Wee trying to drink his wallet"?

My (UK) printing is from 1962 but it must be the same book, considering the co-author credits. I pull it out every few years for some distracting reading moments. A great read indeed. Actually it may not be a bad choice for the season's days at this time of the year. Thanks for the reminder ... BTW, this one (below) would be a good (pictorial and textual) companion for your read:

Too much monkey business around here ...

He rather is a different calibre, not a lesser one. Anything else would be an attempt at comparing apples and oranges. Maybe the "Trane" thing just was not totally for him and in his case too it was not the best idea from the start to "jump on the Trane bandwagon to stay with the trend".

It's 1960 to 1963 (reviews). The price you paid is a VERY good one. Besides paying more on average for my own copies of Vol .1 to 5 (all of them more than 10 years ago), I have watched them on eBay every now and then through the years (they didn't come up that often anyway) and most of the time the starting or Buy it Now prices were staggering.

I have the first five (bought some of the first ones from none less than Ron Rambach so you can imagine the prices, even in 2002-03 ), and considering they do seem to create some interest here after all I am sort of surprised that the duplicate of no. 3 (1958 reviews) I have for sale and listed in my jazz "old paper" ad in the ads section here has not had any takers yet. PM if interested.

Of course she did. An entire book was published about it. But that was NOT a trio session (a tentet session, in fact). That's the point I tried to make. So the pics look like stopgaps if the above clip is about the TRIO recordings.

Considering they were referring to TRIO sessions, those recording session photos that they chose look decidedly cramped to me. Could it be that Mosaic relied heavily on Esther Bubley??

You don't like Lee Konitz and/or George Russell?

True, but remember how many (self-professed) "jazz PhDs" there are out there who, in the case of other "name" jazz artists, claim that "No, you CANNOT dislike him (and you are not ENTITLED to dislike him). If you dislike him you haven't understood a thing about jazz, And the shit storm will be on you!". Which of course is total B.S. in about 90% of those cases (I'd say there are far less "mandatory" artists than some might argue - and, BTW, the artists in question usually are dead too ) - at worst one hasn't appreciated a specific style of jazz enough to like that particular artist. But there are plenty of other styles and segments within jazz that can be enjoyed enormously nonetheless. (The same thing can be said about most other styles of music too, BTW)